Sustentabilidade local: contribuições para agenda dos objetivos do desenvolvimento sustentável em São Paulo de Olivença, Amazonas, Brasil

Abstract

The term sustainability emerged after global recognition of a major socio-environmental crisis. It united ecological, social, economic and cultural aspects, giving future generations hope of life. In the context of sustainable cities, it is possible to know the sustainable development index of Brazilian municipalities and to contribute to its establishment in a given location, it is necessary to understand the perception of representatives of civil and political society. In this sense, the present investigation was guided by the following questions: what is sustainability in practice? What are the paths taken by a city in the interior of Amazonas in search of sustainability? What environmental problems are faced and what strategies are implemented by managers to contribute to the agenda of sustainable development objectives? To answer these questions, we cut time and space to develop an ethnographic, descriptive research, with a qualitative approach, carried out in October 2022, whose data collection instrument was a questionnaire that served as a guide for interviews, with teachers from a public school, administrative managers from the city hall, residents of vulnerable areas and elderly people from the municipality of São Paulo de Olivença, which belongs to the mesoregion of southwestern Amazonas and the microregion of Alto Solimões, 1,235 kilometers from Manaus, Amazonas. The results indicate that the municipality has been going through a major socio-environmental crisis as a result of the fallen lands phenomenon that affected five urban neighborhoods, causing territorial expansion to areas of Campinarana. Considering aspects of environmental sustainability, we present phytosociological data on the local Campinarana flora, contributions of Environmental Education to the conservation of this ecosystem, negative externalities due to natural and anthropogenic pressures resulting from the Fallen Lands phenomenon and urban expansion in this ecosystem. We also present positive externalities in predicting the establishment of social sustainability with ecological projects that seek to establish a sustainable ecological economy through strategic actions by public managers, and finally, we highlight relevant aspects of cultural sustainability established through the promotion of health and well-being through by surveying biocultural knowledge about the healing power of plants used by local residents. The mitigating actions are therefore indications that there is a promising path for implementing the 2030 agenda in São Paulo de Olivença, and, similarly, probably in many other municipalities in the interior of Amazonas.