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 Tanzania Community Story as  PDF

Key Messages

Activities are underwayin the Saadani National Park area intended to result in:

• Involving communities in alternative, environmentally compatible livelihood activities that improve well-being for local residents.
• Improving the relationship between the management of Saadani National Park and the surrounding communities.
• Improving land management to arrest deforestation and ensure conservation of critical resource features both within and outside the national park.

Community Introduction

Tanzania’s Saadani National Park, established in 2005 with an area of 1,100 km2, is a coastal strip along the Indian Ocean north of Dar es Salaam. Within the national park system, Saadani is the only coastal park and is especially important for protecting rapidly diminishing coastal forests, the Wami River estuary and mangrove environments, along with a marine component of offshore coral reefs and turtle rearing beach(1).

Figure 1: Map of the Saadani Natinal Park in Tanzania

Four ecozones make up Saadani National Park: the marine environment of the Indian Ocean; the fresh water ecosystem of the major river courses; the coastal forests; and the humid savanna. The marine environment includes the breeding areas and habitat for over 40 fish species and significant populations of gastropods, echinoderms and corals. Mangrove forests and salt pans are located in the central and southern Saadani. Additionally, nesting beaches of the threatened green turtle are protected within the park. The Wami River and its corridor along the southern border of the area remains an important natural freshwater system especially in the river’s lower reaches. The coastal forest zone is critical for regulating the water cycle and provides habitat for a wide variety of mammals including elephants, leopards, kudu, suni, duiker, bush babies and Colobus monkeys. The humid savanna, including long grass, short grass and black cotton plains, supports grazers and browsers such as hartebeest, waterbuck, buffalo, and reedbuck.

Figure 2: Hippos in the Wami River, Saadani National Park (Photo Credit B.K. Downie)

The park was created from three major components of crown land which together comprised approximately 500 km2 of the total land area. Negotiations with villages of the area resulted in the remainder of the park being composed of former village lands(2,3). However, community residents do not believe that the benefit commitments made by the Tanzania National Parks Agency (TANAPA) in exchange for the land, such as employment and community services, have been realized(4). Furthermore disputes over the actual boundary of the park continue and remain extremely contentious(5). TANAPA wants to retain existing lands and believes that more land needs to be added to the park to ensure integrity of key resources(6).

The Saadani Community

The villages bordering Saadani National Park are small and subsistence livelihood based, with fishing dominating along the coast and agriculture taking over in inland communities. Services remain limited and public infrastructure is poor. The economies of the villages are very small and dominated by micro enterprises linked to and supplementing the production from subsistence agriculture and fishing.

Salt production is the only industrial activity in the immediate area although sisal plantations exist to the north and a sugar cane plantation is proposed in the southwest corner of the area. Tourist lodge facilities pre-dated the park and have expanded since park establishment, although by comparison to other national parks in Tanzania, both numbers of sites and park visitation remain relatively small(4).

Figure 3: Small business enterprise in Saadani village (Photo Credit B.K. Downie)

Conservation and Livelihood Challenges

Although relatively close to major population centres, the infrastructure of the Saadani, including water and power systems, transportation and communications, are not well developed due to the small and dispersed population. Local village economies remain very small with limited wage, employment, and public services such as education and health care.

The interaction between resource extraction and environmental change is the biggest challenge facing the Saadani. Species that have supported both human need and ecosystem function are being diminished or lost due to overharvesting, resulting in the associated impact on other species. For example, as fresh water fish stocks decline in the Wami River, the dependent bird and reptile species diminish as well. Population pressure leads to increased conversion of land to agriculture, which diminishes the coastal forest cover and impacts the water regime, which in turn impacts agricultural productivity.

Figure 4: Fisher in dhow off the coast (Photo Credit B.K. Downie)

Sensitive and vulnerable landscapes present significant challenges for conservation and management in the context of the Saadani and have been the focus of some of the conflict between the park and the communities. Coral reefs, as an example, have experienced considerable degradation. With the establishment of the park, a key reef and island complex was closed to community harvest. Mangroves, also highly impacted by human activity, are a priority for protection within the park and additional areas currently outside the park are a priority for acquisition.

Incompatible land uses also illustrate the conflict between conservation and community needs. A private sector salt producer currently operates in an enclave within the park and park management wants the operation closed and the area added to the park. However, the salt company is one of the few employers in the area and closing the operation would seriously impact potential wage employment for local people. Similarly, the most severe environmental impact in the area is the diminishing forest land which is being converted to agriculture or simply removed for the production of charcoal. This land use pattern will have an inevitable negative impact on the viability of the park unless the trend is reversed, yet land for agriculture and the energy and income resulting from charcoal production will be extremely challenging to replace.

Community Initiative

Given the above situation, there are great needs for:

• Community led activities that foster long-term sustainability of community based conservation and development initiatives.
• Support for local communities, both rural and urban, to understand the conservation values of the environment in which they live.
• Support for communities to implement development interventions that are compatible with and build on those natural resource values.
• Support for protected areas management agencies to work with local communities in the cooperative achievement of both protected areas and community objectives.

Figure 5: Fishers in Saadani village going to fish (Photo Credit B.K. Downie)

These activities have been undertaken by the Kesho Trust, a Canadian charitable organization (registered 2005) and also registered as a Tanzanian NGO (2006). The Kesho Trust has a long term commitment to the Saadani area and is involved in a variety of initiatives in the area. As part of their ongoing work, the Kesho trust initiated a project called Promoting Environmental Conservation and Cooperation (PECC) in the Saadani in 2013. The purpose of this project was to help improve the relationships between villagers and the Saadani Park management through understanding and discussion. The project established, and works with, 10 person committees in each of the six communities in the area (Buyuni, Gongo, Matipwili, Mkange, Mkwaja, Saadani).

In September, 2015 a series of meetings was held in three out of the six PECC communities and then a workshop was convened with two representatives from each of the community committees to review the progress of PECC. Participants were asked to explain what was working effectively and why and how they felt the project was affecting their relationships with the park. The outcomes were positive and people were keen to continue the work of the committees in each village(7).

Practical Outcomes

A recent review of PECC identified four key project activities as being the most beneficial to the Saadani area communities.

Communication

The opportunity to have important issues heard and discussed with park staff was critical for village participants, even if solutions were not immediately possible.

Community Collaboration

Meeting with other village communities was important in understanding that others experienced similar issues and that there were potential collective solutions.

Observing other Conservation Organisations

Visits to conservation organisations and agencies in Dar es Salaam provided new information and ideas about ways to work with designated conservation areas. Visiting the Wildlife Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources was considered to be especially valuable.

Education

Developing, and using songs, drama and poems helped people in their villages learn about the process and benefits of conservation.

Figure 6: PECC workshop with representatives from all six participating villages (Photo Credit B.K. Downie)

References

1. Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA). (2009). Saadani National Park: general management plan 2010-2020 (p. 168). Arusha, Tanzania: TANAPA.
2. Baldus, R. D., Roettcher, K., & Broska, D. (2001). An introduction to Tanzania’s future 13th national park (Tanzania Wildlife Discussion Paper No. 30). Dar es Salaam: GTZ Wildlife Programme in Tanzania.
3. Bloesch, U., & Klötzli, F. (2004). Coastal forests of the Saadani National Park (Tanzania Wildlife Discussion Paper No. 37) (p. 30). Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Tanzania Wildlife Discussion Paper.
4. Downie, B. K. (2015). Conservation influences on livelihood decision-making: A case study from Saadani National Park, Tanzania. PhD Thesis. Victoria: University of Victoria.
5. Orozco-Quintero, A. (2014). Uvinje Village and Saadani National Park, Tanzania. Retrieved from http://www.justconservation.org/uvinje-village-and-saadani-national-park,-tanzania
6. Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA). (2014). Research priorities for national parks (p. 46). Arusha, Tanzania: TANAPA.
7. Downie, B.K. (2016). Towards the resolution of a conservation and community conflict: A Tanzania case study. Policy Matters. 20. (p. 66-80).

Acknowledgements

The commitment and support of the people of the Saadani area villages has made the work possible. Funding support beyond the ongoing donations to the Kesho Trust by private individuals has come from two donor organizations: 1) initial stages of the PECC project were funded by the Tanzania Foundation for Civil Society; and, 2) a recent project review and subsequent workshops, focused on community based tourism as an alternative livelihood activity, was supported by IUCN.

See below for the Swahili language abstract for this community story, “Hifadhi ya Taifa ya Saadani, Tanzania: Kukuza Uendelevu wa Muda Mrefu wa Uhifadhi wa Kijamii na Maendeleo.”

A video concerning the Kesho Trust  project Promoting Environmental Conservation and Cooperation (PECC)