Célia Futemma

Fisheries and the Evolution of Resource Management on the Lower Amazon Floodplain

Traditionally, the ribeirinhoeconomy has been based on strategies of multiple resource use including agriculture, fishing, and small-scale stock raising. In the last two decades though, ribeirinhostrategies of resource management have undergone major changes due to the decline of jute production (the principal cash crop), and the intensification of the commercial fisheries. As a result of these trends, there has been a shift of ribeirinholabor from agriculture to commercial fishing. Today, the diversity which once characterized ribeirinhosubsistence strategies is disappearing, and fishing has become the primary economic activity for the great majority of varzeafamilies. As pressure on varzeafisheries has increased, ribeirinhocommunities have attempted to assert control over local varzealakes and exclude fishermen from outside the community. In a number of cases, ribeirinhocommunities have closed lakes to outsiders and established informal lake reserves under local community management. These lake reserves are a promising strategy for managing lake fisheries on a sustainable basis.

Small farmers and deforestation in Amazonia

This chapter discusses the relationship between small farmers land use and deforestation, with particular attention paid to the past 30 years of Amazonian colonization in Brazil and Ecuador. Our analysis calls attention to common features uniting different social groups as small farmers (e.g., social identity, access to land and resources, technology, market and credit), as well as the variability between small farmers in terms of time in the region (from native populations to recent colonists), contribution to regional deforestation, types of land use systems. At a regional level, small farmers contribute to the majority of deforestation events, but ate responsible for only a fraction of the total deforested area in Amazonia. We discuss three misconceptions that have been used to define small farmers and their contribution to the regional economy, development, and deforestation: (1) small farmers have backward land use systems associated with low productivity and extensive deforestation and subsistence production, (2) small farmers contribute to Amazonian deforestation as much as large farmers, and (3) small farmers, particularly colonist farmers, follow an inexorable path of deforestation unless curbed by government action. We conclude the chapter discussing their growing regional importance and the need for more inclusive public concerning infrastructure and services and valorization of resources produced in rural areas of Amazonia.

Gestão compartilhada do uso de recursos pesqueiros no Brasil: elementos para um programa nacional

This paper is an output of a workshop carried out in 2006, in Tamandare, PE, aiming to discuss elements for the construction of a national program of fisheries co-management in Brazil. This program should be constituted by many participatory action-research projects with the potential to contribute for the incorporation of the co-management concept in public policies. The workshop involved 30 researchers who identified: (i) opportunities/driving factors and (ii) limitations/problems faced for fisheries co-management in Brazil, and (iii) research lines and actions needed to subsidize the construction of such program.

The Afro-Brazilian Collective Land: Analyzing Institutional Changes in the Past Two Hundred Years

Afro-Brazilian communities (quilombos) hold rights to a collective territory where they live and that supports their livelihoods. Historically, Afro-Brazilian smallholders have been subjected to contradictory programs and policies that either restrain traditional practices such as shifting cultivation or aim at empowering these communities. This is the first attempt to adopt the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) theoretical framework to study the historical transformation of the institutional structure in Afro-Brazilian territories of the Ribeira Valley, São Paulo, Brazil. Our results reveal a history of long-term, continuous relationships between locals and external groups, sometimes combative and at other times cooperative, reflecting tensions and contradictions. As a result, quilombo communities have gradually emerged as leaders in an institutional arrangement that is moving toward co-governance or partnerships. We believe that if these communities achieve full economic and political autonomy, they might be able to self-govern their territories and reconcile the dual goals of local development and environmental conservation.

The Use of and Access to Forest Resources: The Caboclos of the Lower Amazon and Their Socio-Cultural Attributes

This chapter discusses the issue of natural resource use by riverine populations, presenting what the author has designated as an institutional analysis of the access to and use of forest resources by a section of Patos riverine community, in the Lower Amazon. Futemma pays special attention to the key role that the social networks, above all those woven around kinship and neighbourhood, play as they propitiate the access of local residents to the varzea and dry land resources. Another central aspect in the analysis carried out by the author is the flexible role played by formal land property (not shared by all of the community’s households), in the sense of rendering viable access of all – depending on social relations – to the resources that are vital for the material survival of Patos residents. The author concludes that, over the state’s formal rules (which has promoted and designed the agrarian land reform implanted in the area), a system of local rules and informal access to forest resources is superimposed, which tries to accommodate the social diversity and landscape, minimising inequalities among the small rural Patos producers.

Small-Scale Farmers and the Challenges of Environmental Conservation and Rural Development: Case Studies from the State of São Paulo and the Amazon Region

In the past 10 years, small-scale farmers have been the target of both environmental and rural development concerns at national, state, and municipal levels in Brazil. At the federal level, public policies aim at enhancing family-based farming systems (agricultura familiar) through increasing their participation in the market and guaranteeing their food security. Simultaneously, environmental policies restrict small-scale farmers from using 100% of their property, since they have to conserve a minimum of forest area—forest reserve—as well as a gallery forest. Some government officials and scholars argue that small-scale farmers are not able to follow such environmental rules and should be forgiven, because of the small size of their properties, which limit their choices in production. The question is, Considering government programs for rural development and environmental conservation, are small-scale farmers who live inside or surrounding protected areas able to increase their participation in the market, produce for their livelihoods, and meet environmental conservation rules? To address this question, decisions and activities of small-scale farmers in the state of Sao Paulo and the Amazon region will be analyzed.

The Várzea: Old Challenges and New Demands for Integrated Research in the Coming Decade

This concluding chapter highlights the ways the past decade of research on varzea natural and social systems has informed and may inform management and policy decisions related to varzea society and environment. This chapter summarizes and responds to the main points in preceding chapters, examining the socioecological complexities of the varzea, production and conservation goals and strategies, and the evolution of institutional arrangements related to resource management and social welfare of the varzea people. Anticipating the decade ahead, this chapter suggests focused research on the question of what are the current and predicted future drivers of change on the varzea, and what is the suite of predicted outcomes. Adapting to climate change, accessing emerging markets for ecosystem goods and services, and strengthening institutions are some issues that should be explored to help policymakers and residents alike prepare for the decade ahead. The chapter recommends an exploration of a paradigm shift from centralized management, which has traditionally predominated in governmental institutions, to more coordinated policies.