Abstract ID: 409

PARTICIPATORY MAPPING, SCENARIOS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

After years of claims from the social movements from Santarém-PA, the Agro-Extractivist Lago Grande Settlement (PAE Lago Grande) was created in 2005 in an area of 2.503,44 km², providing land regularization to 4,600 families. Nowadays, in PAE Lago Grande, the discussions concentrate around the structuring of a legitimate process of communitarian management. This process is needed to facilitate the elaboration of land use zoning plans, to study alternative productive chains and to solve the land conflicts and the natural resources access. In this context, a methodology of participatory mapping was applied involving all sub regions of the settlement around three main thematic areas: community infrastructure, use of natural resources and social conflicts. In a second phase, we are planning to apply participatory land use change modeling approaches and drawing up future scenarios. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of decision-making strategies, about the social organization and land conflicts. Representatives will be community association leaders, the Lago Grande Settlement Communities Federation and the Rural Workers Syndicate from Santarém. The participatory mapping phase allowed a preliminary understanding of the rules, relations and values of these communities, the convergence and divergence between the social agents inside the settlement and with the social agents from outside. The accumulation of social capital in the communities has been decisive for their participation in the local development processes. Our hypothesis is that spatially explicit models and scenarios developed through participatory methods can help the communitarian decision-making processes and their negotiation with external agents. The existent social capital, the social mobilization of the leaderships, and the legal arrangement that guarantee the community leaders participation in several spheres of decision-making point out to the possibility of building scenarios that can effectively contribute to the process of social learning and conscious transformation of local reality. On the other hand, the process of building participatory scenarios can contribute to improve the social capital of individuals and social organizations and encourage their participation in designs plans for the development of the Lago Grande Settlement.

Session:  LCLUC and Human Dimensions - Land-use/land-cover change models and scenarios at multiple scales for Amazonia.

Presentation Type:  Oral