Environmental Policy, Social Movements, and Science for the Brazilian Amazon

Conference Program with Reports & Video

Conference attendees on November 5, 2009. The conference was being translated from a booth in the back of the room. (Photo by Jason Smith)

The conference was held in Swift Hall. (Photo by Jason Smith)

Mary Allegretti speaks at the "Social Movements and Chico Mendes Legacy for the Sustainable Development of the Amazon" panel. Photo by Jason Smith)

Mary Allegretti talks with Dain Borges (right) of the University of Chicago's Center for Latin American Studies. (Photo by Jason Smith)

Manuela da Cunha served as respondent for the panel on "Science and Technology as a Basis for a New Development Model for the Amazon." (Photo by Jason Smith)

Back to Panel 2

Mary Allegretti

Anthropologist, independent consultant

Extractive Reserves in the Amazon: An Evaluation of Chico Mendes’ Legacy

More than twenty years since the creation of the first Extractive Reserves, how much progress has the Brazilian government made in constructing an efficient model to simultaneously promote environmental protection and eradicate poverty? To what extent social movement led by Chico Mendes continues to influence development policies for the Amazon? Based on information collected by a cooperative research effort done by specialists contracted by the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of the Government of Brazil, the paper addresses the following topics: areas created by year and state; land regularization; social and economic policies; deforestation; management and economic innovative initiatives. The main conclusions are:

Local communities of the Amazon have under their management 87 sustainable conservation units, an area of more than 24 million hectares, which accounts for 4.6% of the legal Amazon, 18% of all regional conservation units and 8% of the forests of the region;
Extractive Reserves are playing an important role in the protection of forest resources in the Brazilian Amazon and deforestation represents less than 2% of the total area;
Life quality has improved inside these areas as a result of public policies for social protection;
innovative industrialization projects are a consequence of partnerships between communities, private and public initiatives;
Land regularization and management plans — requirements for access financial resources — are still an urgent problem to be solved. These accomplishments are the result of more than two decades of intense mobilization, and a commitment to maintaining territories and resources for future generations is one of the challenges for these communities at the moment. New legislation for payment of environmental services is under debate in the Congress and could play an important role in the near future."

Anthropologist, PhD in Sustainable Development from the University of Brasilia. Visiting Professor at the Yale University (Fall 2004), Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago (Spring 2005), Visiting Professor at the University of Florida (Fall 2005), Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Spring 2007). Secretary for the Amazon Region at the Ministry of the Environment in Brazil and Secretary of Planning and the Environment in the State of Amapá. Worked closely with Chico Mendes and developed research about the rubber tappers’ movement and the Extractive Reserves in the Amazon. Awards: UN Global 500 for the Environment, WWF Gold Medal, BWS Environmental Medal, Chico Mendes’s Florestania Award and Ford and Conservation International Environmental Award.