Public policies and social participation in the Amazonian Extractive Reserves: advances, limitations and possibilities

Abstract

The proposition and constitution of Extractive Reserves (Resex) public policy in Brazil occurred in the midst of a scenario in which rubber tappers and other traditional Amazonian populations were overwhelmingly threatened by the power of financial interests in the 1990s. But those socio-cultural categories resisted and became organized, being able to participate, at that time, with political proposals to advance on the regularization of their territories regarding the economic value of the standing forest, and the verticalization of production, although minimally; in other words, the sustainability of their productive processes, among other issues. The methodology for the characterization, the analysis and conclusive aspects of the problematic herein described were made based on documentary and field-produced bibliographical material. The emphasis in the results of the research leans on land regulation with a view to the creation and implementation of Resex, which can be taken as some of the most significant socio-environmental gains among the categories involved in this process. However, as the Conservation Units were emerging, impasses in territorial and administrative management began to take place, mostly brought forth by the very public institutions in charge of the process, namely IBAMA and ICMBIO.