"RESEX"
failed experiment in Prainha ?
It remains to be seen what will actually happen to all the endangered “RESEX” after the new-old Brazilian head of state “Lula” da Silva promised to reinstate environmental protection in Brazil at COP27. That starts with the reconstruction and financing of the national controlling body “Chico Mendes CMBio” which was almost stopped under the regime of Bolsonaro and during the pandemic. For example, during this period the second-most deforested “RESEX” of the Amazon has reported 185,000 head of illegal cattle, but only two penalties were issued.
See in Portuguese:
Carlinhos, a fisherman and president of the commission for the preservation of the Brazilian “RESEX”, pleads above all for the application of the rules, bringing into line an increased security for the self-sufficiency and income of the present-day local population, increased merging between the traditional communities. His “RESEX”, for example, consists of 14 villages with diverse traditional backgrounds.
2023:
"RESEX" Reorientation?
"Carlinhos, as President of the Traditional People, was awarded the International Conservation Prize together with the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, was a member of the transitional government, and collaborated on the new rules for the "RESEX".
The problems actually started with
the foundation by the state of the Brazilian “RESEX”.
According to the German-Brazilian agronomist Uli Ide, who also lives in a “RESEX” further south in Bahia, things already went awry during the founding of the 100 or so “RESEXs” throughout Brazil.
Uli Ide
Agronom,
retired, lives in "RESEX" Canavieiras in Bahia.
He has worked for international NGOs for decades in South America with a focus on Brazil.
He states that:
1.
At the establishment of “RESEX” many inhabitants generally did not know, or at least did not realise that in addition to the sea, the land would also be included.
2.
Many residents did not realise at the time how much the land issue would divide their community.
3.
What would happen if the youth with better education no longer wanted to be fishermen? This raises the question: is a conservation zone for lobster fishing in Prainha even keeping up with the times?
IIn Prainha do Cante Verde the RESEX was approved in 2009 by the then and now the new president “Lula” da Silva, but nowadays the question arises: is a protected marine conservation area without lobsters, without junior fishermen in Prainha even keeping with the times?
In Prainha do Canto Verde, the "R ESEX" is divided into two parts;
a territorial and a marine reserve
Marine Reserve
Territorial Reserve
Some of the residents in Prainha claim today that they did not know back then when voting for or against a “RESEX”, that the village itself, the dunes and the land in general would be included.
In Prainha do Cante Verde the environmental area of conflict has shifted away from the sea to the land issue.
(Quote Master’s thesis)
“Although the modality sought by the residents’ association and by the cooperative is compensatory power, it depends on the perception of the people concerned how the power is defined. While some residents – especially the members of these organisations – fully accept the laws of the associação on land ownership and have internalised them as the norm, others feel forced to accept rules and facts that they do not support, and still others do not even abide by the residents’ association’s self-knit rulebook.”
(© 2009 - Carolin Brunner)
The situation today in Prainha is precarious:
Whole master's thesis by © Carolin Brugger
As early as 2009, the German ethnologist Carolin Brugger questioned this in her work on Prainha and considered the many NGO funds – coming especially from Switzerland – that flowed into Prainha to be questionable, and described the local power structures in and around Prainha do Canto Verde as not necessarily beneficial.