At least one of the authors of the work submitted must be a member of groups such as indigenous peoples, riverine communities, quilombolas, extractivists, or caiçaras

December 4, 2025

The 8th edition of the MapBiomas Award is now open for entries and features a new special category: Traditional Peoples and Communities. This category seeks to recognize and value the use of MapBiomas data by indigenous peoples and traditional communities, such as quilombolas, caiçaras, extractivists, geraizeiros, riverine communities, and gypsies. 

Particular value will be placed on projects and initiatives directly aimed at these communities or at defending, conserving, and valuing the ways of life of these groups and their territories.

Entries must use or cite data from any country, initiative, or theme covered by MapBioma

The main reason for creating this new category is to highlight communities that are normally underrepresented in science, explains Artur Lupinetti, one of the award organizers. 

“Several public notices for admission to postgraduate programs and research scholarships already have quotas for PPI (Black, Brown, and Indigenous people), and we concluded that MapBiomas also needed to promote diversity actions to cover these communities. Given the socio-environmental context, we chose to start with indigenous and traditional peoples – quilombolas, caiçaras, and riverine communities,” he says. 

Therefore, one of the specific requirements for this category is that at least one of the authors of the submitted work must be from traditional peoples or communities. 

The award is open to students, researchers, teachers, consultants, NGOs, professionals from private companies, and public managers. Studies, articles, monographs, dissertations, theses, and reports by individuals or legal entities, either individually or in co-authorship, including from countries other than Brazil, are eligible to compete. The project does not need to be academic, but it must explain how MapBiomas data was used and the impacts achieved. O projeto não precisa ser acadêmico, mas deve explicar como os dados do MapBiomas foram usados e os impactos alcançados. 

Awards and visibility

The winner of the Traditional Peoples and Communities category will receive R$ 10,000, an annual subscription to Ciência Hoje Digital magazine, and a scholarship to take a course on geoprocessing satellite images using Google Earth Engine, promoted by Solved, in addition to the production of a short video (up to 2 minutes) about the work.

Lupinetti points out that one of the main benefits of the award is the visibility it brings to a project. “The evaluation of the submitted project, carried out by a special committee, undergoes a rigorous scientific process that gives credibility to the award and, therefore, visibility to the winning initiative,” he explains. 

Registration opened on October 2, 2025, and closes on March 22, 2026. 

To register, you must complete an online form. Before doing so, it is important to read the full announcement, which provides more information about the requirements and conditions for registration. The information is available here here. 

What is the MapBiomas Award?

The MapBiomas Award was created to recognize initiatives that use MapBiomas data to promote conservation, sustainable management, and climate change mitigation 

In addition to the special category Traditional Peoples and Communities, the award has seven other categories: General, Youth, Public Policy, Business, Combating Deforestation, Schools, and Climate Emergencies.

Learn more about the Award here.