Editorial

Editorial ReGIS 2018, Vol.4, n.

Multidimensional impacts of a hydropower reservoir on indigenous communities: displacement, division and pilgrimage among the Tuxá people of the Bahia state, Brazil

Due to the construction of the Itaparica Hydroelectric Plant in 1988, the Tuxás were displaced from their lands and resettled, generating internal conflicts and various socio-environmental impacts. Historically dedicated to agriculture and fishing, the resettlement of Tuxás changed their livelihoods, affecting nutrition and their relationship with their livelihoods. For those who still have access to fishing on the São Francisco River, the availability of fish has been reduced as a result of water polluting eutrophication, due to the disposal of sewage and fertilizers. The results include new elements, often disregarded, to reexplore the socio-environmental trade-offs of the installation of hydroelectric plants in Brazil. He concludes by proposing alternative perspectives (mainly from the bottom up), to rethink the delicate balance between economic progress driven by energy generation in Brazil and also the negative impact on the livelihood of the country's most vulnerable communities.Due to the construction of the Itaparica dam in 1988, the Tuxá people were displaced and resettled. This generated internal conflicts and several socioenvironmental impacts. The resettlement of the Tuxá people, historically dedicated to agriculture and fishing, altered their ancestral identities and livelihoods. For those who still have access to fishing activities on the banks of the São Francisco River, fish availability has diminished given the water-pollution eutrophication from sewage and fertilizers discharge. The impacts of the dam on the Tuxá people are complex and include new identity-related elements. These are often disregarded when assessing the socioenvironmental trade-offs associated with the installation of hydroelectric plants in Brazil. We propose alternative perspectives (mainly bottom-up) to transform indigenous tacit knowledge regarding dams impacts on traditional communities into explicit, instrumental knowledge for policymaking. We also rethink the delicate balance between economic progress driven by renewable energy generation in Brazil and the negative impact this progress may have on the livelihoods of one of the country's most vulnerable communities from a socioenvironmental point of view. Methodologically, this work is the result of a mixed-methods analysis. We triangulate qualitative data (resulting from in-depth interviews and the reconstruction of life stories through focus groups conducted with the Tuxá people) with quantitative data extracted from a series of secondary sources, including government sources, among others

The Role of Women in Rural Livestock: Which Women? Which Livestock?

We explore the conceptual and empirical limitations of the question about “the role of women in rural livestock production” as well as the widespread assumption that women in livestock are subsistence or smallholder farmers. While this is correct in many situations, “essentialist” development discourses often disregard new demographic trends and the heterogeneity of live-stock production systems. Our research, which focuses on the livelihoods of women involved with livestock production in the Pampas’ grasslands of Brazil, proposes: 1) to critically analyse some of the most widely spread assumptions about women involved in beef livestock production, including the belief that women are naturally protective of the environment, or that they need to be “empowered” through the assignment of even more functions (workload) to thrive, and 2) to identify some of the common traits that our studied women do, in fact, share. Through a mixed-methods approach combining a literature review with in-depth interviews and participant observation, we dismantled some myths while confirming other common traits (only valid to the cases studied). Shared traits are more related to what women do under certain circumstances (family situation, division of labour, etc.) than to what women are by definition and include the responsible use of credit lines; the positive cost-benefit equation of respecting women’s right to own land and cattle and to make their own productive decisions; the demo-graphic contribution of rural women as a response to the increasing masculinisation and ageing of the rural population in the Pampas; the importance of supporting sustainable livestock production strategies vis-à-vis the dramatic land use and climate changes impacting the region, and the fact that women, in spite of many advancements, only take the lead when there is no father, husband or brother around to dispute power

Climatic and socio-economic risks perceptions and adaptation strategies among livestock family farmers in the Pampa biome

No contexto da modernidade industrial em crise, a capacidade adaptativa aos novos riscos climáticos e socioeconômicos passa pelo estudo da percepção e da compreensão desses riscos. Por meio de entrevistas com bovinocultores familiares da Argentina, Brasil e Uruguai, o presente trabalho descreve suas percepções e as estratégias de adaptação face aos riscos climáticos e socioeconômicos que enfrentam no bioma Pampa. Os resultados confirmam que não existe um "pecuarista clarividente" que seja capaz de realizar previsões totalmente corretas sobre os futuros cenários climáticos. As famílias entrevistadas percebem com muito maior facilidade os riscos familiares, econômicos e institucionais que ameaçam diretamente a sustentabilidade de sua atividade no curto prazo. Confirmamos que a passagem das situações de risco à percepção do risco está condicionada por barreiras sociais e cognitivas, e isso dificulta as formas de se adaptar e equacionar os conflitos inerentes às mudanças globais nas sociedades contemporâneas.In the context of the crisis of industrial modernity, adaptive capacity to new climatic and social-economic risks depends on the study of the perceptions and understanding that the involved actors have of those risks. Through interviews with family farmers from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this paper describes how they perceive and respond to social-economic and climatic risks. Results confirm that social and perceptive barriers limit the understanding of climatic risks, which are experienced gradually and in the long term. Accordingly, farmers are not farseeing ("clarividente") actors, and are thus unable to accurately foresee future climatic scenarios. On the other hand, beef producers from the South American Pampas do perceive family, economic and institutional risks threatening their productive activities and their livelihoods in a more direct, short-term manner, and do act to face them. This study confirms that the passage from risky situations to an effective perception of the risk is conditioned by social and cognitive barriers, which negatively affects the management of global change-related conflicts in contemporary societies.En el contexto de la crisis de la modernidad industrial, la capacidad adaptativa a los nuevos riesgos climáticos e socioeconómicos solamente se hace posible por medio de la percepción y de la comprensión de esos riesgos. Por medio de entrevistas con ganaderos de carne bovina de corte como principal fuente de ingresos, este trabajo describe las percepciones de ganaderos familiares del bioma Pampa de Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay sobre los riesgos climáticos e socioeconómicos que enfrentan. La investigación confirmó que no existe un ganadero clarividente y que sea capaz de realizar previsiones totalmente correctas sobre los escenarios climáticos futuros, que suceden a largo plazo. Las familias ganaderas entrevistadas perciben con mayor facilidad los riesgos familiares, económicos e institucionales que amenazan la sustentabilidad de su actividad y de su modo de vida manera mas directa, en el corto plazo, e actúan para enfrentarlos. Este trabajo confirma que el pasaje de situaciones de riesgo a la efectiva percepción de esos riesgos está condicionada por barreras sociales y cognitivas, lo que dificulta las formas de adaptarse y administrar los conflictos inherentes a los cambios globales en las sociedades contemporáneas

Entrevista:: Joan Martinez-Alier

Nesta seção de entrevistas da Revista “Sustentabilidade em Debate” nosso convidado especial é Joan Martinez-Alier, um dos maiores expoentes da economia ecológica. Martínez-Alier é professor aposentado da Universidade Autônoma de Barcelona (UAB), onde ministrou disciplinas de economia e história econômica. Foi pesquisador do Saint Antony’s College, em Oxford, e professor visitante da FLACSO, Equador. Membro fundador, e presidente no período 2006-2007, da Sociedade Internacional de Economia Ecológica (ISEE) e da Associação Européia de Economia Ambiental. Também foi membro do comitê científico da Agência Européia do Ambiente. Autor de vários livros, entre os quais se destaca “O Ecologismo dos Pobres” com publicação em vários países, inclusive no Brasil (São Paulo: Contexto, 2007 ”“ 1ª. edição) que já está em segunda edição revisada e atualizada. Atualmente, Alier coordena o projeto europeu EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade) no ICTA, UAB. A entrevista está estruturada em quatro tópicos: 1) Crise econômica e os novos desafios para a economia; 2)Energia e bens primários; 3) Economia Ecológica e 4) Ecologismo dos Pobre

Annus Horribilis - 2020

Annus Horribilis - 2020Annus Horribilis - 202

Challenges of performing socio-environmental interdisciplinary research: the experience of the Brazilian Research Network on Climate Change (Rede CLIMA)

How can you move a team of scholars of the most varied academic backgrounds out of their multidisciplinary comfort zone and towards genuine interdisciplinarity (integration and collaboration) in the climate change research field? This was the challenge that a project faced concerning the climate change perceptions of smallholder farmers from four Brazilian biomes (Amazonia, Cerrado, Pantanal, and Semiarid region), coordinated by the Brazilian Research Network on Climate Change (Rede CLIMA). Interdisciplinary clashes among scientists went well beyond semantics and reached the core of concepts such as perception, resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity and even climate change. Challenges included thinking collectively about a problem with so much ambiguous and contradictory knowledge, conflicting interests, and diverging epistemologies. This case study - which focused on the internal debate about climatic change apparent “misperceptions” by family farmers - confirmed that there is no blueprint for interdisciplinary climate change research projects, as well as the clear need for project-specific and context-sensitive research strategies. Critical factors going into successful interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration included early involvement of different groups (such as researchers, decision-makers, and local actors and stakeholders) as essential for finding common objectives and priorities. The experience of Rede CLIMA confirmed that the barriers to successful climate change adaptation (such as the mutual incomprehension or distrust between scientists themselves, and between scientist and end-users) could be overcome by creating collaborative enterprises. The co-creation of science, which included switching roles between knowledge producers and end-users, facilitated horizontal work and the identification of climate-related risks among family farmers. 

Mulheres e Sustentabilidade:: Ana Toni, Mara Régia, Marina Grossi, Thais Corral e Sandra Di Croce

No início de 2012, em um painel de alto nível da ONU sobre “SustentabilidadeGlobal”, os 22 líderes mundiais que redigiram o relatório Pessoas Resilientes, PlanetaResiliente: o caminho que vale a pena seguir - debatido também na Rio + 20 -argumentaram que as mulheres são fundamentais para o desenvolvimentosustentável. Mas, alertaram que, para valorizar esse papel, a igualdade de gêneroe o empoderamento das mulheres devem alcançar uma dimensão mais significativano âmbito econômico. “A persistente desigualdade de gênero tem que serabordada como parte de qualquer virada séria em direção ao desenvolvimentosustentável”, afirmou o painel. Infelizmente, fora das recomendações de órgãoscomo a ONU, a realidade ainda está longe de ser a ideal. No mundo atual, mulheresde todas as idades, culturas e condições sociais enfrentam os maiores desafiossocioeconômicos e culturais

Mulheres e Sustentabilidade

Mulheres e Sustentabilidad