Deforestation impacts more than forests and wildlife: it is a multifaceted problem that has human rights impacts and dispossesses Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities, and family farmers (PCTAFs) of the lands they inhabit and use.
These territories cover around a quarter of Brazil’s land area and are critical for biodiversity, freshwater resources, and global carbon storage. However, PCTAFs in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes often do not possess formal land titles and even local communities with demarcated lands have in many cases been affected by the expanding agribusiness. Furthermore, there are other human rights impacts, such as modern slavery, child labour or labour rights violations, that have been associated with agricultural supply chains in Brazil.
While Brazil has well-established public databases for assessing biophysical impacts, important data about human rights impacts such as land conflicts, local communities’ decreasing access to water, and the health impacts provoked by pesticide use or workers’ rights violations in Brazil are still limited, patchy, fragmented and often not geo-refenced.
The lack of specific, updated and accessible data about human rights impacts makes it difficult to assess and monitor them properly. Such knowledge and data gaps have contributed to a neglect of the rights, needs and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities and family farmers.
As companies and importing regions such as the EU prepare to implement regulations that require proof of legality and sustainability for key forest risk commodities, easily accessible information on social legality and sustainability is essential. This is where the Platform, launched today, comes into play.
A group of Brazilian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), supported by Fern, initiated a project in 2023 to develop a pilot Platform that aims to integrate different data about human rights impacts and related conflicts. This initial process culminated in February 2025 with the launch of a first prototype: an interactive ‘Social Platform’ providing georeferenced data on rural and land conflicts.
A network of Brazilian CSOs, coordinated by Instituto Sociedade População Natureza (ISPN), is now working intensively to expand and refine the Platform with the aim of creating a publicly accessible, open-access tool that responds to the priorities and data needs of CSOs and rightsholders in Brazil.
This report provides an overview of the process behind the establishment of this Platform, showcases the pilot study that was developed, and presents lessons learned, which might also be relevant for similar initiatives to be developed in other countries.
The overarching aim is to:
- explore different uses of data on social and human rights impacts;
- discuss existing data and identify gaps, with a focus on Brazil;
- describe the pilot Platform conducted in Brazil; and
- identify broader lessons for the creation of similar platforms in other countries
