Good governance to overcome chaos and manage public lands in Amazonia: The case of Acre-Brazil Paper prepared for presentation at the “ANNUAL WORLD BANK.

Good governance to overcome chaos and manage public lands in Amazonia: The case of Acre-Brazil

Paper prepared for presentation at the“ANNUAL WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY”

The World Bank - Washington DC, March 24-27, 2014

Good governance to overcome chaos and manage public lands in Amazonia: The case of Acre-Brazil

REYDON, Bastiaan P.1

SOUZA, Elyson F; SOUZA, Gisele E. A. B; SAKAMOTO, Camila S2

MACIEL, Raimundo C. Gomes3

1. Economist (USP), Master in Agronomy (USP), Doctor in Economical Development (IE/UNICAMP), Powder- by the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Free Teacher of the Institute of Economy of the State University of Campinas. Email: [email protected].

2. Studying for a Ph.D. in Development Economics at the University of Campinas, Brazil. [email protected]/ [email protected]/ [email protected]

3. Professor of Departament of Economics at Federal University of Acre, [email protected] 

Brazil is one of the countries with the highest land concentration in the world.

Indicators 1975 1985 1995/6 2006Number of establishments (millions) 5,0 5,7 4,8 4,9Total area (millions of hectares) 323,9 369,6 353,6 294Mean area (hectares) 64,9 71,7 72,8 67,1Gini Index 0,855 0,859 0,857 0,856Area of the smaller 50% (%) 2,5 2,4 2,3 2,3Area of the larger 5% (%) 68,7 69,7 68,8 69,3Source: Censos Agropecuários, IBGE. In: REYDON, 2011.

Table 1. Brazilian agricultural land structure.

Table 2. Some numbers on the rural conflicts in Brasil, 2002-2010.

The Brazilian agrarian question is yet to be solved and is still a major hindrance to the country’s development. In a total of 13 thousand episodes of land conflict.

Year Num. of conflicts

Num. of persons involved

Conflicts in area (hectares)

Num. of murders

Num. of murder attempts

Num. of death threats

Num. of persons arrested

Num. of aggressions

2002 925 425.780 3.066.436 43 36 244 158 18

2003 1690 112.7205 3.831.405 73 64 266 380 48

2004 1801 965.710 5.069.399 39 99 284 421 335

2005 1881 803.850 11.487.072 38 56 266 261 166

2006 1657 703.250 5.051.348 39 72 207 917 749

2007 1538 612.000 8.420.083 28 66 259 428 443

2008 1170 354.225 6.568.755 28 44 90 168 800

2009 1184 415.290 15.116.590 25 62 143 204 277

2010 1186 315.935 13.312.343 34 55 125 88 90Source: Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in REYDON, 2011b, adapted.

 Another problem created by the lack of  land governance is the intense deforestation in the Amazon.

  The  land  regularization  is  vital  for  the  sustainable development promotion in the Legal Amazon. 

  Due  to  the  lack  of  a  cadastre  and  effective  land  property regulation  in  Brazil,  the  most  common  practice  is  the  land possession, especially in the Amazon. 

Only 4% of the private areas (20 million hectares) have their registers  validated  by  INCRA.  There  is more  than  158 million hectares  (32%)  of  land  supposedly  private  without  register validated by INCRA. Yet there is the remainder 21% which were not  in  neither  of  the  above  categories  and  are,  therefore, technically  considered public  lands without  allocatio Brazilian National  Institute  for  Colonization  and  Agrarian  Reform (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária).

Supposedly public and out of protected areas

21%

Protected áreas43%

Private with register validated by INCRA

4%

Supposedly private without register val-

idated by INCRA32%

Source:  Barreto  (2008),  apud  Reydon  (2011b).  Modified  and  freely translated from Portuguese.

Figure 1. Juridical condition of land in the Amazon (% of area)

The major land problem in Brazil is the lack of land governance, which is caused by the specific historical construction process of an inadequate legal and institutional framework for this end.

Source: Reydon (2011b) 

Scheme 1. Brazilian current land administration institutional framework

The  state  of  Acre  is located  in  the extreme  southwest of the  Northern  Region, inserted  in  the Brazilian  Amazon, covers  a  land  area  of 16,422,136  ha, representing 1.93% of the land area of Brazil. 

Figure 2. Location of Acre in Brazil and in the South America

It is possible to have a glance at the land concentration. while the rural establishments with up to 100 hectares sum up 19.6 thousand and occupy and area of 670 thousand hectares (19% of the total). This testifies to the land concentration level in Acre, a commonplace for Brazilian states.

As Figure 5 shows, 88% of the state’s area is covered by forests, but some regions have high rates of deforestation.

Figure 5. Acre’s deforestation

Figure 3. Acre’s deforestation

The great majority of the producers declare themselves as proprietors of the land in which they work, about 69,23% of the producers, representing an area of more than 3 million hectares.

Indicators Establishments% of the

total Area (ha)% of the

total

Proprietor 20,410 69.23 3,032,433.84 85.94

Settler without title 3,312 11.23 204,693.94 5.8

Tenant 70 0.24 8,848.81 0.25

Partner 298 1.01 13,128.92 0.37

Landholder 3,518 11.93 269,437.23 7.64

Producer without area 1,875 6.36 0 0

Total 29,483 100 3,528,542.74 100

Source: IBGE, Agricultural Census, 2006. Free translation.

Table 4 – Producer’s condition in relation to the land, Acre, 2006.

Denomination Quantity Area (hectares)% of the Acre’s area

Settlement Projects 107 1,641,158 9.99Protected Areas (Integral Protection) 3 1,563,769 9.52Protected Areas (Sustainable Use) 16 3,544,067 21.58Indigenous Lands 30 2,390,112 14.55

Subtotal 156 9,139,106.00 55.65Land in process of discrimination 9 410,866 2.5Non-destined public ands Several 494,071 3.01Dominical Lands 4,086 209,270 1.27Areas under private domain - SNCR 7,749 5,081,836 30.95Areas to be discriminated Several 1,086,987 6.62

Subtotal   7,283,030.00 44.35

State of Acre Total Area 16,422,136.00 100

Sources: SEMA, IBAMA, ITERACRE, 2010. Adapted, free translation from Portuguese.

Table 6 – Acre’s lands current situation, 2006.

Under Brazilian law to track border is 150 km, and is considered critical to homeland defense. Following this law, land management of Acre would be the responsibility of the federal government. Even so, the local government makes land management using the Ecological Economic Zoning.

Figure 4 -Borderlands in Acre

Land caotic situation in Acre

• 1,6 millions of ha of public land with no clear definition of which institution is in charge:

SPU – if around riversITERACRE – if state level public landINCRA – because it is inside the 150 km of the border. 

• Most deforestation occurs on public land;

Land caotic situation in Acre

• Only around 0.76 % of the properties are registered summing 33 % of the area; 

• There are registers in the Notaries of Belem, of Manaus;

• There are stories saying that there are registers in Bolivia; 

• What to do ?  • One proposition is the Participatory registration

    The  participatory governance will, based on the knowledge of  reality,  the  discussion  of  priorities  for  its  use  and  proper oversight.  With  effective  governance  over  land,  particularly the creation of a modern cadastre and self powered, you can:

1- Ensure the rights of private property for different purposes: business, lease guarantees in obtaining credit for the granting of  payments  for  environmental  services  and  others;

2-  Identify  public  lands  and  ensure  their  proper  use  for: creation  of  reserves,  settlements  or  settlement;

3- Establish safer other land policies: land reform , land credit, taxation  on  the  land;

4-  Regular  procurement  processes  for  land  :  limit  access  to foreigners  and  with  many  land  owners  or  other  owners.

A

Participatory Cadaster: a proposition for ACRE

The  participatory cadaster can, based on the knowledge of reality, create the conditions for a better land governance: use and ownership. With effective governance over land, particularly the creation of a modern cadastre, the country will:a. Ensure the rights of private property for different purposes: business, 

lease guarantees in obtaining credit for the granting of payments for environmental services and others;

b. Identify public lands and ensure their proper use for: creation of reserves, settlements or settlement;

c. Establish better other land policies: land reform , land credit, taxation on the land;

d. Regular procurement processes for land : limit access to foreigners and with many land owners or other owners.

  Historically,  Acre  confirms  the  idea  that  the  lack  of  land governance  in Brazil has economic,  social  and environmental problems  consequences;

 Amazon land policies has had use and occupation rural and urban land chronic problems. With lack of regulation / proper governance in these markets;

  This  practice  becomes  more  serious  when  it  reaches  the border areas ranges occupied by extractive populations, which has the forest as a base of its subsistence.

  However,    any  policy  from  the  development  of  NWFP  to PES,  to  be  effective  requires  a  clear  definition  of  property rights.

Final Remarks