Elsevier

Applied Geography

Volume 31, Issue 2, April 2011, Pages 564-572
Applied Geography

Participatory GIS in a sustainable use reserve in Brazilian Amazonia: Implications for management and conservation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.11.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Brazil has 109 million hectares of sustainable use reserves (SURs), most of them in Amazonia. In practical terms, SURs are being created to meet several objectives, but this process can and should be improved. The absence of a clear goal and the lack of basic social and biological information for such areas can compromise the goals, frustrate the people demanding the SURs and complicate the selection of the most adequate size, shape and category to be adopted. The data collection process used in the creation and management of protected areas is often compromised by under-funded environmental agencies, a lack of qualified human resources or the unawareness of accessible, quick, simple and inexpensive geographical methodologies able to facilitate such processes. The dissemination of tools and methods oriented to improve the management of and the decision-making process for protected areas in such adverse scenarios is necessary. Here we describe the execution of a participatory geographic information system (PGIS) to gain information on how human populations are living and using natural resources in the Maués State Forest, an SUR in Brazilian Amazonia. The PGIS allowed data acquisition for 415 families, 444 houses, 597 agricultural and animal-raising areas, 138 fishing sites, 106 hunting sites and 225 extraction sites within a short period of time (<than 20 days) and with accessible costs (<US$ 10,000). We classified and located the activities and points being used, the areas under stronger pressure and the hotspots for conservation, estimating that nearly 30% of the reserve was under direct use by its residents. We discuss the conservation implications of our findings and strongly recommend that the collection and mapping of socio-economic information should be prerequisite before the creation of any SURs in Brazilian Amazonia.

Research highlights

► 15 villages, 415 families, 444 houses and 1066 using sites were identified. ► On average, each community used 15 extraction, 9 fishing and 7 hunting sites. ► Residents used 174,694 ha, with an average of 459 ha/family. ► The PGIS was viable, accessible and efficient (<US$ 10,000, and < 20 days). ► PGISs should be done before the creation of reserves in the Brazilian Amazonia.

Introduction

Currently, Brazil has 51 million hectares (ha) of strictly protected areas (hereafter SPAs) and 109 million hectares of sustainable use reserves (hereafter SURs), allowing for varying forms of use or extraction, with biodiversity protection as a secondary objective (ISA, 2009). Most of these areas are located in Amazonia (Jenkins & Joppa, 2009), which represents the largest block of tropical forests in the world, has a crucial role in the maintenance of significant stocks of carbon and may influence the climate of the planet (e.g., Fearnside and Laurance, 2004, Fearnside, 2008). In Brazil, until the end of the 1980s, SPAs were created in larger numbers compared with SURs. However, in the 1990s, with the strengthening of the social movements in the country and its close affinity with national environmental sectors, the number of SURs increased (Rylands & Brandon, 2005). In numbers, and especially in area, the Brazilian Amazonia currently holds the largest portion of SURs in the country (Rylands and Brandon, 2005, Instituto Socioambiental - ISA, 2009).

There is no consensus in Brazilian legislation on the definition of traditional communities, but some tentative regulations consider as traditional those communities whose existence and way-of-life have historically depended on the extraction of natural resources (SNUC, 2000). Such a definition includes, among others, all Indigenous people in the country, plus rubber-tappers (seringueiros) who depend on the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis, brazil-nut collectors (castanheiros) who depend on the tree Bertholletia excelsa, babassu nut and oil extractors (babaçueiros) who depend on the palm Orbignya phalerata, açaí fruit collectors (açaizeiros) who depend on the palm Euterpe oleracea and local fishermen and river-dwellers living in Amazonia (SNUC, 2000). The first extractive reserves in Brazilian Amazonia were created in the early 1990s to secure those traditional communities the right to access the land and its natural resources (except Indigenous people, whose territories have a different designation and legal status). Later on, other similar SURs took shape, such as the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (in Tefé, Amazonas State) and the Rio Iratapuru Sustainable Development Reserve (in Laranjal do Jari, AmapáState). In practical terms, such areas are being created to meet variable objectives, including attempts to: a) solve land tenure conflicts; b) guarantee the exploration of natural resources by traditional human populations; c) alleviate poverty and improve the living conditions of traditional populations; d) preserve traditional economic activities; and, as a secondary goal, e) directly preserve biodiversity.

The creation of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon can and should be improved. Recent studies on the design of protected areas urge the adoption of systematic conservation planning oriented to better define which areas should first be protected, what size and shape are adequate and what information is necessary to support them (e.g., Margules and Pressey, 2000, Pressey et al., 2003, Pressey, 2004, Albernaz and Souza, 2007, Pinto et al., 2008). Both better diffusion and a broad adoption of such strategies are still necessary, especially in the case of SURs, for which the amplitudes of the goals may compromise the real objectives and frustrate the people demanding them. Gaps in basic social and biological information for these areas complicate the selection of the most adequate size, shape and category to be adopted. Socio-economic data should include the following, among others: the profile of the human populations using the natural resources; their demographic densities and their spatial distributions, migratory histories and tendencies; the pressures they face; the percentage of the area already impacted; and estimates on the area necessary to maintain these traditional ways of life. In addition, the biodiversity and ecological processes that must be conserved, the area required to accomplish this conservation, the occurrence of species with economic and conservational concerns as well as their densities, spatial distributions and use viability are also essential data.

Significant efforts were made to identify the priority areas for biodiversity conservation in Brazil (e.g., Ayres et al., 1997, Ferreira et al., 2001, Ministério do Meio Ambiente - MMA, 2002). State and federal agencies dealing with protected areas in the country have also made efforts to set standards for the management of several categories (Galante et al., 2002, Ministério do Meio Ambiente - MMA, 2001, Ferreira et al., 2004). However, paradoxically, there are no well-established technical guidelines or protocols on how to create these protected areas. In other words, there is information on which areas should be declared protected and how they should be managed, but there is no precise information on what technical criteria must be met to create them.

The data collection used in the creation and management of protected areas is often compromised by under-funded environmental agencies, by a lack of qualified human resources or, still, by an unawareness of accessible, quick, simple and inexpensive geographical methodologies that could improve reserve design and its decision-making process. There are several methodologies for mapping the use of natural resources that can be used for and by traditional populations, varying from highly participatory approaches, such as manual map plotting performed by elders, to more technical ones using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (see, for example, Craig, Harris, and Weiner, 2002, 416 p.; Chapin, Lamb, and Threlkeld, 2005 and McCall, 2008). Participatory GIS (PGIS) is a generic designation for the use of geo-spatial tools and methods oriented to represent people’s spatial knowledge, using physical or virtual media, to help in the learning, discussion and exchange of information, in the analysis and decision-making process or in the promotion of human rights (Rambaldi, Kwaku Kyem, Mbile, & et al, 2005). By using cartographic and participatory mapping techniques supplied with information gained from residents, users and managers, PGIS allows the generation of large volumes of data, including those on the spatial distribution and use of natural resources. In some situations, this can be done quickly and at low costs. There is controversy over the degree of participation involved in such approaches (e.g., Schlossberg & Shuford, 2005), but the technique is useful, and there is a positive perception of its use and diffusion (e.g., Poole, 1999, Craig et al., 2002, McCall and Minang, 2005, Rambaldi, 2005, Rambaldi et al., 2007, Kalibo and Medley, 2007, Lynam et al., 2007).

Although PGIS is useful, is efficient and has increasingly more accessible costs, there are few examples of direct applications of PGIS by traditional populations in Brazilian Amazonia (but see Alechandre and Brown, 1999, Viana et al., 1999, FVA, 2005, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia - IPAM, 2007, Souza et al., 2009, Dias et al., 2010). In 2003, the Brazilian branch of the NGO Conservation International developed a protocol to be adopted in candidate areas to be designed as sustainable use reserves in the Brazilian Amazonia. The protocol included the collection and mapping of basic information on the people living in and using the area and the spatial modeling of that information via GIS. Data acquisition was based on the participation of local residents, users and managers (when existing) who were introduced to a combination of low-cost and short-duration basic mapping and cartography techniques. A technical agreement was established between Conservation International and the Amazonas State Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development (SDS) to provide information needed for parts of the state’s protected area management plans. Between 2003 and 2006, that PGIS protocol was applied in three reserves in Amazonas, including the Maués State Forest (MSF), a sustainable use reserve oriented for timber extraction. Here we present the experience of performing the PGIS protocol in that reserve and discuss its implications for the management and conservation of the area. By presenting our experience, we hope to stimulate similar initiatives, especially those oriented to improve the management and the decision-making process involving protected areas in adverse scenarios, for which there is a frequent lack of personnel, expertise and/or financial resources.

Section snippets

Study site

Maués State Forest (MSF – 03°49′S; 58°17′W) is located in the municipality of Maués (268 km east of the state capital of Manaus) in Amazonas State, Brazil. MSF was created by state decree in July 2003 with an area of 438,440 ha. However, data from 2004 indicated that the correct area should be 400,754 ha, due to overlapping with the adjacent PauRosa National Forest and a few private areas, which should have been excluded from the original decree (Amazonas, 2004). MSF is an SUR managed by

Results

The PGIS in MSF allowed the identification of 415 families living in the 15 communities visited in a 20-day expedition in 2003. Using an average of five people per family, the estimated population density for the entire MSF was 0.47 person/km2. However, because families were established along the rivers, the densities for those areas were in fact higher. Pacoval River had the lowest population density (an average of 1.4 families/km of river), and Parauari had the highest (5.7 families/km of

Execution of the mapping

The PGIS performed in the Maués State Forest was a viable, accessible and efficient methodology to gain basic and important information on how human populations are living and using natural resources in an SUR in Brazilian Amazonia. The methodology enabled data acquisition for 15 communities and 415 families within a short period of time (<20 days) and with accessible costs (<US$ 10,000). Excluding the satellite images (obtained for free) and the cost of the working-hours of the professionals

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the geographer Karen Pessoa, at the time based at SDS, and the forestry engineer Alexsandra Santiago, at the time based at Instituto de Proteção Ambiental do Amazonas, for taking part in the MSF mapping process. Dr. Luke Parry made useful comments on an early version of this manuscript.

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