Stéphanie Nasuti

The DURAMAZ indicator system: a cross-disciplinary comparative tool for assessing ecological and social changes in the Amazon

During the last 20 years, the Amazon region has been at the same time a place of massive ecological and social change and a laboratory of experiments aimed at promoting sustainable development. Policies and project initiatives involving diverse social groups and environmental contexts have been implemented across the region. They have resulted in mixed outcomes and trade-offs between social and environmental dimensions, making their impact at the local level difficult to assess and their successes difficult to generalize. The objective of the DURAMAZ research project was to provide a better understanding of these impacts. It produced a multi-dimensional indicator system designed to allow a holistic view of sustainable development at local and subregional levels and a comparative perspective across 12 research sites, from an isolated indigenous village to smallholders and agribusiness areas in Mato Grosso. The results of the first observation campaign (2007–2009) show that despite the claim of promoting sustainable development, no project was able to untie the ‘Gordian knot’ of development in the Amazon. Communities continue to face the old dilemma of either enjoying a preserved ecosystem but enduring adverse life conditions, or enjoying better living at the expense of forest cover. Another finding is that the subregional context is very important in shaping the impacts of regional policies. Thus, the same policy will not always have the same effect, depending on in which context it is applied. Finally, we found that cultural factors and a sense of place play a more important role than economic factors when it comes to the way people evaluate their own situation. This research provides the basis for a second phase of the project (2012–2016) in which we will continue to expand our sample and to refine our methodologies with the goal of transforming the initiative into a network of observatories of sustainable development in the Amazon.

From Rainforests to Drylands: Comparing Family Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change in Three Brazilian Biomes

Risk perceptions influence individual and collective adaptive responses to climate hazards. Up to now, the majority of literature addressing climate change perception and adaptation has been location-specific. Such an approach is limited with respect to the construction of a generalized theory around why and how people perceive and act towards climate change risks. This chapter seeks to contribute to overcome this limitation by offering a cross-sectional study of climate change risks perceptions among smallholder farmers settled in three contrasting biomes in Brazil: the Amazon (rainforest); the Caatinga (semi-arid); and the Cerrado (savanna). By articulating regional, local and micro scales of comparison, common traits in the perception of climate variability are identified. It is not intended, at this stage, to validate particular theories of climate change, but rather to contribute to a better understanding of climate change as a trans-regional and socially embedded environmental phenomenon. This study shows that, in spite of existing perceptive barriers, smallholders settled in dramatically different contexts share perceptions about risks linked to the following phenomena: (i) changes in the timing of seasons, (ii) decrease in rainfall levels; (iii) temperature rises. Moreover, there are specific adaptation strategies to climate change, like the timing of seeding, which appear to be addressed independently by smallholders of the three biomes. Public policies intended to support adaptive measures and the increase of food security must take subjective risk perception into account within the cultural and environmental contexts of the actors involved.

Assessing the impacts of sustainable development projects in the Amazon: the DURAMAZ experiment

Since 1992, a boom of “sustainable development projects” has been registered in the Brazilian Amazon, turning it into a kind of open-air laboratory for sustainability. But their real impacts remain unclear, especially because of inadequate evaluation tools. A new device is therefore needed to unveil the inner mechanisms of development aid despite the difficulties linked with the diversity of contexts or the heterogeneity in the relevant parameters. Those are the challenges we met when we engaged in comparing the impacts of sustainable development programs in 13 sites throughout the Brazilian Amazon in order to identify determining factors of sustainability. To achieve our objective, we conceived an indicator system based on the results of intensive fieldwork, including social, economic, environmental, and biographical issues. Our results show that the most prominent problem of sustainability—evaluation of effectiveness—has not been tackled; life conditions and environmental preservation continue to appear antagonistic. At the same time, variability appears among outwardly coherent social groups, showing that a case-to-case approach is definitely indispensable and confirming the need to go “beyond panaceas” to find resolutions. This article successively addresses three points. First, we present the starting point of our research, or how the Amazon region was turned into a laboratory for sustainability and how our research project aimed at analyzing the consequences of this trend. Second, we discuss how available indicator systems fail to respond to the need for a multidimensional evaluation at the local level and, therefore, how we constituted our own analytical tool. Third, we focus on some results that can be derived from our system, especially in terms of identifying key factors needed to achieve sustainability in the Amazon.

Local rainfall trends and their perceptions by Amazonian communities

Climate change in the Amazon region is the subject of many studies not only due to its stance as an emblematic ecosystem but also as a region where changes have been dramatic for over 30 years, mainly due to deforestation. We investigate how people settled in the Amazon perceive environmental changes by comparing these perceptions with satellite rainfall data for 12 sites representing the community diversity in the region. Perceptions are varied and agreement with physical, measured data is not always good. However, the arc of deforestation, where the downward trend of rainfall is more strongly observed, also appears as the region where the populations have the highest perception of rainfall change.

Globalization in the Brazilian Amazon Region: Conflicting Answers from “Quilombo” Communities

Globalization is a process that encompasses the accelerated and simultaneous circulation of ideas, goods, and human beings (Appadurai, 1996). In an Amazonian context, this chapter aims at analyzing the impacts of particular land status ownership on the resilience and flexibility of traditional communities facing globalization (Kramer et al, 2009). The Amazon has been part of the global market since the 16th century: from the drogas do Sertao, through the rubber boom, to Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) and acai (Euterpe oleracea), the global demand for Amazonian products has played a crucial role in the phases of human population of this rich basin (Bunker, 1985). Mark Harris (2006), following Moran and Parker, characterizes the “cabocla” populations by their ecological adaptations as well as their economic versatility. During the 1990s and 2000s, a great number of “traditional” and/or indigenous communities were granted land rights in Brazil. Innovative legal statuses were created, either for the sake of environmental protection or as a function of the peculiar special social status of some social groups, mainly indigenous people and remnants of escaped slave communities (i.e. remnant quilombola communities). At the core of these rights is the recognition of a “special relationship” between these traditional communities and their territories. Due to the acknowledgement of this particular link, almost 30% of the Legal Amazon is officially under the responsibility of traditional communities.1 However, traditional communities are now facing contradictory pressures induced by Brazilian public policies and globalization. On the one hand, they were granted land under

La construction de territoires multisitués en Amazonie. Le cas des Quilombolas du Trombetas (Pará, Brésil)

Nous explorons les logiques des territoires multisitues de communautes quilombolas (descendants d’esclaves marrons) d’Amazonie. Leurs systemes de mobilites articulent des espaces discontinus, a la fois ruraux et urbains, grâce a la dispersion des residences familiales et a la complementarite entre profils de mobilite. Un ensemble de regles collectives d’appartenance et d’acces aux ressources assure la continuite entre ces espaces et donne sens a la notion de territoire multisitue. Nous discutons ensuite les defis associes a la reconfiguration recente de ces territoires, compte tenu de l’evolution des systemes de production et des injonctions liees a la gestion environnementale.