View the complete CCRN’s Halifax Community Story as a PDF

Sadie Beaton, Miranda Cobb, Will Fawcett-Hill, Marla MacLeod, Laura Mather, Tiffanie Rainville, and Satya Ramen

Key messages

• Collective action in an unsustainable social-ecological system can catalyse a shift towards increased community sustainability when supported with financial resources and appropriate local institutions.

• Cross-cultural knowledge sharing and place-based learning are integral to transforming social-ecological systems at the community level.

• Social innovation can lead to transformation when supported by a network of collaborative organisations with a shared set of principles and a united vision to inspire change.

Community profile 

Figure 1: Map of Select Community Gardens in Halifax

Many communities in Nova Scotia rely on food from large chain grocery stores and discount stores year-round. As a secondary source, and seasonally dependent, there are an increasing number of Farmers’ Markets across the province. However, there are several communities in which grocery stores are physically far away, creating a situation where people rely on what’s available at small convenience stores such as those associated with many petrol stations. These stores typically offer prepared, packaged and convenience foods that tend to be high in sugar, salt and fat, and many do not have facilities to offer fresh foods. This exacerbates economic and social inequalities.

Like the rest of North America, the diet of many Nova Scotians features processed and convenience meals, with trends away from whole foods or home cooked meals. However, there is a strong history of growing and preserving livestock and produce in NS, which has been resurging through the food movement over the past decade.

Conservation and livelihood challenges

Unfortunately, several rural and urban Nova Scotian communities face issues with accessing healthy and sustainable foods. The rate of food insecurity in Nova Scotia is the third highest in Canada at 15.4%^(7,4).

Community initiatives

Since the early 2000s, community-based organizations have been taking a closer look at local food systems and working to improve access to healthy, sustainable food. This community story describes the work of four community groups in Nova Scotia’s capital city, Halifax, towards developing positive food environments: i) the Bayers Westwood Family Resource Centre (BWFRC), ii) the Immigrant Settlement Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS), iii) Mulgrave Park gardens and iv) Common Roots’ Urban Farm (CRUF). These groups are linked through their close relationship with the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), an environmental NGO that has been one of the first in Atlantic Canada to begin connecting food systems and environmental issues.

Bayers-Westwood
The Bayers-Westwood community, of Halifax’s West End, is very diverse, consisting of 358 families, including 60% newcomers. These are mostly single parent families, with many living on disability and income assistance. As one community member described, “The food environment is very challenging. There is never enough food, the food bank runs out, and there are hardly any fruit and vegetables available.”

Figure 2: Community Garden at Bayers-Westwood

Since their partnership with EAC, the community garden infrastructure and leadership has grown significantly. Bayers Westwood Family Resource Centre hired a seasonal garden coordinator, implemented a percentage of staff time toward food and garden programs, and established core volunteer roles for the ongoing maintenance and coordination of the garden. As a result, they now have capacity to grow more produce for initiatives like local pop-up markets, making their own garden preserves, and increase garden membership. According to the centre, factors supporting healthy food access include growing space, knowledge and skill, and social support.

ISANS: Glen Forest & Multicultural Community Gardens
ISANS is a community organization that welcomes immigrants to Nova Scotia, offering services and creating opportunities for immigrants to participate in Canadian life. In 2012, ISANS started their first two community gardens; the Glen Forest Garden, followed by the Multicultural Community Garden in 2013. Although vandalism put the gardens at risk, engagement with the EAC has increased the capacity to effectively run the gardens. Community members emphasized the need for social support, indicating a connection between social coordination and food access, such as through the ability to organise seed swaps, bulk food orders and intergenerational language exchanges.

Garden participants often lack basic social supports that affect their well-being, including their mental health and livelihood outcomes. As one participant put it, “In my ideal world… I don’t have to make a decision between chicken and detergent.” As another describes, “I feel better about myself when I am able to buy necessities.”

Mulgrave Park

Mulgrave Park is a vibrant public housing neighbourhood with a rich history, comprised of primarily of African-Nova Scotians, in the north end of Halifax, home to over 250 families. Progress in the park is a community development initiative that seeks to empower the residents through entrepreneurial action that inspires inclusiveness and challenges stigma. One major focus of the initiative is food security, including community gardens. The community has developed 12 accessible raised beds, which were built to address the needs of residents living beside the garden. Due to the multiple intersecting social and economic barriers experienced by the majority of the residents, community members were hesitant to invest in the gardening project. However, the children’s programme, ‘Plants- to-Plates’, was incredibly successful at engaging youth, and many days during the summer kids can be found playing and working in the garden. As a result, 70% of youth involved reported eating more vegetables because of the garden programme which led parents to become more open to the project. One parent had this to say about their children: “They love to help me at the garden, they enjoy watering, and enjoy the veggies that I have ready. :)” and “I have the veggies at the garden so I don’t need to buy. Just pick-up and enjoy and most important, no chemicals!”.

Figure 3: The HUGS Community Garden in Bayers-Westwood.

Common Roots:

Common Roots Urban Farm (CRUF) is a community garden in Halifax, building “a community-built vision of urban agriculture and productive landscapes” (Food Secure Canada, 2014), and along with over 100 individual and community plots, is made up of a market garden, edible landscaping, and places to sit and relax or learn and work together. Unlike the other gardens, Common Roots has a large volunteer capacity and the majority of participants enjoy a mid-range income. Common Roots also engages with newcomers and immigrants, many of who are living on assistance. Through programmes like Deep Roots, they invite newcomers to volunteer on the farm and employ their extensive farming skills in a new climate. In 2017, the first employee hired there came from the Deep Roots programme.

Practical Outcomes

There are, of course, challenges to be met. For example, the ISANS community found that access is also allayed by the availability of culturally appropriate food – that is, food that residents would customarily eat – but food banks don’t often serve culturally appropriate food (or familiar foods). Participants also spoke of lacking skills/knowledge on preparing the different foods. Language and literacy impacted peoples’ ability to buy at the grocery store, and community garden members commented on a lack of transparency in the food system, and an inability to “know what food has chemicals, what is organic, and what is not going to cause harm.”

Government Policy
The policy context for gardens on municipal land in the Halifax region is positive. For example, the proposed Centre Plan for Halifax allows and encourages urban agriculture. There is an Administrative Order within the Halifax Regional Municipality that allows community gardens on municipal land to sell their produce and reinvest the revenue in the garden (i.e. soil). Community development and recreation staff with the municipality may help gardens become established, helping them with the municipality’s application process and facilitating in-kind access to on-site infrastructure such as water or electricity.

Ultimately, food is a topic that connects all of us. Community garden projects and food skills workshops have proven to be great entry points to increased awareness and engagement with food issues. Community food programs are tangible and accessible; they build skills, and enhance a sense of agency alongside social and community connections. “Positive food environments” can also become points of resistance, as community members feel empowered to challenge the status quo⁽¹⁰⁾. Without a doubt, vulnerable populations experience multiple types of marginalisation related to complex power dynamics that create barriers to agency and food security.

Considering a variety of perspectives is beneficial when addressing complex social problems like food security, whether coming from the lens of health, environment, social justice, or even cultural celebration. There is value in linking communities together to explore some of the diverse elements of food security work in an integrated approach, recognising food production as just one variable in a much larger complex system.

This approach has fostered the development and integration of community food programming within various Nova Scotian communities. It has also enabled new cross-sectoral collaborations to emerge, that help address gaps in access to and availability of healthy foods within a more localised food system.

References

Acknowledgements 

Funding for this work was provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada (Innovation Strategy).

View the complete CCRN’s São Luiz Community Story as a PDF

Camila A. Islas, Alice R. de Moraes, Juliana S. African & Cristiana S. Seixas

Key Messages

• Severe land degradation and environmental disasters can act as triggers to new community conservation and development initiatives and as stimulus to existing ones.
• Bridging organizations can foster community initiatives through projects addressing environmental conservation and restoration in parallel to local capacity building and community development.
• Cultural identity plays a central role in engaging communities in projects of nature conservation.

Community Profile

São Luiz do Paraitinga (hereafter São Luiz) is a municipality with about 10,000 inhabitants, located in Eastern São Paulo State of Brazil, near the Atlantic coast (Figure 1). The municipality is situated within the Paraíba Valley, which links the two largest metropolitan areas in Brazil (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). Out of the ~730 km² of the municipality’s area, 10% are encompassed by Serra do Mar State Park, a protected area, and 13% are in its buffer zone. The main land uses/cover are pasture (53%) and fragmented forests (37%), while cattle breeding for dairy, forestry and agriculture are the main economic activities⁽²⁾. The municipality is also embedded in the Atlantic Forest biome – a hotspot for biodiversity conservation, i.e. one of the highly threatened biomes in the world⁽⁵⁾.

Figure 1. A) The State of São Paulo highlighted in the Brazilian map. B) São Luíz do Paraitinga Municipality highlighted in the State of São Paulo map.

The landscape of São Luiz has been shaped by specific material and immaterial cultural features that were strongly influenced by coffee plantations from the early 20^th century and by the Caipira way of life, a local designation to a rural livelihood which involves typical food, music, tales, dances and festivities (see Figure 2).

The city’s architectural ensemble is the largest historical collection of the State’s architectural heritage, and its population proudly keeps alive several displays of immaterial culture⁽³⁾. The local economy currently depends on public services, and the Human Development Index (HDI = 0.690) is among the lowest of the State’s municipalities. In this context, cultural tourism and eco-tourism are promising alternatives for economic development.

Rural communities in Brazil are important SES, specifically in south-eastern states such as São Paulo, where landscapes are highly fragmented and urbanised. Landscapes there sometimes have patches of native vegetation that are especially important to wild animals, serving as habitat and ‘stepping-stones’, which generate various ecosystem services and are also home to human communities and their livelihoods⁽³⁾. The vast majority of rural properties (96%) in the municipality of São Liuz are owned by smallholders⁽²⁾.

In this context lies Catuçaba, a rural district in São Luiz comprising a village with around 1,000 inhabitants and its surrounding rural neighbourhoods. Most inhabitants make their living from small-scale animal husbandry and other smallholding activities⁽³⁾.

Figure 2: Traditional dance presentation at the central square, in front of the main church, during the festivity of the Holy Spirit in São Luiz do Paraitinga, 2016.

Until a few decades ago, the village was partially isolated from the urban center due to poor road access. However, the road connecting the village to downtown was paved by the year 2000, facilitating outsiders’ access and products transportation, and improving the access of villagers and rural inhabitants to infrastructure, education and health. Tourism-related activities have been modestly flourishing in the territory, supported by its beautiful landscape, pleasant climate and historical farms.

Conservation and Livelihood Challenges

Land degradation is longstanding in the region. Agriculture has been practiced since the settlement of the first colonisers in the late 17^th century, in spite of the hilly landscape and low nutrient availability and permeability of the soil⁽²⁾. Economic cycles (cotton, coffee, agriculture and cattle), along with poor soil management techniques, contributed to land degradation, impoverishing the soil, and most recently covering the land with Brachiaria, an invasive exotic grass that feeds the cattle and worsens soil permeability. As a result, cattle productivity has declined and many landowners fell back on other activities to complete their income.

Meanwhile, due to the promises of better job and education opportunities in urban centres, rural out-migration hampered the availability of rural workers and lowered social cohesion. Currently, land degradation in such social context threaten most of the traditional livelihoods.

On January 1st, 2010, São Luiz suffered from a flood of great magnitude, when the river crossing the downtown area raised over 11 meters above its regular level in a matter of hours, largely damaging the historical buildings and affecting the whole population, both urban and rural. Fortunately, there were no fatalities. Other than the high precipitation registered in end-2009, this flood was caused by factors linked to land degradation in rural areas, such as soil compaction in degraded and poorly managed pastures, fires commonly used to clear land, scarcity of forests near watercourses, and human occupation of floodplains.

Community Initiatives^*

In the face of the disaster’s intensity and tremendous material losses, the population of São Luiz showed a remarkable capacity to self-organize in order to cope with the emergency situation and, later, to rebuild and restore the functioning of the city⁽⁵⁾. Since the floods, the territory as a whole has been targeted by diverse projects focusing on forest restoration, agro-ecological production and capacity building.

The 2010 disaster stimulated new and ongoing community initiatives, mostly with the help of local and regional NGOs and government organizations. During the post-disaster reorganization phase, the community actively participated in decisions regarding the reconstruction of historical buildings and other issues. In addition to engineering work conducted at the government initiative, most post-disaster initiatives focused on keeping the vibrancy of local cultural manifestations⁽⁵⁾.

Figure 3: The scenic landscape around Catuçaba district: degraded pastures and patches of biodiversity-rich Atlantic forest covering its hills and valleys.

The community also showed a remarkable sense of place and attachment to both São Luiz, similarly to Catuçaba and its surrounding area (Figure 3). The tragedy seems to have reinforced this sense of place and local people’s capacities of coping and recovering their community life with their own hands, and at the same time acknowledging and being grateful for all the solidarity and help they received from external people and institutions⁽⁵⁾.

One of these community initiatives working to improve conservation and livelihoods was the Comunidade da Vila (Village Community). In 2012, the Learning Community initiative began in Catuçaba. The main goal of the project was to promote an environment for reflection about nature conservation and local development, and to facilitate the planning of collective actions^(1,3). Together with local people, the initiative planned and organised several cultural events and community actions over three years⁽¹⁾. Although the project ended in 2015, the community continued to meet until 2017, focusing on a street market with local products, tourism-related activities and festivities ^(3).

A local NGO, Akarui, has been developing projects for nature conservation integrated with socio-economic development in the region since 2003. After the 2010 flood, their prominence increased as Akarui members’ attachment to and knowledge about the territory, in addition to their technical expertise, led efforts to sustainable development of rural areas of the municipality. Akarui has carried out projects regarding socio-environmental characterisation, forest restoration, agro-ecological transition, pasture management and improvement of farmers’ income. The NGO is still working in the territory, currently expanding their initiatives to encompass environmental education and food security and sovereignty.

After the extreme events of 2010 (flood) and 2013/2014 (severe drought), more community members got interested in taking part in restoration projects, and a growing number are willing to adopt agro-ecological principles to their production chain. An Agenda 21 plan, built through participatory methods for the watershed, including guidelines for its sustainable development, is a featured product of Akuri. The NGO acknowledges rural communities as their main partners⁽²⁾.

Finally, another initiative named Rede para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável do Alto Paraíba (Upper Paraíba River Sustainable Development Network), or REDESUAPA, began their work after the 2010 floods. The network encompasses diverse stakeholders including local leaders, local and state government, local and regional NGOs and researchers, who met voluntarily in the municipality. In addition to project development, REDESUAPA created synergies among ongoing efforts and aimed at influencing public policy based on a systemic view of the territory, promoting ecological restoration, sustainable farming and community-based tourism. For instance, in 2016, REDESUAPA wrote an open letter addressed to the candidates running for Mayor asking for their commitment to priority guidelines for urban and rural sustainable development in the municipality. The network played a key role in the efforts to bring investments of a big project to the region, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The Recovery and protection of climate and biodiversity services in the Paraíba do Sul Basin of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil project is based on Payments for Environmental Services (PES) and other incentives for sustainable land management and conservation in private lands. The members of REDESUAPA are still in touch with each other, but the network itself is on ‘standby mode’. However, the synergies created by REDESUAPA are reflected in a number of other initiatives concerning local development, conservation and ecological restoration.

^*The data and analysis on the social-ecological system of São Luiz and Catuçaba refer to the period 2012-2017. The authors acknowledge that changes have occurred in the system since then. Although they are not analysed here, we have added some information about the current situation, based on non-systematic observation.

Practical Outcomes

The development of initiatives is neither easy nor fast, but they have certainly been flourishing and creating arenas for community learning, empowerment, and development in São Luiz do Paraitinga (including Catuçaba). Although the 2010 flood was an important trigger to various initiatives, it is still unclear how successful they will be in terms of self-maintenance and mitigating the risk of floods in the future.

These bottom-up initiatives have valorized rural livelihoods and fostered opportunities for people to remain in rural areas. Inhabitants have been self-organizing to strengthen the Caipira identity, preserve local traditions (e.g., festivities and foods), and promote local development, with an overall understanding that their good quality of life depends on nature conservation⁽³⁾. Small, low-cost initiatives triggered improvements in the community capacity to organize and act collectively for a common goal⁽⁴⁾, although leadership and broader participation of community members in such initiatives remains a challenge.

Bridging organizations, such as NGOs and university teams, play a crucial role in linking local stakeholders with one another and with outside institutions (i.e. State Environmental authorities and funding agencies), facilitating learning opportunities, fundraising and providing access to technical advisory⁽¹⁾. In the course of creating environments where diverse local and outside stakeholders can interact and collaborate (Figure 4), the initiatives have generated a feedback loop, which is attracting more and more initiatives.

Figure 4: Caipira meeting in January 2017, where members of Catuçaba community and their external supporters discussed local development, nature and culture.

Until 2017, several stakeholders were joining efforts to work synergistically, for instance through REDESUAPA, to positively transform the region’s landscape at the watershed level. The efforts were benefitting from both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, taking into account both local knowledge and technical/scientific expertise, and involving stakeholders with different levels of political power. Above all, these efforts involve a diverse array of individuals who believe in a more sustainable and just society, and struggle year after year to accomplish their vision.

In face of socio-ecological change over the last decade, various community initiatives towards conservation and social development have emerged in São Luiz do Paraitinga^{(3, 4)}. Many tourism-related activities have been developing, especially those regarding ecotourism (e.g., farm hotels and rafting) and cultural tourism (e.g., religious, art and local food festivities). More recently, other community initiatives were established as local markets of agro-ecological products and craft fairs. After the 2010 floods, the municipality drew the attention of many governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) favouring the emergence of new environmental and social initiatives. The success of these initiatives has depended on population engagement and participation, as well as aligning to local demands and inherent dynamics of the local SES. The question ahead may be if and how these initiatives will thrive or perish in the long term, and which factors will determine their course.

References

Acknowledgements

We thank the population of São Luiz do Paraitinga and, in particular, of Catuçaba community, the NGO Akarui, and REDESUAPA for their commitment and availability for our projects. We also thank SSHRC/CCRN, CAPES, CNPq, PREAC/UNICAMP and FAPESP for funding. The project also received a strong support from our entire CGCommons Team (The Commons Conservation and Management group at University of Campinas, Brazil).

View the CCRN’s Maya Zone Community Story as a PDF

Karla Diana Infante-Ramírez, Malloni Puc-Alcocer and *A. Minerva Arce-Ibarra El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Mexico (ECOSUR), *aarce@ecosur.mx and aibarra@dal.ca

Key Messages

• The Maya Zone’s tropical rainforests in Quintana Roo state of Mexico provide many provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services.
• Both the government and the Maya people themselves have their own meanings of conservation and their own motivations for conservation.
• Community conservation initiatives must be part of national and international conservation programs.

Community Introduction

Quintana Roo’s “Maya Zone”, located in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, is a biocultural region with inhabitants who speak the Maya-Yucatec language in their daily lives. The Maya people rely on rainforest resources and agriculture as their main livelihoods. Maya communities also practice slash-and burn-cultivation (“milpa”) which is regarded as a cultural tradition. The communities are organized into common holdings called “ejidos”. Here we focus on the ejidos of Noh Cah and X-Maben (Figure 1), particularly their main towns (“Noh Cah” and “Señor”), with 86 and 3,095 inhabitants, respectively. In socio-economic terms, these communities are highly marginalized.

The Maya Zone is located in well-preserved tracts of tropical rainforest which provides a portfolio of ecosystem services1,2 to the users and communities dependent on it, including: a) provisioning services such as food (e.g., small-scale game, gathering of medicinal plants, and fish from water-filled sinkholes called “cenotes”); b) regulating services such as protection from hurricanes; c) cultural services such as using the sacred “cenotes” for baptism, and recreational inland fisheries; and d) supporting services including CO2 sink source.

The Maya people from these communities utilize these various services, and engage in conservation activities that help to maintain the services. The complex meanings they have for such conservation, as well as their motivations for conservation, are important factors in the social subsystem of the Maya Zone.

Figure 1. Study area in Quintana Roo´s Maya Zone.

Conservation and Livelihood Challenges

The Maya Zone area has been impacted by the effects of climatic variability (climate change). Over the last three decades, people in the communities have reported that rains have not arrived at expected times or in usual quantities. This has affected the productivity of traditional agriculture (“milpa”), a rain-fed system, resulting in insufficient harvests of staple foods to support local needs3. In addition to this challenge, several species are endangered in the region, for instance, the jaguar and the peccary, affecting biodiversity and the local residents.

In the 1990s, the federal government launched an international initiative on biodiversity conservation called the “Mesoamerican Biological Corridor”. However, that conservation program was based on a top-down approach, and hence did not (and still does not) take into account the kind of local conservation activities practiced by the local people. Being descendants of the ancient Maya civilization, and depending heavily on rainforest resources, people in communities of this area still actively look after those resources.

Community Initiative

Local authorities in the Maya Zone actively explore opportunities to receive support for environmental activities. A recent example was the possibility of applying for funding to a federal ‘payment for environmental services’ program. The local authorities recognized that many locals did not understand (from a Western-science perspective) what “an environmental service” was, and thus engaged with the CCRN-ECOSUR team to organize a seminar on ‘what is an environmental service’ and the ‘payment for environmental services’ program. Other seminars have been held, on topics suggested by the local residents and others suggested by the CCRN-ECOSUR team. Another was about “Climatic variability in the Yucatan Peninsula” (Figure 2) and addressed the influence of major weather events, for example the “El Niño Southern Oscillation” (ENSO), which affects mainly primary activities in the region.

These seminars aimed to improve the capacity of the communities in dealing with climate variability. This capacity building is being accompanied by monitoring of the Maya social-ecological system using indicators focused on climate variability and its impact on livelihoods, such as slash and burn-shifting cultivation.

Figure 2. Seminar presentation on “Climatic variability in the Yucatan Peninsula” delivered to inhabitants of Noh cah and “Señor” Maya communities by Karla Infante Ramírez (Photo credit: Karina Chale Silveira).

The capacity building activities that locals and community groups participated in also looked at the local meanings of conservation and motivations toward conservation. The results, presented back to the communities, provide feedback based on their experience and local knowledge (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Presenting results on the meanings of ‘Conservation’ back to Noh Cah inhabitants by Malloni Puc Alcocer. As local people from Noh cah prefer to discuss in the Maya language, Mr. Xool (red cap) worked in the research team as a translator (Photo credit: A. Minerva Arce-Ibarra).

Practical Outcomes

Understanding the meanings and motivations of the Maya people towards conservation is a complex subject. Research results indicate that there are two types of motivations for conservation in these Maya communities, namely extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. The former derives from government-based conservation programs, whereas the latter are people’s own motivations. According to Puc-Alcocer4, two types of conservation of the rainforest are in place in this region: one referring to the conservation programs implemented by the government and the other (the Kanan K’áax) which is a type of Maya community-based conservation. “Kanan K’áax” is a Maya phrase and literally means “to look after the rainforest” (Kanan means ‘look after’ and K’áax means ‘rainforest’).

Local Maya conservation initiatives that are in place need to be included in national and international conservation programs. Therefore, it is suggested that the improved understanding of Maya meanings and motivations for conservation reflected here be taken into consideration by conservation initiatives such as the “Mesoamerican Biological Corridor” and also by state institutions dealing with development programs in the Maya area and elsewhere in Mexico.

References

1. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). Millennium ecosystem assessment synthesis report. Island Press. Washington, D.C.

2. Infante-Ramírez, K. D. and Arce-Ibarra, A.M. (2015). Percepción local de los servicios ecológicos y de bienestar de la selva de la zona maya en Quintana Roo, México [Local perception of the ecological services and well-being of the Maya Zone’s rainforest from Quintana Roo, México]. Investigaciones Geográficas, Boletín del Instituto de Geografía, 2015(86), 67-81.

3. Bello-Baltazar, E. (2001). Milpa y madera, la organización de producción entre Mayas de Quintana Roo. Doctor of Science Thesis in Social Anthropology. Universidad Iberoamericana, México, DF.

4. Puc Alcocer, M. 2015. Conservación comunitaria de la selva maya en los ejidos Noh-Cah y X-maben, Quintana Roo. [Community-based conservation of the rainforest at the common holdings of Noh Cah and X-Maben, Quintana Roo]. Masters Thesis. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur. Chetumal.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Maya people and their local authorities for granting us consent to undertake research on their lands. Our main source of funding came from the SSHRC-CCRN project. We thank all the support received from Saint Mary´s University and CCRN staff. Partial support for our research came from ECOSUR and CONACyT fiscal funds. CONACyT also granted scholarships to pursue the graduate studies of K.D. Infante-Ramírez and M. Puc-Alcocer.

University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil; ¹cristiana.seixas@gmail.com

View the CCRN’s Paraty Community Story as a PDF

Key Messages   

• In Tarituba, participatory monitoring of the fisheries, if implemented, may strengthen agreements and interactions between fishers and the protected area manager and improve decision-making.

• In Praia do Sono, local ecological knowledge was recorded to improve terrestrial resource management and contribute to protected area reclassification.

• In Trindade, conflicts between fishers and protected area managers are escalating due to the lack of the establishment of formal and continuous arenas to promote negotiation regarding resource conservation and resource use inside protected areas.

Community Introduction

Paraty is a coastal municipality (Figure 1) located in Southeastern Brazil with a population of 37,000 (74% urban). The current economy of the municipality is based on tourism, services and fishing. The rural population is distributed among several communities, including those of Caiçara people along the coastline. Caiçara people are of mixed origin (Portuguese colonists, Amerindians and African descendants), undertaking subsistence activities directly related to the exploitation of natural resources, such as fishing, small-scale agriculture, and tourism1.

Paraty encompasses important preserved areas of the Atlantic Forest Biome – a biodiversity hotspot. In fact, there are five protected areas (PAs) in Paraty, each of them imposing different degrees of restrictions to resource users. The Caiçara communities of Tarituba, Praia do Sono and Trindade are affected by those restrictions while at the same time their livelihoods contribute to sustainable use of the forest and the sea. This context is the basis for a dilemma that challenges the restrictive environmental conservation goals of Protected Areas against the livelihoods and social and economic development needs of these three Caiçara communities.

Figure 1: Paraty, Tarituba, Praia do Sono and Trindade (elaborated by Camila Alvez Islas).

Caiçara communities
Tarituba is a community of approximately 430 people located at the north boundary of Paraty municipality (Figure 2). The tropical marine ecosystem adjacent to Tarituba has experienced several changes over the last half century including declining fish stocks, invasion of exotic species, increased water pollution due to land development as well as the development of an offshore oil and gas industry2,3. Community livelihood activities are based on local resources (mainly fish), tourism, and the private sector. Tarituba fisheries take place inside the Ilha Grande Bay.

Figure 2: Tarituba – Ana Carolina Diaz

Praia do Sono is located on the southern coast of Paraty municipality, 25 km from the downtown area. The community (Figure 3) of 320 inhabitants is only accessed by boat or on foot (1 hour walking trail from the nearest road access). Fishing, tourism-related activities, and small-scale agriculture account for most of the local livelihoods1,4.

Figure 3: Praia do Sono Community – Camila Islas

Trindade has about 1,000 inhabitants, of which about 50 are small-scale fishers1,5. The community area overlaps with two Protected Areas – Serra da Bocaina National Park (SBNP) and Cairuçu Environmental Protected Area. Tourism and fisheries are important components of local livelihood1 (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Trindade Community – Luciana Araujo

Conservation and Livelihood Challenges

In Tarituba, the main fishing spots are inside Tamoios Ecological Station, which is a no-take Protected Area (PA). Tamoios Ecological Station was established in 1990 as a compensatory measure for the nuclear power plant of Angra dos Reis, but was only implemented in 2008. The PA has generated serious conflicts between fishers and the PA managers, because Tamoios Ecological Station was created in a top-down manner, restricting local livelihoods2,3.

Praia do Sono is located inside the Juatinga Ecological Reserve (REJ), created in 1992 to protect the Atlantic Forest and Caiçara communities living inside this area. The “Ecological Reserve” is not a category currently recognized within Brazil’s National System of Protected Areas established by law in 2000 (SNUC), hence REJ is currently under a reclassification process. This reclassification will affect Praia do Sono, as it will either fall under a more restrictive management system or lead to an arrangement that allows for sustainable resource use. The Atlantic Forest is an important source of resources; many community members possess valuable local ecological knowledge about its wildlife. The Atlantic Forest’s potential in provisioning aesthetic or tourism services, as well as the use of non-timber forest products, makes it vulnerable to change.

In 2010, a participatory assessment of the sustainability of Trindade fisheries was conducted by a local NGO to support a fisheries agreement between the Serra da Bocaina National Park and small-scale fishers in the scope of the Bocaina Mosaic Council6 (council which oversees conservation efforts). The head of the park did not legitimate this initiative because fisheries in Trindade were not a priority in the park’s management agenda. Eventually, the final report of the Trindade fisheries assessment was not acknowledged by the head of the park and the council of the Mosaic did not take action resulting from the assessment. The lack of acknowledgement of the Trindade fisheries in the final report has generated uncertainty among fishers, a lack of confidence in the Mosaic’s council, and intensified conflict between fishers and the park6,7.

In the consultative Council of the park, one of the priorities of the current officers is tourism within the protected area, in a partnership with a community-based organization that is led by local tourism boat-owners and fishers. However, the communication between community leaders and managers during the meetings is unidirectional and controlled by the PA managers. Community members do not understand the rules governing the PAs and attribute this difficulty to the lack of access to information and little dialogue with managers. Since 2010, fishers and community leaders from Trindade are seeking to build arenas to discuss problems related to the restrictions of the park over the land and marine areas of the PA, with the Park head. These initiatives include their participation in (i) the review of the Management Plan of the Park, (ii) building agreements related to tourism activities done inside the marine area of the Park, and (iii) the negotiation to build an agreement to control fisheries inside the marine portion of the Park5,6,7.

Community Initiative

Efforts are underway, in all three communities, to ensure community rights to access resources within protected areas (PAs) and contribute to community conservation of both fisheries and terrestrial resources. These efforts are supported by local and university partners, the latter being UNICAMP (Brazil) and the University of Manitoba (Canada).

In Tarituba, an agreement has been developed between fishers and Tamoios Ecological Station in order to allow certain fishing gear and vessels inside the PA. The fishers are concerned about fisheries management, conservation, and their own livelihoods. Agreeing to meet, both fishers and PA managers attended workshops to express concerns and demands while learning about the others’ concerns and agenda. Joint discussion on local livelihoods and conservation led to the designing of a Terms of Agreement in 2013, however, this agreement has not been officially issued yet due to internal conflicting agendas within the PA government agency.

In Praia do Sono, the local community is working with researchers to improve terrestrial resources management, and to contribute to the debate on PA reclassification. Locals and PA staff participated in interviews and wildlife photo identification.

In Trindade, examining the institutional context of fisheries and PAs is essential in order to analyze how the community interacts within institutional contexts and to determine how this influences small-scale fisheries on a local level. Ongoing research in Trindade is analyzing (a) what communities and PA managers have been learning over the past 8 years when PAs started to be implemented in the communities and (b) how implementation impacts fisheries on a local level. Workshops about participatory monitoring were developed with the community, to discuss building a monitoring process for fisheries and tourism, based on local knowledge and developed by the community. The next step is the development of a monitoring protocol with some fishers of Trindade.

Practical Outcomes

Tarituba
As a result of the increasing interactions between PA managers and fishers, a better dialogue system and a better understanding of needs and beliefs has been established between fishers and PA managers, leading to the design of the participatory monitoring program of artisanal fisheries3. Although both fishers and, to a lesser extent, PA managers are unsure of who is ultimately responsible for conservation, the participatory monitoring program will be important in reducing conflict and in improving decision-making among protected area management and ensuring local fisheries rights, food security and traditional livelihoods. In parallel, further research in Tarituba will attempt to better understand the institutional arrangements and degrees of restrictions of PAs, its influence on community based conservation, and how this is reflected within fisher stewardship.

Praia do Sono
Community members express how local ecological knowledge is being lost due to increased contact with regional markets and, over the last decade, due to new religion restrictions; however, the norms and practices regarding stewardship and conservation that were initially created from the local ecological knowledge of community members are still playing a role in natural resources management. Although hunting has impacts on wildlife, and has been criminalized, local rules and taboos may help promote sustainable use and resource conservation4. Incorporating local ecological knowledge in PA management may offer a faster assessment of wildlife than conventional biological research as well as local management rules for sustainable wildlife use within PAs. Empowerment of the local community is essential so that they can better negotiate their rights to access resources and practice their traditional livelihoods with the no-take protected area manager.

The research regarding local knowledge on wildlife and its management has triggered considerable discussion among locals and the PA staff. A Praia do Sono leader has highlighted the importance of communities working together with the university to negotiate with government over the rights of traditional communities to their land.

Trindade
Community members have been expressing frustration on how the implementation of PAs has influenced their livelihood. Since 2010, when the Consultative Council of the Park was created, not much has advanced in terms of participatory management, shared decision-making and integration between conservation goals and livelihoods. Nevertheless, community leaders continue to participate in different arenas to claim their rights over their land and sea, seeking to develop agreements with the park regarding tourism and fishing.

With advice from researchers, fishers are debating developing a monitoring protocol for fisheries and tourism. Although two workshops have been conducted about this topic, the monitoring plan was not developed yet because fishers are involved in other activities. They have been investing their time engaging in a national network that represents small-scale fishers throughout the country to get better opportunities to negotiate their demands.

Paraty
For Paraty Bay as a whole, insights from seven years of partnerships among communities, fishers and university researchers have been compiled. A series of upcoming workshops involving fishers and community members from Tarituba, Trindade and Praia do Sono will discuss these insights as well as advances and barriers to community conservation and commons governance. The three communities will also host further workshops about learning processes involving governance in coastal communities and protected areas.

References

1. Hanazaki, N., Berkes, F., Seixas, C. S., & Peroni, N. 2013. Livelihood Diversity, Food Security and Resilience among the Caiçara of Coastal Brazil. Human Ecology, 41 (1):153-164.

2. De Freitas, R. R. 2014. Implicações de políticas de conservação e desenvolvimento na pesca artesanal costeira em uma área marinha protegida da Baía da Ilha Grande. PhD Thesis. State University of Campinas. 273p.

3. Dias, A.C.E. 2015. Fisheries participatory monitoring at Tarituba community, Paraty (Brazil): Reconciling conservation and small-scale fisheries. Masters Thesis, State University of Campinas, Brazil. 188p.

4. Islas, C.A. 2015. Conhecimento Ecológico Tradicional Caiçara sobre animais silvestres como aporte para um Manejo de Base Ecossistêmica. Masters Thesis, State University of Campinas, Brazil. 199p.

5. Bockstael E, Bahia NCF, Seixas CS, Berkes F. 2016. Participation in protected area management planning in coastal Brazil. Environmental Science & Policy 60: 1–10

6. Araujo, L. 2014. A Pesca Costeira Artesanal de Paraty, RJ: Uma Análise Multiescalar sob o Enfoque da Cogestão de Recursos Comuns. Doctoral dissertation. IFCH/NEPAM/UNICAMP. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. 362p.

7. Bahia, N.C., Seixas, C.S., Araujo, L.G., Farinaci, J.S. & Chamy, P. 2013. Implementation of a national park over traditional lands of the Trindade community in Paraty, Brazil In: Magro, T. C.; Rodrigues, L. M.; Silva Filho, D. F. ; Polizel, J. L.; Leahy, J.; (Eds.). Protected Areas and Place Making: How do we provide conservation, landscape management, tourism, human health and regional development? Protected Areas and Place Making Conference Proceedings. Piracicaba: ESALQ. 46-51pp.

View the CCRN’s The Gambia Community Story as a PDF

Cathy Conrad*, Amy Berry and Meagan Symington Saint Mary’s University; *cconrad@smu.ca

Key Messages

• Tujereng is a coastal community being negatively impacted by the adverse effects of climate change and has been developing innovative conservation, mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce their vulnerability.
• CCRN researchers worked with the community to tell their story and provide policy recommendations to enhance the resilience of coastal communities and their ecosystems.
• Community members in Tujereng have pursued the government’s Community Forestry Programme (CFP), seeking new ways to sustain and expand local conservation efforts.

Community Introduction

The Gambia, located in sub-Saharan West Africa (Figure 1), is extremely vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. These include erratic rainfall patterns, extended drought, flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise(1). These impacts will exacerbate current challenges of desertification, deforestation and decreasing water quality.

Figure 1: Map – The Gambia (Cartography: Will Flanagan)

The coastline consists of 80 km along the Atlantic Ocean and 200 km along the Gambia River, covered in mangroves and mudflats(2). Mangroves help protect coastal areas from flooding, provide crucial habitats for fish spawning, and are imperative for rice farming(3). Agricultural practices, along with tilapia, shrimp, and oyster farming, provide significant economic and livelihoods benefits in the country(4).

Conservation and Livelihood Challenges

The Gambia lacks necessary policies to adequately protect the coastal zone(2) (Figure 2). Citizens have reported feelings of anxiousness, uncertainty, and helplessness in response to a rapidly changing climate(5).

Figure 2: Coastal Zone in The Gambia – The Commuity of Tujereng. (Photo Credit: Oliver Woods)

Subsistence farmers and small-scale fishermen who rely heavily on their local environmental knowledge are the most likely to be impacted. In some cases, traditional knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation, such as which crops to plant, where to hunt, and what weather to expect in a given season, is no longer reliable(6). Inhabitants who are highly vulnerable to perturbations in their environment have limited adaptive capacity to mitigate or adjust to the climatic impacts, yet, insufficient adaptation planning has occurred.

Community Initiative

Environmental Policy in The Gambia:
The Government of The Gambia created the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) in 2007, to identify the priority needs and activities in response to climate change. One of its priority projects was the expansion of community participation in the management of forests and protected areas. Globally, the management of forests is significant as deforestation is the second leading cause of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions(7) – a leading contributor to climate change. In response, community-based forest conservation initiatives are increasing across The Gambia. To implement the NAPA, the government focused on Village Development Committees (VDC). Each community has a VDC with 10-12 members responsible for increasing the participation of rural communities in development processes(8). In theory, using VDCs would be more effective for designing and implementing adaptation strategies. However, VDCs sometimes exclude traditionally marginalized groups, and thus fail to fully represent all stakeholders in the process.

The CCRN and Tujereng
As part of a multi-scale alliance, CCRN researchers conducted community interviews (Figure 3) and workshops involving 33 youth and 43 adults in collaboration with the Department of Water Resources, National Environment Agency, Department of Forestry, Tujereng VDC, Mori Kunda Community Forest Committee, and Nova Scotia Gambia Association (NSGA). The goal of this alliance is to look at “how participatory adaptation (or mitigation) strategies are taking place” using a multi-sectorial approach. Additionally, incorporating local perceptions and indigenous knowledge will help mainstream climate change with other development issues in the community.

Figure 3: Interview with Tujereng Community Member. (Photo Credit: Oliver Woods)

Practical Outcomes

These partners were able to achieve the following outcomes: (1) document climate change and environmental perceptions which were previously unknown or underrepresented, (2) deliver effective educational interventions through successful collaboration with governmental and non-governmental agencies, (3) offer policy recommendations to improve environmental conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies for the benefit of local communities and future NAPA strategies. In addition, key trends emerged:

Voices Being Heard
Too often, climate discussions have been dominated by the voices of scientific experts, media broadcasters, and politicians, using modeling data and statistics, policy statements and executive summaries. The alliance of communities, government and researchers attempted to fill this gap, creating spaces for Tujereng to voice their concerns and evaluate the policies and management plans (the NAPA and the Community Forestry Programme) which affect their daily lives (Figure 4). Thus, giving a voice to Gambians who are living through climate change; to share what they have to say about their experiences and challenges and to encourage consideration. Their relationship with their environment is being transformed, and this collaboration worked to provide meaningful and context-specific community-based educational opportunities, as well as working towards integrating the voices and perceptions of the community into government policies.

Figure 4: Consulting with the Tujereng Council of Elders. (Photo Credit: Oliver Woods)

Unpredictable Weather is Invalidating Certain Traditional Knowledge
Knowledge passed down from parent to child has long dictated which crops to plant, when, where, and what yields to expect, although this is increasingly being affected by climate change. Farmers have suffered unpredictable, irregular rainy seasons in recent years largely invalidating their traditional knowledge. For fishers, changing wind patterns are preventing them from fishing in certain areas. The adaptive capacity of Gambians to respond to climate change is already very low, leading to concern for well-being, especially of vulnerable members of society.

Lessons learned from the Community Forestry Programme (CFP)
Tujereng is threatened by water and food insecurity, as well as forest loss and degradation, thus increasing their vulnerability to climate change. In an attempt to protect local forest reserves, community members in Tujereng have pursued the government’s Community Forestry Programme (CFP), seeking new ways to sustain and expand local conservation efforts. Community engagement with internal and external agencies provides further support to this process by creating spaces for enhanced collaboration, education, and linkages between actors.

Communal Leadership
Tujereng is well-organized, with a well-respected Alkalo (village head) and strong sense of communal leadership. Men and women from various ages and associations are routinely consulted on different community matters. Every Sunday a ‘Council of Elders’ holds a ‘community court’ where local disputes can be brought to the attention of, and mediated by, community members. The community court is at times used to discuss environmental issues and advocate for conservation initiatives within the community.

The Role of Community Groups
Within the community, several groups are influential in forest conservation. The Mori Kunda clan, known as religious scholars and traditional healers, are responsible for the protection of the nearby forest, which provides forest products and traditional medicine. The Mori Kunda contribute to the wider community of Tujereng by providing communal resources such as firewood for gatherings or fencing materials for local soccer fields and school grounds. The Tujereng NSGA Peer Health Educators (PHE) also contribute to forest conservation by educating their peers and the larger community about environmental stewardship as a means of empowerment and knowledge mobilization through the use of drama (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Tujereng Peer Health Educators. (Photo Credit: Oliver Woods)

Major obstacles to the CFP include enforcement, economic sustainability and the regeneration of indigenous vegetation. Moreover, the CFP in Tujereng does not currently include mangroves, which could considerably improve the overall climate adaptation strategy and decrease local vulnerability to food insecurity. The integration of local knowledge has a strong capacity to enhance the community’s motivation for environmental stewardship through public environmental education and awareness-building programs as well as enforcement initiatives.

References

1. Government of The Gambia. (2013). Mainstreaming climate change resilience into development planning in the Gambia. International Institute for Environment and Development. Banjul: The Gambian Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs.

2. Drammeh, F. (2013). Assessing and adapting to Climate-Change Induced Sea-level rise on the Southern Coastline of The Gambia. New York: United Nations-Nippon Foundation Fellowship.

3. Jallow, B. (1999). Coastal zone of The Gambia and the Abidjan region in Côte d’Ivoire: sea level rise vulnerability, response strategies, and adaptation options. Climate Research, 12, 129–136.

4. Crow, B & Carney, j. (2013). Commercializing Nature: Mangrove Conservation and Female Oyster Collectors in The Gambia. Antipode, 45(2): 275–293.

5. Turner, N.J., Clifton, H. (2009). “It’s so different today”: Climate change and indigenous lifeways in British Columbia, Canada. Global Environmental Change 19, 180-190.

6. Vedwan, N., Rhoades R.E. (2001). Climate change in the Western Himalayas of India: a study of local perception and response. Climate Research 19, 109-117.

7. UNEP, FAO, UNFF. (2009). Vital Forest Graphics. [Lambrechts, C., Wilkie, M., Rucevska, I. & Sen, M. (Eds.)]. Nairobi, KE: UNEP/GRID-Arendal.

8. National Environment Agency. (2010). State of the Environment Report (SER-TG). 2nd ed. Jimpex Road, Kanifing, The Gambia-West Africa.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the community of Tujereng, the Mori Kunda Community Forest Committee, the Nova Scotia Gambia Association, the National Environment Agency, the Department of Water Resources, and the Department of Forestry in The Gambia as well as the Robin Rigby Trust Fund.

This research is being carried out with the aid of a Doctoral Research Award from the Canadian International Development Research Centre, a doctoral award from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, a SSHRC grant held by Dr. Derek Armitage as part of a Coastal-Marine Transformation Project, and support from the SSHRC-funded Community Conservation Research Network (CCRN).

Directed by Kent Martin, and Produced by CCRN Partner and Researcher, Dr. Trudy Sable, the film celebrates the resilience of the Mi’kmaq, and Indigenous people in general; the rich landscape and resources which were available to them prior to colonization, the medicines and wild food that are still available and the sacredness of the food that sustains human beings spiritually, culturally, and physically.