Cristiana Simão Seixas

Building Resilience in Lagoon Social–Ecological Systems: A Local-level Perspective

Building resilience in integrated human and nature systems or social–ecological systems (SES) is key for sustainability. Therefore, developing ways of assessing resilience is of practical as well as theoretical significance. We approached the issue by focusing on the local level and using five lagoon systems from various parts of the world for illustration. We used a framework based on four categories of factors for building resilience: (1) learning to live with change and uncertainty; (2) nurturing diversity for reorganization and renewal; (3) combining different kinds of knowledge; and (4) creating opportunity for self-organization. Under each category, the cases generated a number of items for building resilience, and potential surrogates of resilience, that is, variables through which the persistence of SES emerging through change can be assessed. The following factors were robust across all five lagoon SES cases: learning from crisis, responding to change, nurturing ecological memory, monitoring the environment, and building capacity for self-organization and conflict management.

Gestão compartilhada ecomunitária da pesca no Brasil: avanços e desafios

This work focuses on the opportunities and challenges in the implementation of fisheries co-management arrangements in Brazil. The methodology of this study was based on the analysis and revision of 116 bibliographical references regarding this type of arrangements. The paper shows the key factors that have been influencing the creation and maintenance of fisheries co-management as well as the ones that represent the biggest challenges to the advancement of fisheries co-management in Brazil.

Evolution of a local Brazilian shrimp market

Abstract This paper examines the evolution of a coastal Lagoon ecosystem in Brazil, focusing on how the dynamics between the ecosystem and human systems have influenced the emergence and dynamics of the shrimp market. We focus on the Ibiraquera Lagoon on the southern Brazilian coast, tracing the history of the development of the Lagoons seven bordering communities over the last five decades. We then describe the evolution of the areas shrimp market, describing its players and its demand, supply, and price characteristics. The story that emerges is of a transition from a small barter-based market to a patronage-dominated system to a wider, more complex, price-based system in which the traditional middlemen still exist but serve more as distributors than as patrons. The transitions were facilitated largely through the provision of roads and electricity to the Lagoon communities, which opened the area to tourism and greater business opportunities, and made shrimp storage and transport possible. Interaction between the Lagoon ecosystem and the social and economic systems is clearly an important factor in the dynamics of the shrimp market. Natural and manipulated Lagoon channel openings along with fishing activity influence the amount, size and marketability of the shrimp harvest. Additionally, pollution of the Lagoons waters influences shrimp quality and thus price. New institutional arrangements will be needed to address unwanted developments and to ensure that the shrimp market continues to thrive while the Lagoon on which it depends is sustained.

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.

Produced natures through the lens of biodiversity conservation and tourism: the Ponta Negra Caiçara in the Atlantic Forest Coast of Brazil

Understanding nature as an outcome of organising discourses generated through relative experiences of our surroundings has been the groundwork of a political ecology that deals with the distribution of environmental justice among people with different degrees of power. In this paper, we examine how the environmental legislation and the tourism industry have constructed the term Caiçara as a way to categorise the inhabitants of the Atlantic Forest Coast of Brazil, in ways that meet their goals, but in turn occludes the discourse of the Caiçara themselves. Ethnographic research conducted in Ponta Negra, a small coastal community located at the heart of the Juatinga Ecological Reserve (Paraty, Rio de Janeiro State), as well as a review of key legislation, management plans and tourism materials form the empirical basis of this research. First, we offer a critical examination of the historical origin of the term Caiçara. We then compare contradictory ideas of Caiçara produced by Brazilian environmental legislation and the tourism industry. While the environmental legislation has characterised the Caiçara as fallen angels who are no longer conservation allies, the tourism industry has profited by selling them as ecologically noble savages who still live in harmony with the environment. Our analysis shows how Ponta Negra people have become objects of powerful discourses of nature that hinder the recognition of their collective rights and weaken their position to negotiate for their own desires and aspirations related to their identity and livelihoods.

Confidencialidade e sigilo profissional em estudos sobre caça

No Brasil informacoes sobre atividades ligadas a caca ilegal dificilmente sao levantadas em funcao da falta de um mecanismo legal de confidencialidade e sigilo profissional que assegure ao pesquisador os principios do direito. Sem isso, tal coleta de dados e passivel de ser considerada crime ou cumplicidade criminosa, podendo o pesquisador sofrer as mesmas penalidades legais que os proprios cacadores. Este procedimento e questionavel do ponto de vista filosofico, legal e tecnico. A sustentabilidade biologica da caca, legal ou ilegal, so podera ser avaliada por meio de pesquisas sobre o tema, envolvendo coleta de dados. A fim de mudar tal cenario, e necessario que biologos tenham o direito ao sigilo profissional e a confidencialidade em pesquisas sobre a caca no Brasil. Advogados, medicos e sociologos ja contam com tais precedentes legais em situacoes analogas.In Brazil information about illegal hunting activities is rarely pursued because of a lack of legal mechanisms of confidentiality and professional secrecy that would assure legal rights to the researcher. Without such mechanisms, data collection on illegal hunting can be considered a felony or compliancy where the researcher can suffer the same legal penalties as the illegal hunters themselves. Such procedure is questionable on philosophical, legal and technical grounds. The biological sustainability of hunting - legal or illegal - can only be evaluated by research involving data collection. In order to solve this problem, biologists should have legal rights concerning confidentiality and professional secrecy in research on illegal hunting in Brazil. Lawyers, medical doctors and social scientists already have such legal protection in analogous situations.

Scaling-up Small-Scale Fisheries Governability Through Marine Protected Areas in Southern Brazil

This chapter investigates governing interactions at the Baleia Franca Environmental Protection Area (Santa Catarina state, South Brazil) as an example of new opportunities and challenges to scale-up small-scale fisheries governability through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Previous studies on MPAs in Brazil highlight the innovative aspects of these governing systems such as their well-functioning, active, and progressive management councils. We describe the increasing response of the governing system to fisheries issues that are largely aligned with governance paradigms of collaboration and social learning. Despite all efforts and some notable accomplishments in responsiveness and performance, we point out the challenges related to the mismatch between the governing system and the systems-to-be-governed that hinders fishers’ political agency and limits small-scale fisheries governability at broader territorial levels. We identify and analyse the wicked problems faced by actors engaged in processes of transformation in coastal-marine governance and provide suggestions for improving governability.

Research and Scholarship on Natural Commons in Brazil

This paper investigates the state of research on and training in common-pool natural resource management, or simply natural commons, in Brazil. Open-ended questionnaires were used to interview scholars in order to identify the challenges, gaps and accomplishments around this theme. Additionally a literature review of documents in Portuguese that focus on common-pool natural resources was carried out, particularly those related to biodiversity. We conclude by offering some directions to overcome challenges and advance research, teaching and academic outreach work towards sustainable common-pool resource management as well as to strengthen commons theory.

Collaborative Coastal Management in Brazil: Advancements, Challenges, and Opportunities

In Brazil, during the past 20 years, several dynamic collaborative coastal management (CCM) arrangements have emerged in response to a variety of changing social and ecological conditions. These arrangements have led to an equally large range of outcomes, such as the fishing agreements in the Amazon basin and marine extractive reserves in coastal areas. This chapter describes the evolution of these collaborative management arrangements in coastal Brazil. We begin by introducing the major policies related to environmental management in Brazil, focusing particularly on the evolution of fisheries management and protected areas management. We continue with an overview of (i) key events and issues that have shaped CCM in Brazil; (ii) the achievements for the advancement of CCM over the past years; and (iii) current challenges to the advancement of CCM. We conclude the chapter with our ideas and associated thinking about what lies ahead to promote CCM in Brazil.

Confidentiality and professional secrecy in studies about hunting

No Brasil informacoes sobre atividades ligadas a caca ilegal dificilmente sao levantadas em funcao da falta de um mecanismo legal de confidencialidade e sigilo profissional que assegure ao pesquisador os principios do direito. Sem isso, tal coleta de dados e passivel de ser considerada crime ou cumplicidade criminosa, podendo o pesquisador sofrer as mesmas penalidades legais que os proprios cacadores. Este procedimento e questionavel do ponto de vista filosofico, legal e tecnico. A sustentabilidade biologica da caca, legal ou ilegal, so podera ser avaliada por meio de pesquisas sobre o tema, envolvendo coleta de dados. A fim de mudar tal cenario, e necessario que biologos tenham o direito ao sigilo profissional e a confidencialidade em pesquisas sobre a caca no Brasil. Advogados, medicos e sociologos ja contam com tais precedentes legais em situacoes analogas.In Brazil information about illegal hunting activities is rarely pursued because of a lack of legal mechanisms of confidentiality and professional secrecy that would assure legal rights to the researcher. Without such mechanisms, data collection on illegal hunting can be considered a felony or compliancy where the researcher can suffer the same legal penalties as the illegal hunters themselves. Such procedure is questionable on philosophical, legal and technical grounds. The biological sustainability of hunting - legal or illegal - can only be evaluated by research involving data collection. In order to solve this problem, biologists should have legal rights concerning confidentiality and professional secrecy in research on illegal hunting in Brazil. Lawyers, medical doctors and social scientists already have such legal protection in analogous situations.