A socio-environmental development programme in action in Brazilian Amazonia

Abstract

This paper deals with the process of scaling up and scaling down grassroots demands through a state-sponsored socio-environmental development programme in Brazilian Amazonia called Proambiente (Pro-environment). The paper attempts to understand the links between the three different levels of the programme actions: the macro (federal government), intermediate (NGOs), and local (community) levels. The central paper's issue is to understand how a state-sponsored socio-environmental development programme interacts with and impacts local communities. The theoretical paper's framework involves the approaches of participatory development and governance. The methodology is based on three levels of qualitative analysis (macro-, intermediary- and local-level). The paper (a) describes the trajectory of the Proambiente and the process of scaling up communities' demands; (b) reveals contradictions within the Proambiente implementation; and (c) debates the impacts of the programme actions at local level. The paper reveals that once the state encompasses local people's demands and creates a development programme, the development model absorbs multi-actor interests that change local people's proposals. It also shows that the challenge facing a socio-environmental development programme like the Proambiente is to find a balance between production and conservation aims. Copyright © 2012 Brazilian Administration Review.