2023-05-02 16:51:32
At any time, the Provisional Measure (MP) 1,151/2022 may be voted in the Senate, which intends to expand the list of activities targeted for concessions in public forests. In addition to logging, the measure provides for the possibility of handling animals, fishing, the use of biodiversity and genetic heritage, the generation and sale of carbon credits. If approved as it is, the MP follows the presidential sanction. If it is changed, it will be analyzed again by the Chamber.
For the proponents of the proposal, the legal and sustainable extraction of wood cannot compete with illegal and predatory exploitation. It would be necessary to make the concessions more economically attractive. Hence the idea of diversifying them.
The MP amends the Forest Management Law (11.284/2006) and, on this point, ended up rescuing a controversy from 17 years ago, when this rule was created. As in the case of the 2006 law, there are several doubts about the impacts that the MP can bring to the territories of traditional peoples and communities and their official recognition.
risks to communities
Both logging and the other activities provided for in the MP can jeopardize the subsistence and quality of life of these communities, when there is overlap and conflicts over the same areas. There are still several doubts as to whether the MP would bring more difficulties to the official recognition of traditional territories. At least that’s what experience has shown.
The 11.284/2006 brings devices that aim to protect traditional communities and their places of use. Despite this, numerous conflicts between the areas destined for the concession and the traditional territories for use by the communities have been taking place.
According to the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB), in 2020 a total area of 1 million hectares of public forests was under federal concession, divided into 18 management units located in six National Forests (Flonas): three in the Flona do Jamari (RO), four in Flona de Saracá-Taquera (PA), two in Flona de Jacundá (RO), two in Flona do Crepori (PA), four in Flona de Altamira (PA) and three in Flona de Caxiuanã (PA). The SFB is the body responsible for forest concessions in accordance with the legislation.
It is worth remembering, however, that the Flonas can shelter traditional communities, according to the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC). And it is precisely there where concessions are being made that conflicts emerge.
Part of them is related to the non-“recognition” of these populations as “traditional”, despite Decree 6.040/2007 (National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities) characterizing them as “culturally differentiated groups that recognize themselves as such, that have their own forms of social organization, that occupy and use territories and natural resources as a condition for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral and economic reproduction, using knowledge, innovations and practices generated and transmitted by tradition.”
This is what happens, for example, in Flona do Crepori, created in 2006, in the municipality of Jacareacanga (PA), with 740,661 hectares. The communities that inhabit it were not recognized as “traditional” by the Management Plan, which resulted in areas being granted for forest exploitation in territories traditionally used by these communities.
This happened despite these populations descending from rubber tappers who arrived in the region in the first wave of rubber explorers, at the end of the 19th century, and lived on the banks of the Crepori River and mainly the Tropas River, both with stretches within the Flona.
The problem is similar in Flona Saracá-Taquera. In the 2007-2008 Annual Forest Concession Plan (PAOF), which transformed this Conservation Unit (UC) into a priority area for concession, SFB omitted information about the existing traditional communities.
References to quilombola communities lacked their respective titling processes superimposed on the Flona and riverside communities were not even mentioned, in addition to having been left out of the zoning carried out by the Management Plan.
Despite the administrative procedure instituted by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate non-compliance with article 6 of the Public Forest Management Law, the overlap between areas exploited by loggers and traditionally occupied territories within the Flona remains. Roads were opened in the forests traditionally managed by the communities, machines chased away game, important trees for construction and food were cut down.
The State Forests (Flotas) suffer from the same type of problem, which can be illustrated by the case of the Paru Flota. This UC was created by the government of Pará, in 2006, with an area of 3.6 million hectares, covering portions of the municipalities of Monte Alegre, Alenquer, Almeirim, Prainha and Óbidos.
The area has the presence of balateiros, balata extractivists. With the replacement of this raw material by synthetic materials in industry, they began to use it to produce handicrafts. The Flota Management Plan simply ignores these and other extractive communities. Consequently, several conflicts between the concessionaire and these populations emerged.
Historically, indigenous peoples, quilombolas, riverside communities and other family farmers have accessed the Public Prosecutor’s Office when they were unable to create space to influence government decisions, and this happened in almost all cases of forest concessions in Brazil.
This situation signals a gap in the law, which either does not have provisions that prevent the maintenance of local communities or does not have control mechanisms to avoid overlapping concessions to traditional territories.
Faced with so many conflicts, it is imperative that the new law be accompanied by adequate safeguards to protect the rights of traditional peoples and communities. One would expect a regulation that establishes the ownership of the various actors who live and manage forests, and not just for concessionaire companies.
It is essential to recognize their presence in these conservation units granted for forest exploitation, under penalty of continuing to be racist and colonial. The Forest Management Law proved to be a disaster for many communities. It’s time to correct this scenario with the new law, instead of aggravating it.
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