Federal Decree establishing the Aquilomba Brazil Program and its Management Committee is published

In brief

On 22 March 2023, Federal Decree No. 11,447/2023[1] was published in the Official Gazette, creating the Aquilomba Brazil Program and its Management Committee. The new decree, which expressly revoked the Brazil Quilombola Program, has the main goal to promote intersectorial measures to guarantee the rights of the quilombola population in Brazil. 

More details 

Decree No. 11,447/2023 established the Aquilomba Brazil Program, as well as its Management Committee. The Program aims mainly at the promotion of intersectorial measures to guarantee the rights of the quilombola population in the country, whilst the Committee aims at monitoring and evaluating the Program’s execution.

The new Program replaced the Brazil Quilombola Program, which had been created in 2007, and is part of the agenda already announced by the new federal government to strengthen traditional communities and populations.

Among the main goals of the Aquilomba Brazil Program, instituted with the main purpose of promoting measures to protect the rights of quilombola populations, some objectives stand out, such as the land regularization of quilombola territories, as well as the promotion of the free, prior and informed consultation.

The Program has established the goal of guaranteeing the land regularization of quilombola territories, especially through the creation, by all the competent bodies involved, of an action plan that develops a national agenda for the territories’ titling.

The new Decree has also foreseen the environmental protection of quilombola territories. It specifies as one of its main guarantees the promotion of the free, prior and informed consultation in environmental licensing procedures that directly impact the quilombola populations’ way of life and well-being.

Moreover, for the first time Palmares Cultural Foundation (FCP) and the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) will have a mandatory seat on the Program’s Management Committee, which was not the case with the former, and now revoked, Brazil Quilombola Program.

The publication of Federal Decree No. 11,447/2023 confirms the tendency to strengthen entities and bodies that focus on traditional and indigenous populations, as is the case of quilombola management (INCRA and FCP). The Decree may lead to an acceleration in the titling processes of quilombola territories by INCRA since there is a delay in the preparation of Technical Identification and Delimitation Reports – RTID and an increase in requests for free, prior and informed consultations in the course of environmental licensing.
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[1] Available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2023/decreto/D11447.htm