Logging Community-Based Forests in the Amazon: An Analysis of External Influences, Multi-Partner Governance, and Resilience

Abstract

Over the last few years, forest-based communities have faced two different but related phenomena. On the one hand, they have become more integrated with global economies, accessing regional and international markets. On the other, they have been pressured by economic groups into becoming part of the ecologically unequal exchange that exports natural resources and generates social and environmental problems at a local level. However, within new approaches to managing common-pool resources in common properties such as sustainable-use protected areas, communities are finding their own ways to be resilient and to face the two phenomena that are part of the same global economic system. Communities have built a multi-partner governance system for forest management and community development that involves agents from the civil society, state and market. Accordingly, multi-partner governance has proven to be a strategy to protect community-based forests against increasing timber market pressure. The question that then emerges is, to what extent has multi-partner governance been effective in supporting forest-based communities to be resilient and to face pressures from the global timber market in forests under community use? The aim of this paper is to analyze forest-based community resilience to the global economic system in situations where common properties are under governance of multiple stakeholders. The research is based on a singular case study in the Tapajós National Forest, Brazilian Amazon, which is a sustainable-use protected area with 24 communities involved in a multi-partner governance system. The article shows that forest-based communities under pressure have been resilient, and facing the global economic system have created a community-based cooperative for managing timber and engaging all partners in the process to improve their collective action. The cooperative provides timber sales revenue that supports community development both through diversification of agroforestry production and building of infrastructure as collective benefits.

The productive autonomy of public forest-dwellers in the Amazon: two case studies of community timber management

“…The establishment of partnerships has contributed to the implementation of the CFM in the Amazon (ESPADA; SOBRINHO, 2019;LIMA, 2018;MEDINA;POKORNY, 2014;WALDHOFF, 2014). However, they cannot result in the loss of autonomy of communities in accessing the natural resources on their own (MEDINA, 2012).…”

Análise Financeira da Produção de Cernambi na Floresta Nacional Do Tapajós com a Ferramenta Green Value

“…Uma iniciativa na região amazônica que recebeu considerável assistência técnica e financeira do governo do Brasil para a implementação de manejo florestal comunitário é a Cooperativa Mista da Floresta Nacional do Tapajós (Coomflona), no oeste do estado do Pará. A experiência da Coomflona é largamente conhecida entre estudiosos e pesquisadores interessados em temas relacionados ao processo de conservação ambiental e desenvolvimento na região amazônica, sendo por muitos considerada uma iniciativa de sucesso no manejo florestal comunitário para a produção de madeira legal e sustentável (Espada & Vasconcellos Sobrinho, 2019;Humphries et al, , 2020.…”

Do Mil ao Milhão: Estudo de Caso do Manejo Florestal Comunitário na Floresta Nacional do Tapajós

“…Na Floresta Nacional do Tapajós (FLONA do Tapajós), os moradores locais, por meio da COOMFLONA 4 , têm sido capazes de gerenciar um complexo empreendimento de manejo florestal comunitário com estabelecimento de um modelo de governança que envolve um arranjo de parceiros governamentais e não governamentais (Espada & Vasconcellos Sobrinho, 2019).…”

“…Os eventos, desafiadores pela falta de empreendimentos em escala similar de produção que pudessem servir de referência, foram solucionados graças à forte rede colaborativa estabelecida em prol do manejo florestal comunitário na FLONA do Tapajós (Espada & Vasconcellos Sobrinho, 2019). As dificuldades com o licenciamento de uma serraria na AMF e a crise financeira na cooperativa com aumento da dívida interna e externa constituem o atual desafio da nova diretoria da COOMFLONA que assumiu o mandato em 2020.…”