Barriers to empowerment: fighting eviction for conservation in a southern Brazilian protected area

摘要

How do nation states accommodate people who live in regions declared as protected areas (PAs)? In Brazil's Peixe Lagoon National Park, established in 1986, eviction of fisher communities has been occurring gradually through license non-renewal and ill-treatment of fishers by Parks authorities. We examined fishers’ interactions with other groups and the role of partnerships and linkages in fighting for fishing rights. Results show that the new national law on PAs (SNUC) approved in 2000 could be used to enable this particular group of fishers to safeguard their culture and livelihoods. However, fishers and their representatives considered themselves weak and disempowered. Existing partnerships were sufficient to fight eviction in the short term, but not to safeguard resource access rights in the long term. We identified obstacles to empowerment in the form of “missing linkages” and institutions, specifically with respect to service and support functions to build capacity to defend rights to remain physically within the park and politically in the conservation process.View full textDownload full textKeywordsenvironmental justice, multi-level governance, political ecology, partnerships, protected areasRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549830903575570