Conservação da natureza e produção de conflitos ambientais: contradições do projeto de manejo florestal comunitário no assentamento Brandão (PB).

Abstract

In this work, we approach the interface of agrarian and environmental questions, in the context of the increasing institutionalization of the instruments of nature conservation, with continual rejection of agrarian reform policies related to the settlement of rural workmen's families who have no lands. We analyse the development of a project based on community forest management in the Brandao rural settlement, situated in the county of Cuite, which is part of the microregion called Curimatau, in the Brazilian state of Parafba. We also highlight the relationship among mediation, ways of domination and the processes of establishing social arrangements in order to manage natural resources. From the introduction of the project, elaborated by a non-governmental organization with an environmentalist nature, and sponsored by international organisms, the settled families started to experience a series of new regulations and ways of controlling the exploration of timber resources which have strongly interfered in their daily living. This has led to a dynamics of territorialization along with the territorial processes put forward by the dispossession of the old lands. At the end of this work, we propose some elements in an effort to construct a natural resource political ecology in settlement areas, in an attempt to enhance a critical view regarding the impact of public policies and environmental projects on agrarian reform measures