Justice in an Unequal Relationship? Negotiations Between the Quilombo Bombas and the Upper Ribeira State Touristic Park, Brazil

Abstract

In Brazil, the implementation of protected areas has often caused impoverishment and injustice to forest-dwelling peoples. With the launching of the re-democratic 1988 Constitution, numerous claims for access to resources, recognition of ethnic identities, and participation in environmental decision-making have been made by traditional peoples. Using an environmental justice approach, this article analyzes the spaces for and processes of negotiation over strictly protected areas through an examination of the land claim of the Afro-Brazilian quilombola community Bombas located inside the Upper Ribeira State Touristic Park, São Paulo. The article argues that exclusionary practices and discourses were used by the Brazilian state apparatus, hampering the recognition of a quilombola identity, land rights, and access to infrastructure development. The negotiation meetings served as a forum for challenging the power imbalances, but did not open up space for meaningful participation where quilombolas' voice did significantly influence the agenda and key decisions.

Keywords:

• quilombola communities
• protected areas
• negotiation
• environmental justice
• Brazil

Acknowledgments

I express thanks for the information and viewpoints shared by community members of Bombas, other quilombolas in the Ribeira Valley, state officials, politicians, researchers, and representatives from civil society organizations participating in this research. I am very grateful for the support received from the socioenvironmental NGO Instituto Socioambiental, particularly from the Ribeira Valley Program leader and my local supervisor Nilto Tatto and the anthropologist Anna Maria Andrade. Furthermore, thanks are extended to my supervisors Randi Kaarhus and Ian Bryceson for guidance and constructive feedback on the research. I also appreciate insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article by Randi Kaarhus, Tor Arve Benjaminsen, and Espen Olav Sjaastad, as well as three anonymous reviewers. Lastly, I thank Josie Teurlings for assistance with the map.

Notes

The Armed Forces did a coup d'état in 1964 with support from the United States, overthrowing the democratically elected President João Goulart.

Quilombo is an Afro-Brazilian settlement formed mainly by runaway and freed slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries and former slaves after the abolition of slavery in 1888. The residents, quilombolas, received land by donation or through heritage, or else occupied abandoned or vacant government lands.

Article 68 of the Transitional Constitutional Provisions Act declares: “Final ownership shall be recognized for the remaining members of the ancient runaway slave communities who are occupying their lands and the State shall grant them the respective title deeds.”

Culturally differentiated groups that possess proper forms of social organization and that occupy and use territories and natural resources as a condition for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral, and economic reproduction (Decree 6.040/2007 regulating the SNUC law).

Coordination and advisory team for black and quilombola communities in the Ribeira Valley (EEACONE), socioenvironmental NGO (ISA), Land, Work and Citizenship Institute (ITTC), Public Attorney's Office (MPF), Land Institute of São Paulo (ITESP), National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), Upper Ribeira State Touristic Park (PETAR), Forest Foundation (FF), Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve (RBMA), Agricultural University of São Paulo (ESALQ).

Of its original extent of 129 million hectares, between 11.4% and 16% remains, depending on whether or not intermediate secondary forests and small fragments (<100 ha) are included in the calculations (Ribeiro et al. 2009). Regardless of being one of the most threatened biomes in the world, the Atlantic Forest is considered one of the five most important biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000).

Through state decree 32.283.

As a response to mining interests in the area, PETAR was reduced to 351,000 ha in 1969 by decree 14.321.

Launched on November 20 on Brazil's National Black Awareness Day.

Twelve other quilombos in the Ribeira Valley were classified as APAs in 2008, making up the “APA of the Quilombos of Medium Ribeira,” included in the Mosaic of Jacupiranga.

ITESP process 1186/2002.

Assessment of physical, biological, and anthropic indicators, pointing to socio–environmental impacts of changing of park boundaries or reclassification of conservation categories.

ISA was founded in 1994 and is the leading NGO on indigenous and quilombola populations’ rights and issues in Brazil.

ITESP process 704/2010.

RPPN is created by the private landowner that takes on the responsibility for nature conservation.