Estratégias de sobrevivência e conflitos de terra na Amazônia: A interface entre o rural e o urbano

Abstract

The analysis will begin with an examination of the structure and distribution of land in the Brazilian Amazon. It will argue that, despite the agrarian reform programme, an increasingly active MST and other policy innovations, the pattern of land ownership and access in the region continues to be in the direction of increased concentration. For over four decades, this pattern has fuelled land conflict, rural violence and deforestation. Rural settlement models, whether State-sponsored or spontaneous, have generally been economically and ecologically unsustainable.

In the face of these trends, and combined with a policy environment which has been largely unfavourable towards small producers, the rural population has developed its own livelihood strategies. This section will therefore consider how rural producers have reacted to such changes. One clear response has been that of self-defence in the struggle for land and to secure livelihoods. This may be broadly classed as either reactive or pro-active defence. Reactive behaviour is expressed in the form of fragmented and uncoordinated resistance to land grabbing in which the poor merely struggle to survive as the victims of violence and are often forced to leave the land for good, permanently migrating to urban centres. Pro-active resistance, an increasingly common strategy as small producers become better organised and more confident, involves vigorous resistance to the destruction of rural livelihoods and taking the initiative to seek local solutions to problems. These include fighting for stable access to land and key natural resources as well as developing new technologies and policy instruments to achieve these aims (such as extractive and aquatic reserves, agro-forestry, community forestry, eco-tourism, etc.).

Both reactive and pro-active strategies imply the emergence of a more complex interface between rural and urban areas in Amazonia, that are at least in part a consequence of these trends in land ownership, access and use. This may involve permanent rural out-migration, creating at once a social vacuum in the countryside and overpopulation of crowded and under-resourced towns and cities in the region. What is also evident, however, is the emergence of a more complex pattern of increasingly diversified employment and survival strategies, in which households simultaneously pursue livelihoods in both rural and urban contexts in a seasonal or cyclical fashion.

Both models - (i) permanent out-migration, and (ii) temporary migration - have major policy implications. These concern land issues, productive and environmental policy in rural areas, as well as urban employment, infrastructure and service provision. Policy-makers must understand the increasingly complex nature of the rural-urban interface in Amazonia (in its economic, social, political and environmental dimensions) in order to satisfactorily address questions of poverty, social exclusion and sustainable regional development.