A Gift to the Future: LADM Modeling as a Basis for Integrating the Indigenous Theme into the Land Management System in Brazil

Resumo

Environmental challenges have compelled States to seek innovative and effective solutions. At the same time, the effectiveness of ancestral knowledge has been scientifically demonstrated and is evidenced by the preservation of lands occupied by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. In this context, this article aims to present a conceptual model for managing Brazilian Indigenous issues through the National System of Territorial Information Management (Sinter), aligned with the international Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) and the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM). To this end, a structured framework is proposed that encompasses Indigenous issues in their territorial, legal, administrative–financial–budgetary, socioeconomic, and temporal dimensions. The proposal seeks both to incorporate Indigenous cosmology into land management systems and to integrate territorial data with the Indigenous Individual Registry, based on knowledge obtained through fieldwork in Indigenous lands and in technical–institutional contexts. The Object Modeling Technique for Geographic Applications (OMT-G), an extension of object-oriented modeling, was employed for the proposed integration with LADM classes and attributes. It is expected that the model will contribute to strengthening the guarantee of fundamental rights for Indigenous peoples and to disseminating the understanding that ancestral cosmovision broadens the socio-environmental perspective in land regulation. The article concludes that the LADM model needs to evolve to consider relationships with land in which it constitutes an inseparable part of the inhabitants’ identity, and to reforest the technical-scientific thinking that underpins the epistemological foundations of territorial management systems.