Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa, Brazil
Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa, Carbon Cajari Project (Projeto Carbono Cajari) Brazil
2013 Conference Paper: "Improvement in Infrastructure Deployment in Brazil Nut Production Chain through the GIS to Traditional Extractive Population
s in the Eastern Amazon"
Presenter(s): *Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa, Carbon Cajari Project, Brazil
"The work is being developed through Cajari Carbon Project, which aims to conserve forests through sustainable development and investment in the Brazil nut production chain for traditional communities. One of the barriers to ensure quality and, consequently, add value to the Brazil nut, is the lack of suitable sites for the storage of the product in the forest. Currently, the product is exposed to nature effects for long periods, subject to contamination by fungi, which can damage the whole production and reduce significantly the extrativists families’ income. This study is conducted in a federal conservation unit, the River Cajari Extractive Reserve (RESEX-CA), Amapá, Eastern Amazon, Brazil, in the region named Alto Cajari, a concentration of Brazil nut tree populations and 14 traditional agroextractivists communities with over 300 families. As financial resources are scarce, we need to identify and prioritize (1) families who are most in need receive a “paiol,” which is a storage room specifically designed for predrying, cleaning, reducing moisture and temporary storage of the Brazil nut in the “castanhal” (high densities of Brazil nut trees in the forest areas) and (2) the places for the implementation of 65 “paióis” for the selected families. The criteria used for the family selection take into account: the distance and access difficulty to the “castanhais,” the project’s families productivity, the dwellers’ involvement with “Brazil nut tree in fallows” management, and the number of families who will benefit from each “paiol.” Each variable is important. The information acquired so far was collected through field research activities and questionnaires. Also there will be the spatialization of the houses of all communities, the “castanhais” and fallows mapped, based on GPS points. From the shape created, all socioeconomic data will be inserted in the attribute table. There will be vectoring limits of “castanhais” and fallows and matching with their respective communities. The results will be used to make a fair choice of sites for the installation of “paióis” and, for the first time, we will also be able to observe the distribution of the “castanhais,” the identification of the most productive areas, and the distribution of natural resources among the local population. Local storage will ensure the quality of this important product to the region and lead to the communities’ socio-participative certification.
2013 Scholar Profile:
Email: janabpcosta at yahoo.com
Biologist – executive coordinator of environmental training.
interest keywords (please see instructions): Amazon forest, conservation, traditional populations, communities, protected area, environmental education and renovates technology
Organization name: Carbon Cajari Project (Projeto Carbono Cajari)
Country: Brazil
Work phone with country and area code: 55 96 4009-9551
Work fax with country and area code: 55 96 3223-4527
Main email: projeto.carbonocajari@gmail.com
Organization Web site URL if any: www.projetocarbonocajari.org
Organization subject keywords (please see instructions): Amazon forest, conservation, traditional populations, Brazil nut extraction, protected area, Bertholletia excelsa and agro-extractive families, sequestration de carbon, REDD+.
Overview: Janaina lives in Amapá Brazil and learned about SCGIS from 2007 SCGIS Scholar Claudia Funi. She does community oriented GIS in a sustainable development project focused in brazil nut production in the Amazon forest.
Please describe the work that your current organization does: The Cajari Carbon Project focuses on carbon sequestration and avoided emissions by the conservation of forests and associated biodiversity to the Amazon biome, through the maintenance and expansion of natural populations of Brazil nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa Bonpl., endangered species), environmental education and mainly investing Brazil nut production chain in Brazil to strengthen the extraction. The project is developed in 14 communities where more than 1,400 people are directly involved with the project throughout its execution. This initiative provides a positive impact on long-term conservation of Brazil nut, combining sustainable development and the conservation of natural resources. The Project is sponsored by Petrobras, (a Brazilian government company), through Petrobras Environmental Program, and has as proponents the ASTEX-CA, an Agroextractivists Workers Association from Cajari (Associação do Trabalhadores Agroextrativistas do Cajari), a nonprofit organization that works on the social organization and assists the Agroextractivists workers of the Alto Cajari region (local concentration of Brazil nut trees in RESEX-CA). The project execution is carried out by a hired executive team and institutional partners (Embrapa Amapá, IEF and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation – ICMBio, Intituto Chico Mendes da Biodiversidade) and non-government organizations, the CNS - National Council of Traditional Populations (Conselho nacional das populações tradicionais), Alto Cajari Women's Association (Associação de Mulheres do Alto Cajari - AMAC, Agroextractivists workers Cooperative in Alto Cajari (COOPERALCA), Agroextractivists Family Schools of the Maraca and the Carvao regions- EFAEX-MA and EFAC, Escolas família agroextrativistas do Maracá e do Carvão). The Cajari Carbon Project actions are divided into five streams: 1) Mapping approximately 330 “castanhais” (over 3,000 ha) for quantification of production and potential emissions avoided. In each area of them, Brazil nut trees are all geo-referenced and a lot of data is collected, 2) Carbon sequestration by expanding the population of Brazil nut trees in SC fallows, this stream refers to the scientific research, such as the Monitoring Social Dynamics , where all the houses in the community were visited, geo-referenced and a diagnostic form was applied as to the environmental data collection activities within the chestnut fields and SC fallows floristic inventory, analyze soil, natural regeneration, Brazil nut production, disperser activities: agouti), but mainly the management of saplings Brazil nut trees in the SC fallows, 3) Improvement in the infrastructure and processes for production Brazil nut collecting, storing, processing and transportation through deployment of new technologies (eg: Brazil nut solar dryer), construction of 65 storage “paióis”(sheds) and seven community kitchens, renovation of facilities and purchase of vehicles; 4) Environmental, productive and managerial training, several workshops on environmental education in all communities are held, as well as technical and administrative training for specific audiences within the RESEX-CA, and 5) support for project administration, management and cooperative associations and deployment of communication infrastructure and dissemination for adoption of sustainable practices, communication is a major focus for the dissemination of the knowledge produced.
Thus, this project on socioeconomic development with strong environmental focus is for the economic stimulus to family agroextractivist, through investments along the supply chain, recognizing that the traditional population had an important historical role for the rainforest conservation and its biodiversity. Many areas of the Amazon rainforest, considered as untouched forests in the popular imagination, are cultural forests arising from the interaction between indigenous and traditional populations. Strengthening Brazil nut extraction activity and its ability to generate income is essential for the expansion of sustainable practices, the maintenance of extraction activity and thus theforest conservation, consequently. This arrangement is possible through the integration between technical knowledge and traditional knowledge through the application of participatory methodologies and innovation technologies with renewable use. 
* ROLE IN THE ORGANIZATION-: Please describe your personal role in the organization:
I am a member of the executive coordination of the project, responsible for environmental training. This includes all environmental education, which acts transversally in all project activities. But it also involves the research and application of new technologies, led by Embrapa. My work goes from planning to execution and publication (popular or scientific). I participated in 2010, in the basic research that supported the development of this project and acted directly on the project since the beginning of its implementation in July 2011 up to the present.
Specifically, I am responsible for the information gather provided by the different groups in the project execution and the making of quarterly reports for monitoring and evaluation for the sponsor. I also work with the coordination of communication for dissemination of information either through the project´s radio program or in publications addressed to the extractivists, scientific community and environmental managers.
Finally, I coordinate and execute the actions of environmental education and training in 14 communities, which so far have had about 1500 participants in approximately 30 events. These activities had a greater amount of people than the all audience goal expected, therefore the approach taken on sequestration, greenhouse gases, conserving natural resources, environmental services, etc. Because our trainings have always been related to the Brazil nut value chain, with a lot of synergy in the exchange of knowledge between the community and the technical teams. The agroextractivists began to understand how the mapping of their “Castanhais” can be a tool to help them achieve certification socio-participative to their community and add value to the Brazil nut, through the conservation of standing forests.
*-HISTORY: Please describe the history of your personal work in conservation and GIS:
I graduated in Biology in 2005 and finished my Masters in Plant Biology in 2007. Since then I have taken part in some research projects related to conservation, at the Plant Ecology research group at the Federal University of Pernambuco, such as “Rarity, conservation and sustainable landscapes networks of forest northeastern Atlantic”, “Models of Forestry for Atlantic forest at the Pernambuco Endemism Center”, among others. I worked on a center of endemism northeastern Atlantic forest (biodiversity hotspot), which currently has only 2% of the original scattered in a mosaic of small forest fragments. So, I have worked with natural regeneration and forest fragmentation. In this project, the GIS was used by the research group, for construction management plans and reforestation, as a basis for scientific research. For example, although the images spotted fragments reasonable forest cover, such diversity has declined considerably by the absence of dispersal animals, locally extinct. Through the GIS it was possible to calculate the percentage of edge forest fragments and evaluate its effects on forest biota.
Then I had a scholarship for three years, conducting research in Central Amazonia, at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), the National Institute for Amazonian Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia - INPA), worked again with forest fragmentation effects on populations of trees in the region. I also participated in several projects, such as “Studies for the conservation and use of forest resources: reproductive phenology, morphology, germination” and “Conservation in situ and ex situ tree species in Central Amazonia”. Then I started to conduct surveys in Amapá (Eastern Amazonia), through a scholarship from Embrapa, working primarily in research and interface design community through “Sustainable Management of Non-Timber Forest Products in Amazonia - Kamukaia II Project” (which was the basis for the Cajari Carbon Project) and “Ecology and forest management for multiple use of the várzeas floodplains forest of the Amazon estuary – FLORESTAM, project in which I have participate as a volunteer up to the present.
The Florestam project works closely with the Amazon River border dwellers, generating information that will guide the management to ensure the sustainable development of these communities as to conserve and provide economic return, based on timber and non-timber products. In the previously mentioned project, GIS is very important for forest management, as it is used to determine the geographic distribution of the most economically important species. We also use GIS to enable a low-impact forestry based management plans required by government agencies, directing all the planning and execution of research with greater effectiveness.
In my professional career in the Amazon, the importance and necessity to use GIS-oriented practices and conservation studies has become increasingly evident. The ability to generate new information broadens our knowledge for scientific and management purposes and public policies. It has become an indispensable tool for the benefit of traditional communities, collaborating for the best use of local resources in communities in the Amazon and the world.
*-UNIQUE: Please describe what is the most unique and the most challenging about the conservation / GIS work that you do:
The Alto Cajari region in RESEX-CA, has the exuberance of the Amazon region, with a particular mixture of Savannas and Forest. But working at RESEX-CA, besides being a challenge, due to difficulties of access and lack of financial resources, is above all a great learning experience. Local people provide for the family by collecting Brazil nut, at the same time they have historically conserved these forests. The agroextrativists abandon the SC fallows areas destined to be for agriculture to become “castanhais” in the future, when they see a large number of seedlings and saplings Brazil nut trees in the area. Thus, these communities have an important role in the regeneration of Brazil nut tree, carbon sequestration and avoided emissions besides all the environmental services provided. However, they have poor living conditions, access to the “castanhais” is very difficult, through roads and vicinal roads of land, many of them handmade by the community and they need to walk miles, often having to carry a lot of weight on their backs. There is no electricity, piped water, cell phone signal, nor internet access. Improving the living conditions of these people, boosting the regional economy is one of the objectives of the Cajari Carbon Project. In this context, the use of GIS will provide a considerable rise on the national scene, the immensity of multidisciplinary information generated by this project. However, much of this information can simply be underutilized due to lack of skilled people to manage them, as in many parts of the Amazon, qualified professionals in geotechnology are rare. Moreover, there’s lack basic research for the region, for example, there’s no cartographic basis the state of Amapá, information is scarce and when available is not easy to find. All this makes it difficult to work with GIS, but with all our efforts, we believe that this unique project will become a model to be followed both nationally and internationally.
It is reflected in various aspects of society, it may be structured with agents that act (1) the governmental level (IEF - Forest Institute of Amapá), working directly in the construction of public policies, (2) the generation of science and technology (Embrapa and associated universities); management in the area of federal protection (ICMBio - Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity), the preservation of culture and community organization (ASTEX, AMAC, CNS and COOPERALCA); and training young professionals RESEX-CA that will continue the actions developed (our Fellows). With synergy, this is a pioneering project in the eastern Amazon in quantifying the potential of fixed carbon in these forests, harboring new possibilities for adding value to this important non-timber product, Brazil nuts. Being so, the use of GIS tools to reduce the costs of collecting, by optimizing the planning of trails and vicinl roads to production flow within the forest, as well as to define the location of the processing structures such as “paióis”(temporary Brazil nut storage place), dryers and kitchens due to the productive capacity of regions and settings, a technological innovation is essential to strengthen the Brazil nut value chain. This activity was not previously set in the original project, but training and empowering someone of the project team to achieve the goals, will be crucial. More specifically the proposed work for me is to integrate, through GIS, all the information generated by the project and make up a way to identify priority sites for the construction of 65 “paióis” for the families. Although there are about 330 families, there isn´t sufficient resources to benefit all of them, it is necessary to rank those who need it most, using the collected and geo-referenced data (“castanhal” area, distance from the community, managed SC fallows area, socioeconomic data, etc.). The goal is to subsidize a fair and coherent distribution for the community, benefiting the families that are currently most in need of support. I am particularly determined to contribute to this direct benefit to those families that both motivate and teach us. And I am sure that the acquisition of knowledge and technology obtained with the SCGIS scholarship will greatly contribute to this purpose.
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