Barômetro da Sustentabilidade aplicado a assentamentos rurais do leste do Estado do Pará, Brasil

• Main Authors: Veríssimo César Sousa Silva, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Paraná 2016-04-01
• Series: Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
• Subjects: sustainable development; rural settlements; sustainability indicators
• Online Access: http://revistas.ufpr.br/made/article/view/39957/27912
• ISSN: 1518-952X; 2176-9109

The sustainability of rural settlements projects in Amazon has been questioned with regard to environmental impacts and socio-economic precariousness of rural populations. In recent years, several methods of assessing the sustainability of these settlements have been proposed, but the challenges are still enormous in order to incorporate a multidimensional view in assessing the quality of these settlements. This study aims to analyze the level of sustainability of rural settlements of Pará state, Brazil through the Sustainability Barometer (BS). Four themes were selected (social, economic- productive, organizational and environmental) and 28 indicators drawn from a social and environmental assessment made by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform – INCRA. Two categories of settlements were compared: Conventional Projects (PAC) and Environmental Differentiated Projects (PAD). Both categories of rural settlements were demonstrated not to provide good quality of life to families considering the precariousness of basic services offered to rural settlers. On the other hand, both categories of settlement are in the same situation in terms of sustainability (Potentially Unsustainable - according to BS), the PAD model presents greater potential for economic and ecological sustainability.