As relações sociedade/natureza sob a perspectiva de co-evolução

• Main Author: Rosana Barroso Miranda
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Paraná 2003-01-01
• Series: Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
• Subjects: co-evolution; nature/society interactions; smaIl-scale fisheries; mangroves; use conflicts; common property resources; sustainability.
• Online Access: http://ojs.c3sl.ufpr.br/ojs2/index.php/made/article/viewFile/22055/14416

The conservation and management policies of Brazilian natural resources have been based on the close correspondence between the notions of ecological sustainability regulated by market laws, and of a supposed equilibrium to be recovered and maintained in the functioning of the ecosystems. The connection between this notion of sustainability and the linear balance of the ecosystem has generated the idea of total protection of nature, as weIl as a rationale of management and conservation formulated from biological models of stocks in equilibrium and in linear evolution, managed for their maximum sustained yield. Also, the notion of human/nature relationships stems from an exclusive logic of appropriation ofnature, preconized by the inevitable destiny of overexploitation of resources managed in a communal way. Restraints issued from that paradigm have straightforwardly affected human populations closelylinked to ecosystems, generating growing conflicts over natural resources use, environmental degradation, impoverishment processes and social exclusion of those populations. Aiming to provoke reflectionsabout alternative possibilities of natural resources appropriation, the present essay presents theoretical arguments and case studies to approach human/nature relationships from the perspective of co-olution.