Understanding institutional bricolage: What drives behavior change towards sustainable land use in the Eastern Amazon?

Institutional perspectives and theories have shaped how problems related to individual and collective choices in forest landscapes are perceived. This article explores the social impacts of the Rural Environmental Cadastre (CAR) in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, in the state of Pará, Brazilian Amazon. CAR is a tenure clarification and environmental compliance intervention to reduce deforestation and improve forest conservation in the Brazilian Amazon. With a focus on smallholders, the article provides insights on how to better understand institutional bricolage and behavior change in the context of social practices. Results suggest that CAR implementation is still too limited to adequately reflect the heterogeneity and complexity of reducing deforestation in the Eastern Amazon. The SFX case shows that land users responsible for pursuing environmental compliance normally draw on existing traditions – styles of thinking, sanctioned social relationships – to respond to changing situations. Neglecting such social processes and practices can decrease the long-term effectiveness of interventions such as CAR. This is usually a result of unforeseen interactions among activities practiced by the range of different actors in forest landscapes. Concluding remarks argue that, unless we shift our approach from focusing on changing individuals’ behavior to changing the interaction of elements that constitute social practices, we will remain blind to the conditions that actually drive behavior change towards environmental compliance and forest conservation.