June 25, 2022
11:06
Marcela Leiros – Amazon Agency
BRASILIA – The challenges and potentials of integrating economy, environment and social responsibility, that is, socio-biodiversity, was the theme debated this week in a public hearing in the Senate, in Brasília. Among the points expressed by experts and people who live these challenges daily, the need to protect territories and guarantee the rights of traditional communities was a consensus among all.
Copabase cooperative manager and family farmer Dionete Figueiredo remembered the daily challenges faced by the 300 cooperative families who work with sustainable agro-extractivism. According to her, the main impediment for the development of this economy, in the cooperative, is the conflict between norms and the difficulties of organizing small businesses.
“I’ve come to talk about how difficult it is for us to organize ourselves, to guarantee that 300 families can put their baru [a native nut from the Cerrado] at Copabase’s door. People out there sometimes want to buy, but we don’t have the means to organize this production, to help the extractivists get trained, to understand the process of sanitary rules”, she said.
She further explained that bureaucracies also hinder the advancement of agriculture. “We try to maintain a team of technicians to help them in the management of the organization processes, but there is so much bureaucracy, logistics invoices, and fuel that goes up every day. And the market is cruel, there is no margin for error. In our enterprises, we have no capital and no access to public credit policies for organizations like ours, even if they have a balance sheet, a social contract”, he reiterated.
Protection of territories
The general secretary of the National Council of Extractive Peoples (CNS), Dione do Nascimento Torquato, pointed out that it is not possible to talk about a socio-biodiversity economy without talking about the protection of traditional territories of collective use, the valorization of the way of life of the flower, field and water guardians.
“Unfortunately, at the moment we are living, it does not show a very favorable moment for this socio-environmental agenda in the country, and our history will sadly be marked by a dark moment. Perhaps the greatest reflection of this sad reality are the innumerable cases of land conflicts. The deaths of activist leaders in the fields and the massive invasion of our traditional territories of collective use, especially extractive reserves and indigenous lands”, he said at the hearing.
Torquato also emphasized the importance of sociobiodiversity in the fight against hunger and food insecurity, which has affected more and more families. A research on the subject, released this month, indicated that 33 million people are currently hungry in the country.
“It is important to talk about the socio-biodiversity economy in confronting and fighting hunger, which today kills those who have nothing to eat. The country urgently needs a viable solution, we cannot historically exclude those who are already oppressed, and we cannot criminalize those who are seen as vulnerable. We need to strengthen the socio-biodiversity economy through public policy”, he said.
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Professor and researcher from the University of Brasilia (UnB), Mônica Nogueira reiterated that it is necessary to understand sociobiodiversity as relationships of interdependence between modes of production and ways of life of indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, diverse traditional communities.
“These people report deep bonds that they have with the landscapes they manage, and these bonds occur because the landscapes that offer them sustenance also offer memory, knowledge that was learned through processes of experimentation over many generations. It is this kind of bond that predisposes them to defend and preserve these areas as their own lives. This is the first relationship that characterizes sociobiodiversity and will characterize the sociobiodiversity economy”, she said.
Nogueira also explains that another important relationship is of the sociobiodiversity economy with Brazilian and global society. “Offering products yes, healthy food for Brazilian society, but also ecosystem services for global society: care for the water, for biodiversity, for the climate, that really play a role so that besides that local community understanding that they are contributing to their destiny, they also contribute to our future”, she concluded.
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