Reserva Extrativista do Rio Unini: conflitos e estratégias socioambientais no rio Negro - AM

Abstract

This research explains the creation process of the Reserva Extrativista do Rio Unini RESEX (a Brazilian category of protected area meant for traditional people), located in the right bank of the Negro river, 500 kilometers from Manaus/AM, and the social and environmental conflicts involved during this process. The main goal was to understand the relations between inhabitants of Unini river and external institutions, including local associations, IBAMA (Brazilian Environmental Control Agency), ICMBio (Brazilian Protected Areas Management Agency), the NGO Fundação Vitória Amazônica FVA and businessmen of the peacockbass fishing tourism. For this, during 2007 and 2008 we have been seven times in the field, totaling more than fifty days, using methodologies of participant observation, interviews, and analysis of social situations (Gluckman, 1958). The dissertation begins with an ethnography of the local population, since its historical origin until today, pointing out the presence of the Jaú National Park in the region, from the theoretical discussion that involves the presence of human populations in protected areas where people are not allowed to live in. It discourses on the process of political training lived by part of the inhabitants of Unini river that lead to the creation of the Association of the Inhabitants of Unini River - AMORU and the creation of the RESEX in 2006. It analyses how this process happened and which was the role playded by the different external agents in the area. It deals about the main local conflits envolving the use of common resources, pointing out the conflict involving the peacockbass fishing activities in the upper Unini river area, which is the border of RESEX and the Amanã State Reserve of Sustainable Development. This conflict was taken into the Federal Justice in 2007. Finally, it is presented the perspective of implementation of the RESEX through the creation of instruments of management and different interinstitutional projects for the improvement of the Unini's inhabitants quality of life.