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Abstract
Recent scholarship has urged increased attention to how advances in geographical information systems (GIS) technology can more equitably help to bridge gaps between the theory and practice of environmental protection and dispute resolution. This study brings new evidence to burgeoning debates in the Amazon, examining how a United Nations (UN) development initiative developed mapping systems in a shifting political climate for environmental governance while conducting campaigns with peasant miners to address environmental management. Amendments made in 2002 to the Brazilian Forest Code established natural preserves according to the geographic features of watersheds. The laws deter commercial land use on preserves, imposing strict penalties where artisanal mining is widely prevalent as a livelihood. The UN program utilized GIS and Shuttle Radar imagery to map the contested areas according to legal definitions and engaged stakeholders to discuss political implications. In 2006, new reforms made such mapping tools even more controversial—and urgent—with amendments that created opportunities for bringing “informal” mining into the legal sphere, theoretically allowing “spaces of exception” where mining can be legitimated. Our multimethod study underscores the need for appreciating diverse understandings of ecologically sensitive zones and empowering rural communities to take ownership over geospatial technologies in addressing environmental challenges. Although maps produced using the proposed methods could be useful, dominant advocacies that champion GIS as an enforcement tool often undermine local trust, inflame tensions, and render alternative “grassroots GIS” strategies impracticable. We examine the contexts, powers, limitations, and risks of the UN's technical intervention, exploring how competing views of environmental controversy lead to divergent perspectives on the politics of GIS “knowledge translation” and mapping itself.
En el ámbito científico reciente se ha estado reclamando mayor atención sobre cómo los avances en tecnología de los sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) pueden ayudar de manera más equitativa a salvar las brechas entre la teoría y la práctica de la protección ambiental y a la resolución de disputas. Este estudio trae a cuento nueva evidencia sobre debates en auge en el Amazonas, examinando cómo la iniciativa de desarrollo de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) emprendió sistemas de mapeo en medio de un clima político cambiante para la gobernanza ambiental, mientras adelantaba campañas sobre cuestiones de manejo ambiental entre los mineros campesinos. Las reformas que se hicieron en 2002 al Código de Bosques brasileño establecieron reservas naturales de acuerdo con los rasgos geográficos de las cuencas. Las leyes proscriben el uso comercial de la tierra en las reservas, imponiendo sanciones drásticas donde la minería artesanal es ampliamente practicada como medio de vida. El programa de la ONU utilizó SIG e imágenes remotas del Shutle Radar para cartografiar las áreas en disputa, siguiendo las definiciones legales, y comprometió a los interesados a que discutieran las implicaciones políticas. En el 2006, nuevas reformas hicieron aún más controversiales aquellas herramientas cartográficas – y más urgentes – con enmiendas que dieron a la minería “informal” la oportunidad de acceder a la legalidad, teóricamente permitiendo “espacios de excepción” donde la minería podía ser legitimada. Nuestro estudio multimetodológico pone al descubierto la necesidad de adoptar diversos modos de entender zonas ecológicamente sensibles y de empoderar a las comunidades rurales para apropiarse del uso de tecnologías geoespaciales para enfrentar retos ambientales. Aunque los mapas que se produjeron mediante el uso de los métodos propuestos podrían ser útiles, la manera incondicional como se promueven los SIG como una herramienta de aplicación imprescindible a menudo menoscaban la confianza local, inflaman las tensiones y hacen impracticable la alternativa de la estrategia del “SIG de base”. Se examinaron los contextos, poderes, limitaciones y riesgos de la intervención técnica de la ONU, explorando la manera como puntos de vista en competencia de la controversia ambiental conducen a perspectivas divergentes en las políticas de “traducción del conocimiento” SIG y del propio mapeo.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the very insightful and detailed comments from three anonymous reviewers, whose feedback improved this article considerably. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the GEF/UNDP/UNIDO Global Mercury Project, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Cambridge.
Notes
1. Satellite images indicated that the extent of ecological risks from forest cutting and extraction were growing in 2007 (Barrionuevo Citation2008), which gave donors additional impetus to focus on mapping.
2. The report lists: “Releases of gaseous, liquid and solid wastes; noise pollution; movements of waste, minerals and equipment; creation of transport and energy infrastructure; traffic of heavy vehicles such as trucks, diggers and helicopters; encampments; the opening of trails, ditches, wells and paths; waste tanks and ponds; buildings and lodgings; circulation of workers; explosions and excavations; clearing of vegetation; processing of minerals; activities in areas of permanent protection and in refuges of native fauna; and the removal of vegetation traditionally used by local populations” (ISA 2006. 1).
3. Graulau (Citation2001) examined the identities of garimpeiro communities in relation to class politics, gender, and development modernization, exploring experiences among local and migrant workers whose access to and exclusion from land varies considerably. Simmons (Citation2004) noted how Brazil's peasant miners have been victims of land use conflicts and also noted cases where miners encroached on other groups’ land.
4. Wittman (2009, 120) argued that in Brazil, “land-related policies have historically served to situate political and economic rights in the hands of an elite land-owning minority. In a citizenship regime based on property ownership, land ownership and power structured through individual social actors often absent or external to the rural community thus fractures the potential for collective social action in the countryside.” Although Wittman discussed agrarian livelihoods, spaces of exclusion in the Tapajos mining context can also be understood in similar terms, where spatial rhetoric and realities are shaped by highly contestable legal representations, often with tensions between “external”—frequently urban—decision makers and rural groups. We suggest that in such spaces, shifting pressures on rural migration and labor activities in conservation areas need to be understood as part of a system where unequal access to basic citizenship rights (including livelihood rights) contributes to fractured social relations.