Agricultura familiar e conflitos ambientais : contradições entre a legislação ambiental e as estratégias produtivas de Ribeirinhos na bacia hidrográfica dos Rios Piancó-Piranhas-Açu.

Abstract

This work had the purpose of analyzing the agricultural practices of family farmers in the Sousa (PB) micro-region and in the Coremas (PB) municipality, between the 1970s and 2010s, in the context of the crisis and the rise and crisis of irrigated agriculture. Particular attention was drawn to the understanding of conflicts caused by possible deviations from environmental legislation by the family farmers in the act of their productive practices. In order to do so, a methodological apparatus was developed that involved, on the one hand, quantitative strategies, for the satellite imagery study aimed to understanding processes of environmental changes and for the formulation of a regional productive profile based on query in the IBGE Automatic Recovery System (SIDRA / IBGE); and, on the other hand, qualitative strategies (interview and participant observation) to understand farmers' perception of the use of natural resources in legally protected areas (APP and RL) and in water bodies. Environmental conflicts were interpreted through the theoretical discussions about the Property Regimes, Common-pool Resource Theory and Political Ecology. The results showed that the choice of individuals to violate environmental legislation is part of a complex framework that involves the inefficiency of the agencies in the inspection, training and dissemination of information regarding environmental laws; non- legitimization of the environmental discourse that underlies environmental laws; and the ability of farmers to rationally calculate costs and benefits in (dis)accomplishing environmental protection regulations.