We begin this editorial by bringing a brief report about the 7th ANPPAS National Meeting ( National Association of Graduate Courses and Reserach in Environment and Society), highlighting the thematic diversity and the growing scope of the debate on present topics that dialogue with Brazilian, Latin-American, and international reality. There were 465 attendees, being 54 undergraduates, 223 graduates, and 138 professors and professionals, apart from the 40 speakers in various round tables and panels.
The opening conference, by professor Dr. José Augusto Pádua, entitled O Dilema do Berço Esplêndido: o Brasil na História do Antropoceno" ("The Dilemma of Splendid Craddle: Brazil in the History of Anthropocene), approached the intense acceleration of natural resources consumption and the worldwide impacts of demographic transitions in the last 60 years. According to prof. Pádua, Brazil's tendency as provider of natural resources as commodities is strongly detrimental on them. However, he also highlighted the potential importance of the country as a leader in sustainable alternatives of natural resources appropriation.
The various round tables, composed by both national and international experts, touched many topics currently on the spotlight, such as "Corporative Social-Environmental Responsibility", "Ecological Goods and Services", "Biodiversity Access Law", "Climate Change and Food Security", "Environmental Management Policy in Indigenous Land", and "Bioenergy in Low-carbon Economy".
Eight panels were organized, with comprehensive theme subjects proposed by specialized professors and/or researchers, in which the presentations were offered by specialists. On the one hand, matters associated with governance and public policy were addressed, such as the interrelationships between public policies and climate change agenda in Latin America; new governance arrangements aiming deforestation reductions: giving the agricultural sector a proactive part; global environmental changes: environmental policies (with an emphasis on climate policy) in Brazil and China; and Global Water Partnership and its vision of water security on a global, continental, and national scale. On the other hand, theoretical panels took place that focused on four topics: Georgescu-Roegen; ecological macroeconomics and degrowth; gender and governance; and environment, politics, and development: Brazil among tradition, modernity, and environmental conflicts.
The 7th meeting had 18 Theme Groups with submissions and presentations of full articles, plus the "Young Researchers" TG which accepted abstracts and allowed presentations in poster form. A total of 438 articles and 71 abstracts was submitted, with 309 articles and 61 posters accepted. The refusal rate was 27%.
The 2015 ANPPAS award for best thesis and dissertation went to:
1. Honorable Mention - MSc Dissertation
Paulo Roberto Cunha. "O Código Florestal e os Processos de Formulação do Mecanismo de Compensação de Reserva Legal (1996-2012): Ambiente Político e Política Ambiental". Post-Graduate Program in Environmental Science, University of São Paulo. Advisor: Neli Aparecida de Mello-Théry
2. Best MSc Dissertation
Laila Thomaz Sandroni. "Conservação da Biodiversidade nas Ciências Sociais Brasileiras: Um Campo em Construção". Post-Graduate Program of Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture, and Society, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Advisor: Maria José Teixeira Carneiro
3. Honorable Mention - PhD Thesis
Satya Bottin Loeb Caldenhof. "Mudanças Sociais, Conflitos e Instituições na Amazônia: Os Casos do Parque Nacional do Jaú e da Reserva Extrativista do Rio Unini". Environmental Studies and Research Nucleus, Campinas State University. Advisor: Lúcia da Costa Ferreira
4. Best PhD Thesis
Luis Otávio do Canto Lopes. "Conflito Socioambiental e (Re)Organização Territorial: Mineradora Alcoa e Comunidades Ribeirinhas do Projeto Agroextrativista Juruti Velho, Município de Juruti-Pará-Amazônia-Brasil". Post-Graduate Program in Rural Development, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Advisor: Jalcione Almeida
We wish to congratulate those awarded, for they show the results of their MSc's and PhD's in ANPPAS-linked programs; we also wish to thank our financing partners (CAPES, CNPq, and IRD), essential for the feasibility of the 7th meeting.
This volume was organized by professors Joaquim Shiraishi Neto and Dimas Floriani. Their idea of a volume dedicated to the topic "Environment, Rights, and Conflicts" was well received by the editors of Ambiente & Sociedade; the volume gathers articles that tackle this issue all over Brazil.
Authors Larissa Mellinger and Dimas Floriani conducted a case study on traditional communities around Guaratuba bay, Paraná south coast, in their article "Democratic participation in yhe management of common natural Resources and the native populations in the Southern Coast of Paraná". The aim was to provide a context for what nowadays is called "social involvement" or "participatory management", under the perspective of environmental conservation in Brazil, using social and political theory as a reference.
In the article "Indigenous people, socio-environmental conflict and post-development in Latin America", author Fernando de la Cuadra talks about the differences and contradictions in the visions of the development of indigenous populations and modern societies, especially as for natural resources usage. The aim is to meditate on the need of bringing back traditional knowledge in order to transform the environment-society relationship.
Article "(Dis)agreements on the use of natural resources within a context of land transformation in Sergipe" analyses the court dispute between collectors and the owner of an area with native mango trees. Authors Dalva Maria da Mota, Heribert Schmitz and Amintas da Silva Júnior explored how these actors relate to natural resources, drawing attention to juridical pluralism complexity.
Authors Jodival Mauricio da Costa and Marie-Françoise Fleury address environmental topics under de point of view of spatial organization and actions within the territory. The article "The "Green Cities" Program: strategies for enhancing space in the municipalities of Pará" presents the way in which the program allowed a spatial economic revaluation that started with the sustainable development discourse.
In the article "The sweat that marks the land": work, quilombola rights and territory in the island of Marajó - Pará", author Luis Fernando Cardoso e Cardoso conducted a field study with Quilombola communities of the Salvaterra district, in the Marajó island. The objective was reflecting on the way these communities seize lands in order to defend their own life expressions and world perceptions.
Authors Josilene Ferreira Mendes and Noemi S. Miyasaka Porro review social conflicts related to agricultural and environmental policy implementation within the Virola Jatobá Sustainable Development Project, in the Anapu district (Pará), with their article "Social conflicts in times of environmentalism: living law rights to land in settlements with a conservationist focus ".
In the article "The Kaingang perspectives on land and environmental rights in the south of Brazil" the authors Ricardo Cid Fernandes and Leonel Piovezana discuss aspects regarding culture-nature relationships among indigenous groups in southern Brazil, on the basis of the ethnography of kaingang groups in the west of Santa Catarina State. The goal was demonstrating that interaction between politics and cosmological ideas is at the base of the indigenous perspective about their territorial and environmental rights.
Trying to think over social-environmental conflict involving public authority and residents of Jardim Icaraí, in Curitiba, Paraná, the authors Rosirene Martins Lima and Joaquim Shiraishi Neto reflect upon environmental rights as an instrument of production and diffusion of an "official environmental idea" which legitimizes the urban policies intervention plan in their article titled "Socio-environmental conflicts: environmental law as an instrument for legitimizing the actions of public authorities an intervention in Jardim Icaraí, Curitiba/PR".
Authors Estevão Bosco and Gabriela Marques Di Giulio introduce the general aspects of the risk society, developed by Ulrich Beck, highlighting the contributions, insufficiencies, and still remaining challenges for works in the Environment and Society field, by means of a critical evaluation in the article "Ulrich Beck: Considerations on his contributions and challenges to the studies in environment and society".
Finally, the book review "The unsustainable modernity: The criticism of environmentalism to contemporary society " by Héctor Ricardo Leis, made by the author Luciano Félix Florit, analyses the work published in 1999 as a subsidy for environmentalism and an invitation to critically reflect upon modernity pitfalls nowadays.
We wish everyone a pleasant reading, and count on you for further spreading of the journal.
Pedro Roberto Jacobi
Editor
Revista Ambiente & Sociedade
Faculdade de Educação da
USP e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Ambiental
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
May-Jun 2015
