Management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve: Limits and possibilities in the perception of its counsilors

Abstract

Protected Areas (PAs) are strategic for sociobiodiversity conservation; they strengthen traditional communities and promote sustainable development and their territorial management needs to be inclusive, participative and integrating. This study analyzed the shared management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve and how the members of its Deliberative Council perceive its contributions to the PA’s socioeconomic development. Analysis of the results of the semi-structured interviews used content analysis to extract the data and identified discourse patterns that indicate aspects that could be improved to foster the institutional strengthening of the Deliberative Council itself.

Keywords:
Deliberative Council; management; protected area; Amazon

Resumo

Unidades de Conservação (UCs) são áreas estratégicas para conservação da sociobiodiversidade, fortalecem as comunidades tradicionais e promovem desenvolvimento sustentável, necessitando que sua gestão territorial seja inclusiva, participativa e integradora. Este estudo analisou a gestão compartilhada da Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns e suas contribuições para o desenvolvimento socioeconômico desta UC, na percepção de membros do Conselho Deliberativo. O método da Análise de Conteúdo foi utilizado para analisar os dados resultantes de entrevistas semiestruturada. Foram identificados padrões de discursos que indicam pontos de melhoria para o fortalecimento institucional do Conselho Deliberativo.

Palavras-chave:
Conselho deliberativo; gestão; unidade de conservação; Amazônia

Resumen

Las Áreas de Conservación son áreas estratégicas para conservar la sociobiodiversidad, fortalecer las comunidades tradicionales y promover el desarrollo sostenible, requiriendo una gestión territorial inclusiva, participativa e integradora. Este estudio analizó la gestión compartida de la Reserva Extractiva Tapajós-Arapiuns y sus aportes al desarrollo socioeconómico de la área, en la percepción de miembros del Consejo Deliberante. El método de Análisis de Contenido fue utilizado para analizar los datos resultantes una entrevista semiestructurada. Fueron identificados padrones de discurso que indican puntos de mejora para el fortalecimiento institucional del Consejo Deliberante.

Palabras-clave:
Consejo deliberativo; gestión; área de conservación; Amazonía

Introduction

The creation of Protected Areas (PAs) is a strategy used to address environmental issues and a potentially efficacious instrument for fostering socio-biodiversity conservation, and for strengthening traditional communities and sustainable development all over the world (DELELIS, 2010). In Brazil this strategy has been centralized in the National Protected Areas System (Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação -Snuc) which has contributed towards the formation of an integrated implantation and management process for PAs since it was institutionalized by the enactment of Law 9.985, on July 18, 2000 (MAIA et al., 2017).

Along with other policy instruments such as the National Protected Areas Strategic Plan (Plano Estratégico Nacional de Áreas Protegidas -PNAP) (BRASIL, 2006) and the National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities (Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento Sustentável dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais -PNPCT) (BRASIL, 2007), it has conceptually fostered a more inclusive, participative and integrating vision of the management of Brazil’s protected areas (DELELIS, 2010).

The Snuc embraces two major PAs categories: Strict Protection and Sustainable Use. The latter includes the so-called Extractive Reserves (Reserva Extrativista -Resex) in which the land is in the public domain but is conceded to traditional communities depending on extractive activities for their subsistence. The main objective of creating such areas is to protect the livelihoods and cultures of those populations and ensure the sustainable use of the Protected Area’s natural resources (BRASIL, 2002).

The Law determines that the Resex should be administered by a Deliberative Council presided over by the government body responsible for the administration of PAs and made up of representatives of various institutions including public bodies, civil society organizations and those of traditional populations resident in the area, in accordance with the terms of the regulations set out in the document formalizing the PA’s creation (BRASIL, 2000, Art. 18, § 2º).

Since the regulation of the Snuc came into force through Decree nº 4.340, dated August 22, 2002, public bodies, residents of the PAs and other institutions have been undertaking activities to materialize the requirements of the legal provisions. Thus the PAs have been increasingly gaining space and socio-environmental, cultural and economic importance (MMA, 2004).

This study highlights the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, the first one created in the state of Pará, by presidential decree on November 6, 1998 (BRASIL, 1998) before the Snuc was institutionalized, as “the fruit of the social movement struggles and the federal government’s recognition” (ICMBIO, 2012, p.10).

The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade - ICMBio) is the main executive body of that Resex’s management and the Organization of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve Associations (Organização das Associações da Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns -Tapajoara) is the effective concessionaire of the right to use the Resex (ICMBIO, 2014b). The ICMBio is responsible for constructing alliances and partnerships with society to contribute towards the organizational strengthening of PAs thereby justifying the importance of creating management instruments for those areas (ICMBIO, 2014a).

In addition to ICMBio and Tapajoara, other actors have seats on the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex Deliberative Council. They are representatives of the National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Fundação dos Povos Indígenas -Funai), the Tapajós-Arapiuns Indigenous Council (Conselho Indígena Tapajós-Arapiuns - CITA), the Federal University of Western Pará (Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará -Ufopa), the non governmental organizations Health and Happiness Project (Projeto Saúde e Alegria -PSA) and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia -Ipam); besides representatives of the Santarém and Aveiro Municipal Governments among others. Each Council member has an equal right to be heard and to vote (ICMBIO, 2018).

Thus this study addresses the need to listen to the councilors of this reserve and get to know their perceptions in order to accompany the sharing of Resex management and the institutional strengthening of the Protected Area and gain an understanding of the extent to which the objectives the law proposes are being achieved.

In that light, the study set out to analyze the shared management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve and its contributions towards the PA’s socio-environmental development as perceived by the members of the Deliberative Council. It sought to identify the challenges they experienced and their knowledge regarding the Management Plan and the Deliberative Council itself, in their aspects as management instruments.

Methodology

Study area

The Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex is located in the Amazon biome and it’s occupied by traditional populations including indigenous people, totaling around 23 thousand residents organized in 72 communities distributed in an area of 647,610 hectares, along the courses of the Tapajós and Arapiuns rivers in the municipalities of Santarém and Aveiro, in the state of Pará (CEAPS, 2015) (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Location of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex

Study Limits

This research restricted its focus to the Deliberative Council which, at the time of data gathering, consisted of the representatives of 48 bodies¹ with the formal right to a seat on it of which 11 were public institutions and 37 organized civil society entities, including the 27 associations of Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex residents and the Tapajoara, which acts as a political agent representing the residents and their respective associations and communities.

The legal concession of the effective right to use is vested in the Tapajoara which is expected to work to foster the strengthening of social organization and consequently, the better quality of life of the families (ICMBIO, 2014b).

By means of the Community Council, a forum for debate that defines issues of the reserve residents’ interest, Tapajoara has the task of conducting the collective planning of those demands and organizing proposals for the Deliberative Council’s analysis.

This research also sought to verify the extent of councilors’ knowledge of the Management Plan, another important instrument orientating the use of Resex resources. The Management Plan is mainly instrumental in determining the zoning of the PA, the management of natural resources and the production chains, in addition to requiring socio-environmental and socio-economic sustainability programs among which are the quality of life program and its health, education, and infrastructure sub-programs (ICMBIO, 2014b).

Prior participation in events that the Resex Deliberative Council held aroused a desire in the authors to understand the management functionality of the PA and that motivated the present research. Those prior experiences englobed aspects of an exploratory research that were followed by a bibliographic review to research the methodology to be adopted (SEVERINO, 2007) and construct a descriptive research project with a qualitative approach (GODOY,1995).

Instrument, data gathering and analysis method

The study used the Content Analysis method to verify the data. It consists of a set of techniques for analyzing communications that makes it possible to maintain a critical approach designed to reveal whatever is intrinsic in the contents informed by interviewees. Given the social nature of the organization in question, it is an appropriate methodology for achieving the objectives of this study (BARDIN, 2016. SEVERINO, 2007).

This study set out to understand the perceptions of the members of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex Deliberative Council as expressed in semi-structured interviews with 11 open-ended questions. Most of the questionnaires were administered and collected during a Deliberative Council meeting that took place on September 3, 2018, at the State University of Pará (Universidade Estadual do Pará -Uepa), especially those with the community representatives attending it. Others, with representatives of public bodies or civil Society entities, were administered and collected via scheduled arrangements.

It was up to the interviewers to arrange a venue free of any kind of coercion in which they could present the interviewees individually with a Term of Informed Consent and collect the same.

After the data gathering based on the interviews, the three general stages of the Content Analysis Method were carried out, namely: a) pre-analysis, b) exploration of the material, and c) treatment of the results (through interpretations and inferences) (Figure 2).

Figure 2
Graphic representation of the Content Analysis method

The first stage involved organization of the central ideas of the discourses by means of a careful, detailed and reflected reading with exhaustive, homogeneous and pertinent observation of the questionnaires, a process that Bardin refers to as constituting a corpus, that is, composing the utterances that are to be analyzed (BARDIN, 2016).

In the second stage of codifying or labeling, the responses or ‘units of registration’ were classified according to semantic criteria, that is, the questions are grouped together according to their contextual similarity, duly verifying their intentionality in regard to the study objectives, and the responses are categorized by themes in an endeavor to discover the nuclei of meaning that compose the communication, observing, in this case, the presence, absence or frequency of central ideas, to provide the fundamentals for a discussion of the data (BARDIN, 2016).

After the grouping by blocks of categories, the study conducted a dialogue with the theoretical references to impart meaning to the interpretation. The third stage consisted of treating the results, which was done by comparing the utterances and observing the particularities, to formulate propositions and inferences endeavoring to “extract the secondary significations; those which the primary ones conceal but which the analysis seeks to obtain: myths, symbols and values” and in that way contribute to the participative management of the Resex (BARDIN, 2016, p.167).

The study distributed 48 questionnaires, one to each representative, of whom 31 responded representing a sample of 64.6% of the councilors. The interviewees responded to the questions on their own or, if they preferred, the questions could be read to the participants who responded verbally, and the researcher transcribed their responses.

The discourses used in this article were all transcribed word for word without any corrections and identified by the letter ‘E’ followed by the number of the corresponding form to ensure the participants’ anonymity.

The questions were grouped according to context and intentionality in the following way: Group A was made up of questions seeking to obtain councilors’ perceptions in regard to their analysis of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex’s shared management. Group B were questions five to nine and sought to identify the challenges experienced in shared management from the perspective of the councilors themselves. The tenth question was designed to analyze the extent of the councilors’ knowledge of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex Management Plan (Group C). Lastly, the first and the eleventh question (Group D) sought to capture their perceptions regarding the contributions of shared management to the PA’s socioeconomic development (Chart 1).

Chart 1
Questions for analysis

Question grouping for data analysis
Group A: Questions 2,3,4 - Concerning Shared Management.
2	What do you understand shared management to be?
3	What is your role and performance, as a councilor, in the Shared Management of the Resex?
4	How does your organization/institution contribute to the Shared Management of the Resex?
Group B: Questions 5,6,7,8 and 9 - About the challenges experienced.
5	How is the participation of council members in the management of the Resex effectuated?
6	Is there any interaction among members of the council in regard to management? If so, how does it take place?
7	Does the Council evaluate the shared management? If so, how and when does it do that?
8	Are there any problems with the shared management of the Resex? If so, what are they?
9	In your opinion, what strategies does the council adopt or that it could adopt to solve those problems?
Group C: Question 10 - About the extent of councilors’ knowledge of the Management Plan.
10	Do you know the Resex Management plan? What is your participation in the construction of the Plan?
Group D: Questions 1 and 11 - About the possible contributions of Management to the PA’s socioeconomic development.
1	What is your evaluation of the management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex?
11	Do the Resex management actions presently contribute to the upkeep of the families and the conservation of the environment?

• Source: Elaborated by the authors.

An exhaustive, detailed assessment of the sample of responses was then carried out, question by question, first, by themes, in order to create units of registration and then for categorization, grouping the responses based on the presence, absence or relative frequency of occurrence of similar ideas. Apart from the questions and answers, any notes or comments made by the interviewee were also taken into account in the discussion.

Results

Of the 31 respondents, 80.64% were community representatives; 6.45% representatives of government bodies (ICMBio and Funai) and 12.9% representatives of organized civil society (Ufopa, CITA, PSA and Tapajoara).

After the analysis of the Group A questions, the discourses revealed that the subjects understood shared management to be one that has the real participation of all the actors involved. There were other responses such as: management, attributing responsibility, union and transparency and there was even one who declared that he did not know what it was.

They are ways or strategies used so that all the entities, community councils can be contributing to the shared management for it to be a better management(E5);

Shared Management.... I understand it to be a form whereby the entities are in common agreement in the discussions that bring benefits to the area of Resex as a project (E6);

Shared management is that in which the directors do not act alone but, instead, with the support of all without exception, (in)dependent of any religious belief (E 11);

It is working collectively, with the residents and entities that are active within the Area (E14);

Shared management is when the partners, the residents and the NGOs are in agreement as to what is right or wrong and they decide to dialogue together to achieve the same results (E 21);

Everyone working in a group (E 22);

I consider that it is one (management) about what can or cannot be done in the territory being shared collectively; that includes the ICMBio vote having the same weight as that of a representative of a community, of the university, so then the decision the majority makes is carried out (E45).

The study sought, through the responses to the Group B questions, to gain an understanding of the dynamics of councilors and organizations’ participation and performance in Resex management given that the integration of those actors is primordial for the decision-making, planning, execution, supervision, evaluation and inspection, strengthening and legitimizing the organization’s structures.

Only one interviewee reported that the organization he represented (his community) had no participation in management (E24) and another opted to abstain from responding (E15). Almost all of the other actors made similar contributions, reporting that their participation and that of the institutions they represented occurred directly in the discussions in the ambit of the Deliberative Council. In regard to participation, 48.4% of the councilors that responded added that it was their role to “inform the community”, bringing demands to the meetings and taking back information.

Another point addressed by representatives of the Resex communities was the importance of keeping the monthly payments² to the Council organization up to date as one of the ways of participating in management and another was sharing information with the community they represent (E1, E4, E6, E7, E11, E16, E22, E23, E25, E30). Four respondents mentioned the monthly fee as their only form of participation (E4, E7, E25, E30). There was also mention of the difficulty that “not every community can sponsor its representatives” and that the participation of some organizations is merely “incipient” (E26) or even that “there is no participation at all” (E6, E11).

It’s participating in all the Council meetings and supporting the execution of the projects, helping to create new rules and norms for the good administration of the collective projects conquered by the communities (E20);

Knowing about everything the coordination is doing, knowing the work, deliberating as to what is good and denouncing what is harmful (E32);

In addition to proposing ideas, analyzing projects so that they are not executed from the top down and checking to be sure that indigenous rights are not violated (ILO convention 169) (E3);

Raising suggestions, supporting the subjects being debated in assemblies with favorable arguments (E5);

Well then, it’s taking on the responsibility of being vice president of the Tapajós-Arapiuns deliberative Council. As the mother organization it is responsible for the territory and contributes directly with all the advances there are within the Area, from the social to the cultural, the economic question, everything, the Tapajoara does this management together (E9);

Active participation of the councilors in decision-making, demanding and joining political forces for the solution of problems, often forming working groups (E45);

In mediating conflicts, especially on the question of legislation. Also, in the question of the traditional populations who have a different way of life. Guaranteeing rights/ways of life of those populations, debating a development model that favors them. There are divergences, for example, over logging management (E47);

There is no community contribution to the Shared Management of the Resex (E24);

Associating with the entity and contributing with the cost-bearing fee;

Contribute by paying the monthly fee, supporting the decisions of the manager, contributing to be well represented (E16)

In regard to council members’ participation and interaction (questions 7 and 8), 6.4% of the councilors expressed the difficulty they encountered in regard to costs and logistics which are achieved “through journeys with many expenses paid by the councilor himself until he can get to the meeting for participation”(E1); therefore “with difficulty because not everyone participates; there are more than 70 communities, only 26 came… the difficulty each community has to sponsor its representative” (E22). Other councilors addressed negative points:

Very bad because many members of the management do not take very seriously their roles or that each member can take on his functions within the Resex management (E11);

In an incipient way. Normally the councils do not have deep knowledge of the matters of greater interest and degree that decide the life of the Resex (E26);

There are the juridical ones and the civil ones (municipal government, Ufopa, etc.) who are members of the council, and community councilors often have no idea who the other members of the council are. We - the community council - have one way of wanting something, they have another, “our participation is neutral” (E32).

However, the most frequent description of how councilors participated was “participation in the assemblies” as for example in the utterance of interviewee E48: “all members of the council take part in the management because it is a formal space for discussion and deliberation of Area matters in addition to the work groups and the other spaces”. Similar ideas were expressed in interviews E8, E9, 13, E18, E21, E30, E31, E47 as shown in the following excerpts:

It is the duty of each councilor to pass on to his community whatever was discussed or approved in the assemblies and to present the demands of his community, or other communities within the area he covers, at the Council meetings (E8);

The question of participation as Council members is that which I just spoke about, we have the responsibility of participating, discussing and collaborating with the management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns (E9).

As regards interaction among council members, there was no consensus: 9.7% considered that there was none: “there is no interaction […] we community councilors and those councilors that represent us in the municipal governments, for example, we don’t know who they are” (E32). Another 12.9% declared that there was little interaction: “due to conflicts between ‘Indians’ and ‘non-Indians’, sometimes influenced by project executors; the NGO’s hamper that interaction”.

16.1% of the councilors consider that interaction takes place in the meetings held “to discuss proposals” (E22) while another complements that by saying “it depends a lot on the councilor’s involvement, participation in discussions, clearing up his doubts, being more well-informed” (E8). 29% of the councilors who responded declared they were in favor of “integration and exchanges of ideas” (E27) that take place in a “collective and participative manner” (E27). As exemplified here:

Shared management…. it is being constructed and that enables us to feel more secure because responsibility for the territory lies with us, the Resex residents; we must not be merely ‘extras’, we must be the main actors of this territorial struggle and actively seek for the solutions to our problems (E9);

Yes, there are visits among community leaders and they exchange ideas with community members, listening to their opinions (E7);

It exists. The community council meets separately to organize things and afterwards present them at the plenary session (E18);

Yes, all members undertake joint work through their respective institutions, they meet in the sector-based working groups and participate in activities within the PA (E48).

The ninth question sought to identify whether the councilors knew the mechanisms of the Deliberative Council’s functioning, asking them if there was any evaluation of management (and if so, how and when). 22.6% of the interviewees declared that they did not know, while 3.2% did not answer the question and 54.5% of the councilors that took part in the survey declared that evaluation of management does exist, but most of them were unable to explain how or when.

Among the comments under this heading there are those who believed that the evaluations took place: “via general assemblies and extraordinary ones”; “via meetings held to render accounts”; or “at the Community Council assemblies”. According to ICMBio Normative Instruction N°9, dated December 12, 2014, councilors should make an annual assessment of the effectiveness of the Council’s functioning, using the Action Plan and the management instruments of the Protected Area as references (ICMBIO, 2014c).

As for other problems mentioned, the responses fell into various categories: “lack of communication with the communities” (e.g.: E9. E16); divergences in the approval of projects” (e.g.: E4, E6, E22); “financial” (e.g.: E31, E16, E23); “disunity” (e.g.: E21, E27, E32, E47); “lack of participation” (e.g.: E12, E13) and “lack of capacity building for councilors” (E3).

Considering the majority of councilors are Resex community representatives, the main strategies suggested for addressing problems concerned capacity building for leaders and improvements in the process of communication with the communities. In that sense the following discourses stand out “Greater participation and interaction among the actors” (E13) and “Organizing the decision-making, basing it on territorial organization in poles or basins” (E20). The following are other examples of discourses on problems:

Yes: there is a lack of resources for qualifying leaderships. One of the biggest problems is the lack of technical knowledge, lay councilors who agree to impositions in the name of a false development” (E3);

The main problems concern people who do not want to pay the monthly fee promptly. The former conflicts between Tapajoara and CITA have already died down” (E7);

We have plenty of problems, one of the problems we face is the lack of leadership, because although we have plenty of leaders in the Resex, what we do not have is leadership. One very important thing we do have, however, is that we construct, in spite of all the obstacles, our people participate even in this question of Management, but one of the bottlenecks we have is the question of communication because the Resex, the only via of access to the Resex is aquatic (E9);

Yes. a lack of commitment to the monthly payment and to involvement with management logistics, residents’ understanding of the participation aspect in general (E16);

Yes, a more face-to-face participation of leaderships committed to passing on information to their communities (E8);

Yes, divergences, where resources are involved, partners bad-talking one another, divided leaderships (E21)

Yes, the Indigenous territories (E27);

Yes, the problem of representativeness between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Within the Tapajoara management, at moments of decision-making, we have a problem with the indigenous deposition foreseen in ILO Convention 169… actually it is not clear whether it is being respected (E147).

In the verification of the extent of councilors’ knowledge of the Management Plan through responses to group C questions, 58.1% of survey participants stated that either they had no knowledge of the plan or that they knew very little about that instrument, whereas 32.3% stated that they knew about it. Among those who either knew or did not know, 51.5% declared that they had participated in Plan discussions or in its approval process.

I know a little about it, I took part in the construction of the Management Plan. The Management Plan is made in various forms: logging, how to work with agriculture, defending the primary forest, participation in the planting of the forest (E18).

A little, I took part in the creation of the Resex and since then we have made diagnoses in the communities and presented everything that would bring us benefits, health, education. Those plans are still going on (E32).t

In regard to the questions of Group D, about the present management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex, the following adjectives appeared in the responses: “bad” (6.4%), “reasonable” (32.3%), “good” (45.2%) and “excellent” (9.7%). It should be noted that one of the discourses that saw management as “bad” was actually the sporadic perspective of an interviewee, a community representative who expected the Resex management to act as interlocutor with the Municipal authority for the construction of a school in his community.

Most of the interviewees expressed a positive opinion of Resex management such as those in the discourses below, the first of which is that of a government representative, while the others are community councilors and organized civil society representatives. The situations to be improved were explained once again in these interviews and so will not be repeated here.

It is a different management from those of other Extractive Reserves including those in the state, because it is executed in close proximity to the communities, hearing their anxieties and demands it is not a an imposed management but mainly determines its actions according to the communities’ demands and through the guidelines deliberated on in the Council meetings. I consider the Resex Council to be highly active and advanced in relation to other Councils of other PAs (E45);

Very good, over the years since its implantation, and there has been gradual institutional strengthening. Management is always an ongoing process receiving feedback (E48);

I consider it to be positive because the management is clearly discussed with the communities (E3);

I consider that the directorate is working for the 78 communities (E23);

In my view, the current management, I evaluate it as very good in comparison with those that went before; one can see that it has improved a lot on terms of communication (E6);

I can evaluate the Resex today as having a well-developed management; in regard to the work, everyone who is part of the management of the organization is present in the meetings, workshops, etc. (E25);

It is that, up to now, we residents only have the support of the management but there is little actual development within the area of the Resex (E30).

There was, however, a visible divergence of opinion among the councilors in regard to the contribution of management to family livelihoods and conservation of the environment (question 11). 58,1% of the interviewees believe that the Management has made a strong contribution to the protection of the environment and the upkeep of the families.

On the other hand six discourses express dichotomic positions in regard to ‘environment’ and ‘family livelihood’ insofar as they mention that they are hampered from “living traditionally”, and consider that management has greater commitment to environmental preservation. Many community councilors that took part in this research consider their subsistence to stem from family agriculture and identified little support of the Management for strengthening that activity.

Families’ livelihoods, no! The families have become hostages of the ICMBio, they are forbidden to work in the traditional way. Conservation of the environment… traditional peoples already did that in traditional ways (E3);

The management contributes to the livelihood of the families and the conservation of the environment because it forbids anyone from destroying nature and only those who are from the Resex can make use of its nature (E7);

Very little, because there is a long way to go for extractive agriculturalist to have a decent livelihood, we do not have aspects of human dignity like education, health, infrastructure, sanitation, leisure (E14);

The families make their living from the fields and the conservation of the environment (E23);

Not yet. The Resex management with the coordination of the Tapajoara does not want us to fish, hunt, make fields and they want to impede our cultures without offering any alternatives to improve our lives (E32);

Yes, setting limits as to what we can take and what we must not interfere with in order to continue and always maintain more than half (E21);

The families make their living from the fields and the conservation of the environment (E23)

The actions we can perform to contribute to the upkeep of the families is to work with Family Agriculture, isn’t it? We have to strengthen this family and extractive agriculture chain because that is the fundamental basis of the Tapajós-Arapiuns (E9);

Based on the data available today, deforestation over the ten year period in the Resex does not show growing rates, only occurring in minimal terms, but it is related to the fields for the main productive activity which is producing manioc meal (farinha de mandioca); it is an extractive reserve that does not gain a living from extractive products, but instead it has a family agriculture profile (E45).

Discussion

Shared Management is a governance method whose precedents in Brazil were established in Public Administration by the 1988 Federal Constitution insofar as it provided for “the participation of the population through representative organizations in the formulation of public policies and in the control of actions at all levels” (BRASIL, 1988, Art. 204).

The creation and regulation of Management Councils, founded on principles of decentralization and participation, is one of the ways to operationalize and make feasible that new format. A Management Council corresponds to a political space in which a new pattern of interaction between State, Government and Society occurs, entered into by State and Social Organization in which the former signs a Management Contract with the latter for the purpose of concretizing public policies (ROCHA, 2009; CORRALO, 2016).

The deliberative nature of the Councils embraces the participation of civil society in the definition of public agendas that represent collective interests, the formation of policies, public control over governmental decisions and actions, the discussion of projects related to the public interest in which alliances are established, and conflicts stated explicitly, and they act as spaces that enable negotiation, agreement and the construction of consensuses (ROCHA, 2009, p.51).

In that respect, most of the interviewees’ responses dialogue with that conception insofar as the ‘participation of all’ is the most frequently registered utterance in the discourses. In addition, participation in this collegiate sphere can enable councilors to perform as communicators of necessary information to the community members that are not part of the Council.

Again, on analyzing the performance of the Deliberative Council of the Caeté-Taperaçu Marine Resex, Junior et al. (2018) showed how the councilors who represent their communities believed that their participation would guarantee space in which to discuss the problems their communities face.

However, it must be understood that shared management is an organizational model that seeks to strengthen the organization and it presupposes the existence of a set of values that are necessary for it to function properly among which are horizontality, shared responsibility and teamwork capable of leading to the achievement of a common goal.

Some of the patterns observed in the responses during the interviews such as “I contribute with the monthly fee”, “incipient participation”, “disunion”, “independent of any religious belief”, and the lack of “leaders committed to passing on information to their communities” indicate that there is some degree of superficiality in the councilors’ understanding of the importance of their role and the way in which their participation and interactions among them take place.

That leads to an internal fragilization of the management. For example, there is no effective participation when the only vision of contributing to management is limited to the perspective of payment of the monthly fee to the concession holder of the right to use the Resex, without really understanding the need to take an active part in Council discussions. It should be remembered that the Deliberative Councils of Protected areas can be considered the major social participation instrument for the management of such areas (NASCIMENTO; SILVA; SPÍNDOLA, 2022).

The Manual of the Capacity Building Program for Shared Management of Resex and SDRs (ICMBIO, 2012) is the reference document that defines the important qualifications of a councilor that should ensure the active participation of those actors; according to it they are required to know: the objective, characteristics and role of the Deliberative Council; the rights and duties of the Councilors; their functions and the dedication to the council expected of them and what their rights are; and the functioning of the Council’s decision-making process (regulations).

The interviews showed that there was no level field in the understanding of those aspects; some councilors evinced a much broader vision while for others it was far more restricted. It must be underscored that there is a need for every councilor living in the Resex to know his or her functions in regard to “gathering and presenting the communities’ demands’’, an affirmation that failed to appear in all the discourses.

The debate on shared management must be the task of all the councilors, and shared responsibility and dialogue are important to overcome the divergences or misinformation that can fragilize management.

The aforementioned financial and logistic difficulties hampering councilor participation do indeed exist. In that respect there is a discourse that sounds out significantly made by one councilor who called attention to the fact that at the meeting there were representatives of 26 communities while the Resex actually had more than 70.

In that regard, thinking up strategies that could diminish the distance or the relative costs of participation for a greater number of communities would make increased participation possible and could also expand access to benefits stemming from the project. Here it is worth mentioning the suggestion that interviewee number 20 made, namely, that of “organizing the decision-making based a territorial organization in basins or poles”.

Most of the identified problems were of an internal nature and had to do with organizational conflicts related to communication (or lack of it) and divergent interests in relation to the installation of projects and/or divergences among different Resex groups:

In the Resex, conflicts arise because people have different positions, so, depending on the person, on the political group he or she is involved with, there are moments of tranquility and others of dispute for power, for land, and so on…The main management problem I can see at the moment is the political dispute and dispute for power that has a negative effect on the management of the territory (E45).

In their study of shared management in the Mestre Lucindo Marine Extractive Reserve in the northeast of the State of Pará, Santos et al. (2021) reported difficulties in the communication process due to the distances between the eight poles of the PA that they studied. Furthermore, they showed that there was a lack of capacity building of the local society and the emergence of conflicts of a political nature.

For management to come up with adequate strategies it is essential to understand the origin of the divergences of interests. According to Vargas (2007) divergences or conflicts of socio-environmental interests can be managed in any one of three ways described in the literature, namely conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict transformation.

The analysis of the present research corroborates the idea that conflict transformation would be the most appropriate strategy to use, given the context of “truly participative management schemes of public policy formulation with the participation of society” as is the case with the Tapajós-Arapiuns Deliberative Council instrument. It signifies developing processes based on cooperation among the parties with an emphasis on constructing “flexible lasting structures that impart substance to conflict management” bearing in mind that identifying a common objective to guide and unite the group presupposes actions of mediation and motivation for the verification of solutions with gains for all those involved (VARGAS, 2007, p. 198).

Mobilization is understood to be “when a group of people, a community or a society decides to act towards achieving a common objective, constantly seeking results decided on and desired by all” (TORO; WERNECK, 1996, p. 5). In regard to the mechanisms for Management Plan evaluation (Group C questions) there was a perceptible need, in the sphere of the Council, to amplify the divulging and communication of information about this instrument, in consonance with councilors’ attributed functionalities (ICMBIO, 2012).

The very existence of a Management Plan for the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex is in itself a sign of progress compared with the situation of other PAs (MAIA et al., 2017). However, it was not possible to identify any high degree of knowledge of that instrument among the councilors. Thus there are very few subsidies to enable them to exercise social control and monitor continuities given their poor knowledge of the primary instrument guiding the execution of Resex projects.

Such knowledge is necessary for this highly important PA management instrument to exercise its functions (NEZES; PIZZIO; RODRIGUES, 2021). In their study of the experiences of community members in the Ciriaco Extractive Reserve, in the State of Maranhão, those authors showed that, for it to fulfill its functions, that instrument must be adapted to the specificities of the PA in question, contemplating social and economic aspects and setting priority on the communities’ urgent demands.

As regards its contribution to environmental conservation, in the perception of the councilors, the Management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex is playing its attributed role insofar as the councilors discourses are in harmony with the data obtained by Maia et al. (2017, p. 35): “the creation of these protected Areas has been of fundamental importance for the mitigation of impacts stemming from deforestation, in addition to their curbing other extant conflicts in the Amazon” albeit, there is still an urgent need to promote further strategies and projects that seek to complement family incomes.

In general, considering that only 4% of the PAs in the Amazon region have “efficient management”, understood here as being the consolidation of formal management instruments with the participation of the actors involved (MAIA et al.,2017); and also considering the responses to the set of questions that sought to delineate perceptions of the Management of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex were mainly positive, the results obtained identifying ‘aspects to be improved’ or fragilities to be addressed, in no way disqualify the social space that the Resex Share Management has conquered but, instead, present points for reflection for further improving management.

Silva et al. (2022) state that the councils of the two Resex on the banks of the Tapajós have undergone a process of reconfiguration in regard to the representations and their very functioning. Those authors also show that there is a process of acceptance in course on the part of community members in regard to the legal imposition that guarantees the legitimacy of residents’ participation with dialogue to benefit the interests of those involved in PA management.

Final considerations

This article has presented reflections on the Shared Management experience of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex because it is believed that the strengthening of that democratic space is of fundamental importance for achieving the objectives proposed and expressed in the law on which the creation of an extractive reserve is founded.

It has not set out to exhaust the matter but instead to expose perceptions of management in the vision of its councilors creating an opportunity to identify problems and effectuate joint proposals for facing them, given the external pressures that can threaten the traditional ways of life of the Resex residents. Identifying points of convergence among the residents and the councilors can help to strengthen that unity of the group so necessary to achieving progress in the participative strengthening of Management.

It proved possible to identify discourse patterns that should be worked on within the Council so that the advances can translate into improvements for the local population. As an example, it was observed that it was important to invest in qualifying the councilors so that their level of involvement, assumption of responsibility and knowledge regarding the management instruments should be expanded and deepened given the existence of councilors who do not know anything about the management plan or whose discourse regarding the performance of the Council is merely incipient.

Another important point is the need for a convergence of concepts and practices in regard to the construction of sustainable development within the Resex; the main concern in managing the environment should be with improving the quality of life of the populations living in the protected area. The social and environmental organizations that participate or have activities within the PA base themselves on shared presuppositions, so that it is indispensable to be very clear as to what unites the entities whose seats make up the Management in order to foster the effective empowerment of that population and the defense of the territory.

November 2018 completed 20 years since the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex was created thus, as a result of great struggles and social demands, its advances have been consolidated. The democratic reinforcement of its management is the way ahead that will guarantee not only the permanence of the populations involved with the land but also their resistance, resilience and development.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the participants and the teaching staff of the discipline Sustainable Development and the Amazon Context of the Graduate Program in Society, Environment and Quality of Life at the Federal University of Western Pará of which the present work is a result.

Referências

• BARDIN, L. Análise de Conteúdo. Tradução: Luís Antero Reto; Augusto Pinheiro. 1. Ed. São Paulo: Edições 70, 2016.
• BRASIL. Decreto n. 4.340, de 22 de agosto de 2002. Regulamenta artigos da Lei no 9.985, de 18 de julho de 2000 [...]. Brasília: Presidência da República, 2002. Disponível em: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret/2002/decreto-4340-22-agosto-2002-451270-norma-pe.html Acesso em 08 dez 2018.
  » https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret/2002/decreto-4340-22-agosto-2002-451270-norma-pe.html
• BRASIL. Decreto n. 5.758, de 13 de abril de 2006. Institui o Plano Estratégico Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (PNAP) [...]. Brasília: Presidência da República, 2007. Disponível em: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret/2006/decreto-5758-13-abril-2006-541743-publicacaooriginal-47793-pe.html Acesso em: 18 out 2018.
  » https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret/2006/decreto-5758-13-abril-2006-541743-publicacaooriginal-47793-pe.html
• BRASIL. Decreto n. 6.040, de 07 de fevereiro de 2007. Institui a Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento Sustentável dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais. Brasília, DF, ago. 2007. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2007-2010/2007/decreto/d6040.htm Acesso em 18 out 2018.
  » http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2007-2010/2007/decreto/d6040.htm
• BRASIL. Decreto s/n de 6 de novembro de 1998.Cria a Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns, nos Municípios de Santarém e Aveiro, no Estado do Pará, e dá outras providências. Brasília: Presidência da República, 1998. Disponível em: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret_sn/1998/decreto-47777-6-novembro-1998-594107-publicacaooriginal-118436-pe.html Acesso em 10 out 2018.
  » https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret_sn/1998/decreto-47777-6-novembro-1998-594107-publicacaooriginal-118436-pe.html
• BRASIL. Lei 9.985/2000, de 18 de Julho de 2000. Institui o Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação da Natureza (Snuc) [...]. Brasília: Presidência da República, 2000. Disponível em: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/lei/2000/lei-9985-18-julho-2000-359708-norma-pl.html Acesso em: 9 out 2018.
  » https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/lei/2000/lei-9985-18-julho-2000-359708-norma-pl.html
• CENTRO DE ESTUDOS AVANÇADOS DE PROMOÇÃO SOCIAL E AMBIENTAL - CEAPS. Almanaque da reserva extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns: prazer em conhecer. Pena, F; Henriques, G. (Org.). CEAPS - Projeto Saúde e alegria, Santarém, 2015.
• CORRALO, G. S.; CARDOSO, B. L. Gestão Compartilhada como reflexo de uma governança pós-moderna. In: V Encontro Internacional do CONPEDI - Direito Administrativo e Gestão Pública. Montevidéu. Anais [...] Florianópolis: CONPEDI, 2016. Disponível em: http://site.conpedi.org.br/publicacoes/9105o6b2/za57d3t3 Acesso em: 08 dez 2018.
  » http://site.conpedi.org.br/publicacoes/9105o6b2/za57d3t3
• DELELIS, C.J; REHDER, T; CARDOSO, T.M. Mosaicos de áreas protegidas: reflexões e propostas da cooperação franco-brasileira (Série áreas protegidas). Brasília: Ministério do Meio Ambiente, 2010. Disponível em: https://www.terrabrasilis.org.br/ecotecadigital/pdf/mosaicos-de-areas-protegidas-reflexoes-e-propostas-da-cooperacao-francobrasileira.pdf Acesso em: 05 out 2018.
  » https://www.terrabrasilis.org.br/ecotecadigital/pdf/mosaicos-de-areas-protegidas-reflexoes-e-propostas-da-cooperacao-francobrasileira.pdf
• GODOY, A. S. Introdução à pesquisa qualitativa e suas possibilidades. RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, São Paulo, v.35, n. 2, p. 57-63, mar./abr./1995.
• ICMBIO - Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade Boletim Informativo, n. 01.2016, Santarém: Edição Conselho Deliberativo, 2016.
• ICMBIO. Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade Conselhos Gestores de Unidades de Conservação Federais: um guia para gestores e conselheiros. Coordenação de Gestão Participativa, Brasília- DF: Ministério do Meio Ambiente, 2014^a Disponível em: https://www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/images/stories/comunicacao/publicacoes/guiaconselhos-2014.pdf Acesso em 05 jan 2021.
  » https://www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/images/stories/comunicacao/publicacoes/guiaconselhos-2014.pdf
• ICMBIO. Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade. Instrução Normativa n. 09, de 05 de dezembro de 2014. Brasília: ICMBio, 2014c. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/icmbio/pt-br/acesso-a-informacao/legislacao/instrucoes-normativas Acesso em 10 março 2023.
  » https://www.gov.br/icmbio/pt-br/acesso-a-informacao/legislacao/instrucoes-normativas
• ICMBIO. Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade. Plano de Manejo da Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns, Volume I: diagnóstico. Coordenação de Gestão Participativa, Brasília- DF: 2014b. Disponível em: https://www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/images/stories/imgs-unidadescoservacao/Resex_tapajos_arapiuns_pm_vol2.pdf Acesso em: 30 jan 2019.
  » https://www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/images/stories/imgs-unidadescoservacao/Resex_tapajos_arapiuns_pm_vol2.pdf
• ICMBIO - Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade Coordenação Regional 3. Portaria nº 5 de 02 de outubro de 2018. Renova a composição do Conselho Deliberativo da Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns, no estado de Pará. Santarém, 2018. Disponível em: https://www.ibama.gov.br/component/legislacao/?view=legislacao&legislacao=138351 Acesso em: 11 dez 2018.
  » https://www.ibama.gov.br/component/legislacao/?view=legislacao&legislacao=138351
• ICMBIO - Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade. Programa de Capacitação para Gestão Participativa em Resex e RDS. Brasília: ICMBIO, 2012. 20 p. Disponível em: https://www.icmbio.gov.br/educacaoambiental/images/stories/biblioteca/Publica%C3%A7%C3%B5es_da_COEDU/PRODUTO_6_PROGRAMA_CAPACITACAO_EM_GESTAO_PARTICIPATIVA_PNUD.pdf Acesso em: 11 dez 2018.
  » https://www.icmbio.gov.br/educacaoambiental/images/stories/biblioteca/Publica%C3%A7%C3%B5es_da_COEDU/PRODUTO_6_PROGRAMA_CAPACITACAO_EM_GESTAO_PARTICIPATIVA_PNUD.pdf
• MAIA, J. O. et al. Desafios na gestão das unidades de conservação no município de Marabá-Pa. Revista Agroecossistemas, v. 9, n. 1, p. 31 - 44, 2017.
• MMA - Ministério do Meio Ambiente. Áreas Protegidas do Brasil: Gestão Participativa do SNUC. Secretaria de Biodiversidade e Florestas, Diretoria do Programa Nacional de Áreas Protegidas/ Programa áreas Protegidas da Amazônia, Brasília- DF: Ministério do Meio Ambiente, 2004.
• NASCIMENTO, B. D. C.; SILVA, M. J. S.; SPÍNOLA, J. N. Os instrumentos de gestão da Floresta Nacional do Tapajós e da Reserva Extrativista Tapajós - Arapiuns. In: ANDRADE, D. F. C.; SPÍNOLA, J. N. O Rio que nos une: Uso & Gestão na Floresta Nacional do Tapajós e Reserva Extrativista Tapajós. Brasília: ICMBio,2022. p.65-78.
• NEVES, L.; PIZZIO, A.; RODRIGUES, W. Plano de Manejo e Desenvolvimento: a experiência dos comunitários da Resex do Ciriaco na implementação de projetos. Informe GEPEC, v. 25, n.1,p. 27-45, 2021.
• ROCHA, R. A. Gestão descentralizada e participativa das Políticas Públicas no Brasil. Revista Pós Ciências Sociais. São Luis/MA, v. 1 n. 11, 2009. Disponível: http://www.periodicoseletronicos.ufma.br/index.php/rpcsoc/article/view/790 Acesso: 10 dez 2018.
  » http://www.periodicoseletronicos.ufma.br/index.php/rpcsoc/article/view/790
• SANTOS, M. C.; BASTOS, R. Z.; BARBOSA, W.; TUPIASSU, L.; CANTO, O. Gestão compartilhada e conflito socioambiental em unidades de conservação: o caso da Resex Marinha Mestre Lucindo, Marapanim-PA. Agroecossistemas, v. 13, n. 2, p. 35-58, 2021.
• SEVERINO, A. J. Metodologia do Trabalho Científico, 23ª, edição. São Paulo: CORTEZ EDITORA, 2007.
• SILVA, D. W.; ANDRADE, M. M.; SILVA, M. J. S.; PONTES, B. S.; SPÍNOLÁ, J. N.; VIEIRA, T. A. Participação social na gestão das unidades de conservação: o papel dos conselhos gestores na Flonado Tapajós e na Resex Tapajós-Arapiuns.In: ANDRADE, D. F. C.; SPÍNOLA, J. N. O Rio que nos une: Uso e Gestão na Floresta Nacional do Tapajós e Reserva Extrativista Tapajós. Brasília: ICMBio,2022. p. 93-106.
• SILVA JUNIOR, S. R.; MANESCHY, M. C.; RIBEIRO, T. G.; SILVA, T. I. Desafios da gestão participativa de recursos naturais em uma Reserva Extrativista Marinha no Pará. Novos Cadernos NAEA, v. 21, n. 2, p. 173-191, 2018.
• TORO, J. B.; WERNECK, N. M. D. Mobilização social, um modo de construir a democracia e a participação. Brasil: Unicef, 1996.
• VARGAS, G.M. Conflitos sociais e socioambientais: Proposta de um marco teórico e metodológico. Sociedade & Natureza, Uberlândia, v. 19, n2. 2, p. 191-203, dez. 2007. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1982- 45132007000200012 Acesso em: 08 jan 2019.
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S1982- 45132007000200012

• 1
  - According to Silva et al. (2022), currently the Tapajós-Arapiuns Resex Deliberative Council is made up of 57 seats, 37 of which are held by Community associations and 20 by entities of the public sphere and of civil society.
• 2
  - To meet its expenses, Tapajpoara is heavily dependent on the monthly contribution of the families living in the Resex which, at the time of data gathering, was R$ 2.00 (2 Brazilian reais) per family (ICMBIO, 2016).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 July 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  17 June 2021
• Accepted
  20 Nov 2022