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Local vulnerability as an advantage: mangrove forest management in Pará state, north Brazil, under conditions of illegality

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Abstract

When ecosystems are threatened or scientific knowledge of the effects of human action is uncertain, legislative prohibition is often adopted. This paper examines how the criminalization of mangrove tree use affects ecosystem management outcomes. We explore the biological, economic and social sustainability effects of the legal ban on mangrove use on the coast of Bragança, Pará, north Brazil. There are two main categories of mangrove users in this area: firstly, local subsistence users who also derive some financial incomes from mangrove sale. Their mangrove use is intertwined with household livelihood strategies and they display self-initiated planning and action towards sustainable management; secondly, more “mobile”, purely commercial users who are responsible for most commercial mangrove exploitation and who employ regionally sequential, predatory resource exploitation strategies. These users are typically based at some distance from the exploited areas and share neither local livelihood strategies nor sustainability agendas. The current outright ban on any utilization of mangrove flora seems to undermine biological sustainability, is economically inefficient and generates normative insecurity, conflict and social polarization. The ineffectiveness of the outright legal prohibition of mangrove tree use in terms of sustainable coastal management leads us to investigate alternative management options. We suggest that the legalization of local mangrove utilization and the strengthening of local users’ rights and responsibilities to control outsiders in a co-management framework, as proposed in the Brazilian extractive reserves (RESEX) approach, is most likely to advance ecologically, economically and socially sustainable mangrove management. It is demonstrated that a legal recognition of local entitlements to mangrove trees would reduce social vulnerability and therefore move forest management outcomes into more desirable directions.

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Notes

  1. Own translation

  2. Gammage et al. (2002) analyze fuel wood consumption in El Salvador, Maseral et al. (1997) look at Mexican, and Gaafar (1994) at Sudanese fuel wood consumption. All three studies find that over 90% of rural households depend on wood fuel.

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Acknowledgements

The research was conducted under the Brazilian–German Scientific Cooperation Agreement and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF) as part of the programme “Research Focus on the Ecology of Tropical Coastal Areas: Mangrove Management and Dynamics” (no. 03F0154A). This is MADAM publication No. 64. We thank Ulf Mehlig, Gesche Krause, Virginia Burkett and one anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zentrum für Marine Tropenökologie (ZMT), Bremen and Mangrove Dynamics and Management Programme (MADAM), Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Marion Glaser & Uta Berger

  2. MADAM/UFPA, Rua Alameida Leandro Ribeiro, s.n. Aldeia, CEP 68600000 , Bragança, Pará, Brazil

    Rosangela Macedo

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  1. Marion Glaser
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  2. Uta Berger
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  3. Rosangela Macedo
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Correspondence to Marion Glaser.

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Marion Glaser studied Economics and Political Science at the University of Cologne, Germany, the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and obtained her MSc in Development Studies and her PhD in Rural Sociology from the University of Bath, UK. Long-term, technical cooperation work in agriculture, forest management and social planning in Bangladesh and Belize followed. Her focus on the human use of natural resources continues at the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT) at the University of Bremen, where she is the coordinator of the Brazilian-German socio-economic research group in the Mangrove Dynamics and Management (MADAM) programme. Current work focuses on participatory planning and transdisciplinary sustainability analysis in natural resource management.

Uta Berger graduated as an electrical engineer from the Technical University of Dresden. She then became a scientific staff member at the pharmaceutical/biological faculty of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena (Department of Theoretical Ecology) where she obtained her PhD in chemistry. Since 1996, she has been head of the study group “Theoretical Ecology/Modelling” with the MADAM Programme at the ZMT at the University of Bremen, Germany, and has undertaken a wide range of teaching assignments and research in this field.

Rosangela Macedo graduated as a forester from the Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias do Pará (FCAP) in Belém, Pará, and concluded postgraduate work on rural household strategies and sustainable development at the Federal University of Pará in the Departamento de Estudos sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentãvel da Amazônia/Núcleo de Estudos sobre Agricultura Familiar (DAZ/NEAF). She has undertaken research assistance assignments on forest management planning, participatory diagnostic and forestry inventory work and is currently preparing for further postgraduate study.

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Glaser, M., Berger, U. & Macedo, R. Local vulnerability as an advantage: mangrove forest management in Pará state, north Brazil, under conditions of illegality. Reg Environ Change 3, 162–172 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-003-0057-4

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