Forest citizens and people-centered conservation in the Brazilian Amazon

Parry, Luke and Morello, Thiago and Fraser, James and Guerrero, Natalia and Lotta, Gabriela and Martins, Rodrigo and Newton, Peter and Pires, J and Souza Santos, Andreza and Torres, Mauricio (2024) Forest citizens and people-centered conservation in the Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Biology. ISSN 0888-8892 (In Press)

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Abstract

Demands for territorial recognition are foundational to the claiming of rights by forest-proximate people who attempt to conserve their forests. The rights of these often-marginalized populations have been largely overlooked by conservationists yet are central to achieving people-centered conservation. This paper makes two contributions. First, we revitalize the concept of ‘forest citizenship’ in Amazonia using Brazilian socioambientalismo (social-environmentalism), florestania (a former political project in Acre state), Latin American scholarship on ecological citizenship, and Eurocentric political philosophy. We argue that decades of struggle for territorial recognition and social inclusion have already solidified the ‘right to have rights’ for Amazonia’s forest citizens. Hence, forest citizens are people who have become so through the socio-political dynamics of their rights claims. Forest citizenship is built on community mobilization to create legally-recognized territories with participatory governance but becomes tangible only if individuals and communities are able to successfully claim other rights from institutions through everyday practices of citizenship. Second, we assess the current number and distribution of forest citizens across Brazilian Amazonia, using gridded population data and spatial analysis to calculate the resident population in four territorial categories that meet these democratic preconditions: Indigenous lands, RESEX and RDS sustainable use reserves, ecological settlement projects, and Afro-descendent Quilombola territories. These territories cover 31% of the Legal Amazon, home to 1.05m forest citizens, and have diverse primary policy objectives but shared goals of empowering communities and conserving forests. It remains uncertain to what extent forest citizens are able to actualize rights in their daily lives. To be emancipatory, forest citizenship must be bottom-up, socially-inclusive, and must improve people’s lives. We suggest that conservationists pay greater attention to power relations and decision-making structures related to forest territories. Territory-based forest citizenship may be relevant for other countries where environmentalism has intersected with struggles for land-rights and democracy.