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Abstract: The conventional understanding of environmental governance implicitly assumes a priori presence of citizen rationality that underpins constitution of civil society vis-à-vis state. This assumption tends to overlook the economic and ecological consequences of social interactions through which people with diverse forms of rationality gradually produce distinction between state and society and shape environmental governance as an embedded process. This paper presents a case study of spontaneous settlers called posseiros in the south-east of the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon and examines ways that their social interactions lead to the so-called emancipation movements for municipal making on the agrarian frontier and open civic places in which environmental governance is negotiated. It pays particular attention to the role of religion, especially the Pentecostal Church of Assembly of God in relation to the traditional Catholic Church, in influencing the posseiros' ecological rationality and the articulation of emancipation movements and argues that the focus on religion sheds new light on the linkage between the environment, livelihoods and local governance. The paper concludes by discussing pragmatic implications of the case study for promoting sustainable rural development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper discusses the dynamics behind the establishment of scientific representations (e.g. reports, measurements, experiments) to the detriment of local representations (e.g. oral accounts, metaphors, symbols) in environmental policy-making in the Global South. To this end, the paper attempts to understand why local accounts of the Amazon in recent decades have gradually been replaced by satellite-based remote sensing (RS) technology in the region''s policy-making. RS technology is shown to provide representations that match policy-makers discourses as regards the importance of: visibility, since satellite images are believed to provide a transparent window from which the Amazon can be seen by policy-makers working from centres of power; comprehensiveness, since the data obtained through RS claims to represent the entire region; and determinacy, as forecasting and spatial correlation techniques establish deterministic links between particular factors (e.g. the presence of farmers, inflation) and environmental issues (e.g. increases in deforestation). From this examination, it is argued that rather than focusing on identifying the essential differences between local and scientific representation, more attention should be paid to how different kinds of representations are in harmony or conflict with historically rooted governance discourses. The article also indicates that in order to revalue local representations in environmental policy-making it is necessary to challenge particular discourses which are “taken-for-granted” in governance practices at the present time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary Participatory approaches have proven effective at producing more inclusive and democratic forms of development, in which marginalized groups are given increased recognition. However, these approaches can also reinforce social hierarchies and political exclusion if they are not developed and implemented carefully. In particular, participatory approaches can be problematic if they too simplistically conceptualize democratic engagement as the folding of individuals into pre-existing governance structures. Utilizing a combination of feminist and postcolonial theories, this paper argues that practitioners of participatory methods must extend their thinking to the ways in which their projects foster engagement across multiple social and epistemological perspectives. Participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) methodologies are particularly effective at enabling these cross-perspectival engagements—geospatial technologies have unique capabilities for storing and visualizing knowledge from different types of knowledge systems. These different forms of knowledge can not only be visualized as multi-facetted and multi-scalar layers, but they can be directly placed in conversation with one another within the space of the map. In this way, they can be used to fundamentally transform historically unjust governance practices, rather than simply folding new subjects into unjust political structures. The authors examine these claims in the context of a case study with the Maijuna indigenous group of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. The authors collaborated with the Maijuna to create and use a digital, spatial database to influence policy decisions about land tenure and environmental management. We show that geospatial technologies were uniquely capable of encouraging dialog and integration across indigenous, Western scientific, and state-based perspectives of the Amazon. These technologies are particularly effective at empowering traditionally marginalized perspectives within governance processes. This project therefore offers lessons about the benefits and dangers of geospatial technologies and methodologies for improving the democratic potential of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper seeks to analyze local perspectives in Peruvian Amazon forest communities toward REDD and contrast those perspectives with current global and national REDD narratives. REDD is a global market-based approach to provide financial incentives for local actors to halt deforestation or to improve carbon stocks. To date, the REDD framework has not demonstrated that it is equipped to incorporate the diverse perspectives, potential interactions and uncertainties facing forest communities. We interviewed forest community members in the Amazonian state of Loreto, Peru, using “future scenarios” methods to elicit potential alternative narratives, both with and outside REDD. Indigenous voices reveal ambiguous attitudes toward REDD with regard to livelihoods, benefit distribution and the long-term impacts for communities and forests. They reveal considerable uncertainty about the future and lack of trust in governance regimes. Long-term community priorities were in generating work, providing educational opportunities for their children, and improving the quality of their forest. Conflict—within the community, with local loggers and with the recently established regional conservation area—was a prevalent theme. A REDD design that recognizes communities as active participants in global and national climate management and pays attention to local narratives will more likely generate the multiple benefits of healthy forests, strong communities and, ultimately, global climate change mitigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper we analyze transformations within a land reform settlement in the Brazilian Amazon, with special land-use regulations targeting forest conservation. We conducted long-term action research in the Virola-Jatobá Sustainable Development Project (PDS), where peasant farmers who were the early settlers of the area, and more recent occupants allied to illegal loggers, land grabbers and speculators adopt antagonistic positions and challenge respective entitlements towards land and forest. In this research we highlight issues of power asymmetry and social injustice when assessing how social relations and environmental conditions in the study area are affected by land use and forest conservation policies since year 2000, when the scheme was established. The PDS situation approached a collapse in late 2017 when the integrity of its forests and the beliefs and practices of vulnerable local residents were damaged. This case study empirically demonstrates that Amazon forest frontier systems have a limited capacity to endure extreme perturbations in the social and ecological interconnected domains. We argue that when a threshold is reached in systems featuring heavily institutionalized social asymmetries that constrain the action of vulnerable resource users, few conditions remain to reorganize the constituent setup through adaptive changes in the same regime or state. Reaching this stage will likely result in drastic changes that will lock the system into a pathway that compromises human wellbeing and the provision of ecosystem services. The fundamental nature of a tenurial scheme that combines social justice and environmental conservation tends thus to be lost for good, to enter a new regime with fewer options and novelties in social-ecological advances, reflecting the overall setbacks currently experienced in Brazilian policy. • Failed delivery and enforcement of land and forest policy in Amazon forest frontier. • Land tenure modality in a liminal status between environmental and agrarian reform regulations. • Social support for conservation affected by political and economic factors mediated by governmental agencies. • A new regime takes place with lower complexity in both social and ecological terms. • Outcomes reflect overall setback in Brazil's current social and environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]