Marine Extractive reserves: advancement or regression?

Abstract

In the 1980s, the rubber tappers' movement in Acre obtained a victory in the search for a new territorial status, concluded in the legal-spatial form of extractive reserves (resex). The social struggle claimed for an agrarian reform different from that advocated by the social organizations of the Brazilian countryside, since vegetal extractivism constituted the main activity within rural pluriactivity. As conservation units, resex manifest the legal recognition of the importance of environmental knowledge in environmental conservation, an objective intrinsically linked to the conservation of traditional ways of life. In the following decade, the creation of resex started in other biomes including two marine resex, of which tehre are 24 today. After three decades, how to evaluate resex? Are they an advance in environmental legislation and political inclusion, by viewing traditional populations as efficient guardians of nature? Or are they a political regression in a neoliberal context? The challenges remain numerous. Management conflicts , as well as environmental and territorial conflicts in relation to other economic activities, arise. The contradictions between the recognition of the knowledge of the contemplated populations and the growing tutelage of the State increase. The latter acts too often as a supporter of major development projects, of major economic actors interests indetriment of local populations. It would be necessary, in order to guarantee the dual mission of the resex, to consolidate the mechanisms of democratic decision, guided by a dialogical process in the interaction with the State. Therefore, the question of the autonomy of resex should be put in the agenda. But if resex status cannot solve so many problems, what can be expected regarding environmental protection along the broad Brazilian coast? To think about real sustainability, it is necessary to think about other ways of using space, in favor of guaranteeing traditional territories in common use.