Vanessa Sequeira

Balancing Forest Conservation and Livelihood Security of Forest Dwellers in the Western Brazilian Amazon

Conducting the household interview.

Smallholding with clearing for pasture.

Typical household.

Town/RegionCountryCategoriesDate
Brazilian AmazonBrazilCentral and Latin America, Forests18 Jan 2004

Can people really make a living from the forest whilst conserving it, or is there a cost in terms of human welfare and/or conservation of the forest? This is a particularly complex question in the context of the Amazon rainforest, where perceived values differ according to the interests of each particular stakeholder. If conservation policies and strategies are to be successful, it is fundamental to address the divergent goals of different stakeholders and identify viable solutions to minimize trade-offs between environmental conservation and socio-economic development. These solutions are urgently needed given the annual loss of forest cover of about 18,000 km² in the Brazilian Amazon alone, and where 16% of the original forest cover has been lost over the past decades, threatening both biodiversity conservation and the livelihoods of forest-dwelling people.

The study will determine the impact of forest dwellers' livelihoods on the forest resources by focusing on case studies from forest frontier areas in Acre, the westernmost state of the Brazilian Amazon. Specific objectives are:

1) to identify how households achieve livelihood security through forest-based production systems, and determine the extent to which income is generated through forest resources;

2) to determine the impact of livelihood activities on forest conservation;

3) to determine actual and potential trade-offs between livelihood security and forest conservation, and identify ways to minimize them. The fieldwork will principally consist of household level interviews of forest dwellers, complemented with remote sensing techniques.

Information will be collected relating to indicator variables which will subsequently be analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. It is aimed to conduct at least 200 household interviews within the study areas over the period of a year.

Project Update: July 2006

After four months of preparation – which involved many meetings with local government officials and non-government agencies, several community meetings to present the research project, two field tests, and numerous reconnaissance visits to the three field sites - the household level interview phase has finally begun. The first round of interviews has now been completed in Site 1, an extractive reserve accessible only by river canoe and the remoter households on foot and occasionally by horse. Fortunately, households have been receptive to my questioning which could last for up to 4 hours per interview, and have also shown me great hospitality despite their poverty.

Some interesting, and often surprising, preliminary observations have been revealed so far. Although this site is an extractive reserve – areas conceded by the government to rubber-tapping communities in order to continue conducting their forest-based activities – forest dependency is limited to Brazil nut harvesting in the rainy season months and hunting throughout the year. Outside of the rainy season, livelihood activities are based on small-scale, and often unproductive, agriculture. This indicates a much lower dependence on the forest than originally hypothesised, despite this community’s history of forest-based livelihoods.

Vanessa Sequeira

We are saddened to learn that Vanessa Sequeira was killed in Brazil on September 3, 2006. We offer our deepest sympathy to her family and all who knew her.


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