Sustainable Territorial Development in a Brazilian Marine
Reserve: Is it feasible?
Rodrigo Rodrigues de Freitas1, Cristiana Simão Seixas1
1
Center for Environmental Studies and Research / Campinas State University (NEPAM/UNICAMP), Rua dos
Flamboyants, 155 – Cidade Universitária Zepherino Vaz, Campinas – SP - Brasil. CEP: 13083-867,
[email protected].
Territorial Sustainable Development and Protected Areas
The territorial development theory emerged in the beginning of 1980s as a rural
development approach seeking to overcome technocratic analysis centered in biophysical
environment aptitudes (Tonneau e Vieira, 2006). This approach is also an answer to the Fordist
economic model, which is based in industrialized centralization independent of the spatial
context (Vieira, 2010). This approach supports the emergency, in territorial level, of new
strategies to the development of productive systems based in the valorization of environmental
and cultural singularities in the face of homogenization present in the globalized world
(Pecqueur, 2009). Territorial Development has been criticized by its strong focus in the
socioeconomic dimension of development, failing to properly explore the ecological dimension
(Andion, 2007). The Sustainable Territorial Development (STD) is an approach under
construction that brings ecodevelopment paradigm (Sachs, 1983; Vieira, 2005) into territorial
development. In this sense, adaptive co-management could contribute to the advancement of
research in STD studies based in institutional theory and collective action (Carrière e Cazella,
2006; Abramovay, 2010).
The proposal of collaborative (co-)management has been recently integrated with the
adaptive management approach into the concept of adaptive co-management (Olsson et al.
2004). Adaptive management of natural resources (Holling, 1973; Walters, 1986) treats
management systems as experiments and policies as hypothesis in face of uncertainty present in
socio-ecological systems. Natural resource co-management conceptualization (Pinkerton, 1989;
Berkes, 2009), in turn, has as basic characteristic the sharing of power and responsibility
between the resources users and State or other interest groups (Armitage et al. 2007).
This research explores the relationship between the adaptive co-management
perspective and STD (Vieira, 2005 e 2010; Seixas et al., 2010) in the context of Protected
Areas. In Brazil, the National Program of Protected Areas (PNAP, 2006) is oriented by the
creation of integrated strategies for conservation and development. Nevertheless, many
Protected Areas were designated as environmental compensation to the potential impacts of
large enterprises that generates conflicts with local populations (e.g. Diegues, 1998; Almudi and
Kalikoski, 2009).
The objective of this study was to investigate the challenges and opportunities for STD
deriving from ‘game of actors’ (stakeholders) analysis in the creation of a Commitment Term
between Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and two communities
of coastal artisanal fisheries (Tarituba and Mambucaba at Paraty and Angra dos Reis
municipalities, respectively, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil). Game of actor analysis in the
promotion of institutional change have been undertaken in the context of wine territories
(Flores, 2007) and in the action of Non Government Organizations (NGOs) promoters of
agroecology (Andion, 2007).
Game of actors analysis seeks to explain the genesis of conflicts, representations and
cooperations between the social actors to promote changes in status quo which are attuned with
STD theory (Vieira and Cazella, 2006). The Territorial Prospective is product of game of actor’s
analysis and will be used to better comprehend the challenges and opportunities to STD arisen
from this process. Fieldwork was carried out along eighty days from February 2011 to January
2013 and consisted of open interviews with artisanal fisheries, participation in trawling and gill
net fisheries and in seven meetings regarding the Commitment Term. In March 2012, fourteen
semi structured interviews were performed with artisanal fishery experts at the communities
surveyed.
The case study: Game of actors and institutional change
The Ecological Station (ESEC) of Tamoios is a Marine Reserve under ICMBio
management and designated by Decree no 98.864/90. “Ecological Stations” enables scientific
research and does not need public consultation to be designated (Law nº 6.902/81 and SNUC,
2000). Attending to co-localization of Nuclear Plant and Ecological Stations policy (Federal
Decree 84.973/80), these Marine Reserves were designated to monitor biophysical
environmental quality of Ilha Grande Bay, due the existence of Angra I and II Nuclear Plant.
The ESEC Tamoios is located in Angra dos Reis and Paraty municipalities, South of Rio de
Janeiro State (Brazil) and is composed by 29 islands, slabs, rocks and it´s 1 Km surrounding
(IBAMA, 2000).
Tarituba is located in the north of Paraty city and Mambucaba Microregion, here called
Mambucaba, in south of Angra dos Reis Municipality. The economic activities of the
investigated communities include artisanal fishery, tourism, work as staff in Nuclear Plants and
rental of households for tourists. In Brazil, artisanal and industrial fisheries are considered
professional fisheries, and the first uses small sized fishing boats (up to 9 m), aluminum and
fiber boats or wooden canoes.
Amateur fisheries are mostly spearfishing practitioners and occasional fishers that use
line and rods and/or “tarrafa” (castnets) and “pulsar” in rivers and coasts. The 430 dwellers of
Tarituba (around 1,5% of Paraty population; IBGE, 2012) are organized in the “Associação de
Moradores de Tarituba” (AMOT). Their 20 artisanal fisher use trawling and gill net as the main
gears and are affiliated in the Fisheries Association of Paraty (Colônia). Mambucaba has around
31% of Angra dos Reis population (IBGE, 2012) and is divided as ‘Vila Histórica de
Mambucaba’ (900 dwellers), ‘Parque Mambucaba’ (36.000 dwellers) and ‘Praia Vermelha’
(350 dwellers). Parque Mambucaba was formed by workers that built Angra I and II Nuclear
Plants during the decade of 1970 and 1980 and are mostly amateur fisheries. There are 36
artisanal fishers in Mambucaba that use mainly gill nets. Since the creation of ESEC Tamoios,
fisheries are allowed only 1 Km after the Sandri island (around 2 Km from Praia Vermelha),
Algodão island (less than 1 Km from Vila Histórica de Mambucaba) and Comprida island (less
than 1 Km from Tarituba), where the main fishing grounds are located (Begossi et al., 2009).
Fishers with rowing and motor boats, even in days of calm sea, are unable to reach offshore
away from this island.
Since 2008, ESEC Tamoios has started its implementation and with support from
IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) started to
enforce the rules. Artisanal and amateur fishers argue that they are more inspected because they
stay long time in the sea than industrial boats that acts more frequently during night-time when
surveillance operations rarely occurs. A conflict between local fishers and government agencies
has been raised due to: (i) disrespectful approach by IBAMA, (ii) high penalties for fishers and
(iii) less enforcement for touristic vessels. On the other side, owners of over middle-scale
fishery related the IBAMA action with the increase of sardine and shrimp catch occurred since
2010. As a reaction, the Professional and Amateur Fishers Associations of the Angra dos Reis
Forth District (APEPAD) was created in 2008. Motivated by complains from fishers, the
Municipality Council of Paraty with the support of Fishers Association of Paraty and APEPAD,
formally demanded to ICMBio (Process number 02070-003813/2009-08) to allow artisanal and
amateur fishing within ESEC Tamoios. In 2009, fishers´ organizations of Paraty and Angra dos
Reis engaged in the Project Development of Management Systems for Aquaculture and Fishery
in Ilha Grande Bay (GPESCA). Leading this project was the Rio de Janeiro Federal University
(UFRJ), the Foundation Institute of Fishery of Rio de Janeiro State (FIPERJ) and the
Superintendence of Rio de Janeiro State of the Ministry of Aquaculture and Fisheries
(SPRJ/MPA). The GPESCA was fundamental to the fishery sector of Ilha Grande in order to
mature discussions about the social impacts generated by ESEC Tamoios.
In March 2012, IBAMA started to decrease the frequency of surveillance operations and
in April, ICMBio announced to the ESEC Tamoios Advisory Council the Commitment Term as
an alternative to resume the conflict in the most affected communities: Tarituba and
Mambucaba. The Commitment Term is a legal instrument created by ICMBIO that establish
some rules, usually based on local rules to allow traditional populations affected by restrictive
Protected Areas to access and use resource within such areas. The Commitment Terms must be
periodically reviewed, after evaluation of its performance, based on the results of environmental
monitoring. Advised by the Coordination of Territorial Conflict Management of ICMBio, the
ESEC Tamoios Officers carried out five meetings in the communities. These meetings aimed to
explain the steps for building a Commitment Term. Recent research (Lopes et al, 2013)
proposes the exclusion of only the Sandri and Comprida Islands from the ESEC Tamoios.
Figure 01 synthesizes cooperation and conflicts between actors to promote institutional change
at ESEC Tamoios throughout the evolution of the Commitment Term.
Figure 01
Figure 01 – Game of Actors to elaborate the Commitment Term between artisanal
fisheries and Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation, with featured (bold) to
the members of Advisory Council of the Ecological Station of Tamoios.
The social actors engaged in negotiating institutional change understands that the
Commitment Term represents a legal path to transform ESEC Tamoios into an instrument for
fisheries management. The Navy and the SPRJ/MPA strengthened its operations in regularizing
vessels and artisanal fisheries documents of Tarituba and Mambucaba fishermen. The FIPERJ
supported the Tarituba fishery registration, being part of the Work Group jointly with the
Fishery Association, the Municipality Council of Paraty, AMOT and APEPAD. Artisanal
fishers and AMOT understand that only artisanal fishers should be included in the Commitment
Term, because they are traditional. Mambucaba organizations (APEPAD and “Associação de
Moradores da Vila Histórica de Mambucaba – AMAM”) understands that amateur fishers
should be included in the Commitment Term. This situation has stalled the process of building
the Commitment Term and Mambucaba now has their insertion considered after the experience
in Tarituba has been implemented.
Territorial Prospective
The diversity of social actors present in Mambucaba makes the linking to tradition as a
criteria for participation a challenge for the development of the Commitment Term. Amateur
fisheries and tourism are developed by many professional fishermen that abandoned fisheries
after surveillance operations started. Moreover, to avoid the bureaucracy in acquiring
professional fisheries licensing, many artisanal fishermen opted for amateur fisheries licenses,
which are obtained through as simpler process. The Ilha Grande Bay context makes the situation
more complex than first Commitment Terms designed in the Amazonian context. Despites the
inadequacy of the traditional criteria to grant exclusive rights to artisanal fisheries, it remains
the negotiation of rights and duties between State and Civil Society (Young, 2010). Artisanal
fisheries management in the Ilha Grande Bay requires a multilevel organization of actors
(Berkes, 2007) linked by a common project to build a territory (Pecqueur, 2006). Territorial
development dynamics presupposes cooperation between actors with different interests, but
convergent in some points so as to formulate new projects (Carrière e Cazella, 2006). The
geographic proximity between actors of this project is capable to generate learning and
innovation (Pecqueur, 2006). The common project to build a territory in Ilha Grande Bay must
act systemically to improve artisanal fishery by dealing with its main threat (GPESCA, 2011).
According to Seixas e Davy (2008), integrated development and conservation projects
may begin after a crisis or may take advantage of a window of opportunity. The crisis generated
by the conflicts described above created opportunities to build a Fisheries Participatory
Monitoring Research Program in Ilha Grande Bay. This Program is expected have as objective
the certification of fish quality from artisanal fisheries in a territory build through learning and
collaboration between their participants. Following Armitage et al. (2009), adaptive comanagement places explicit attention in learning (experiential and experimental) and
collaboration (vertical and horizontal). In experiential learning, the systems should establish
monitoring systems with indicators provided by user’s experience. Experimental learning, on
the other side, are programmed experiments, delineated, accompanied and statistically tested by
actors involved (Walters, 1986). To participate in the Research Program, artisanal professional
and amateurs fishers should have permission to fish inside ESEC Tamoios with small size
vessels and using fishing gears with little environmental impact. In turn, fishers could help
managers by: (i) Enforcing rules: to act as fishing management instrument, ESEC Tamoios
should enforce the rule over middle-scale fishery and trawling bans. The exclusive supervision
by State of property institutions demand high transactional costs to be enforced (Bromley,
1989). Programs as the Voluntary Environmental Agent of the Environment Minister, for
example, could allow fishers issue infraction notes. (ii) Collecting and analyzing data: for
carrying out exams of fish quality (physiological and radiological, for example), specimen
would be collected and sent periodically to laboratories credentialed in the Research Program.
As a participatory monitoring program, joint procedures of collecting and interpreting data by
its participants are requested for learning.
Provide reliable information about the Nuclear Plant impacts in the marine and coastal
resources are an assignment of ESEC Tamoios. The certification of origin for fish caught by
artisanal fisheries, when valued by consumers with social and environmental awareness, may
contribute to develop local economy. This may be a territorial strategy of development which
confers consumer an active role in the choice by local fish instead of exotic shrimp and fishes
(e.g. Litopenaeus Vannamei, Pangasius hypophthalmus) commercialized at prices up to three
times lower. Paraty´s society had an experience nationally recognized of territorial
development, obtaining the Cachaça Rum Certificates of Designation of Origin. The association
of different specific products in a place enables to establish the hypothesis of the basket of
goods and services capable of generating a territorial quality rent to the participants of this
initiative (Pecqueur, 2006). In conclusion, at least in theory, in the case of Ilha Grande Bay, it
not only feasible, but necessary, to implement integrated strategies of conservation and
development into the ESEC Tamoios.
Keywords: Marine Protected Areas, Adaptive Co-Management, Artisanal Fishery.
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