Making place-based sustainability initiatives visible in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

From state-based developmentalism to community-based initiatives to market-based conservation, the Brazilian Amazon has been a laboratory of development interventions for over 50 years. The region is now confronting a devastating COVID-19 pandemic amid renewed environmental pressures and increasing social inequities. While these forces are shaping the present and future of the region, the Amazon has also become an incubator of local innovations and efforts confronting these pressures. Often overlooked, place-based initiatives involving individual and collective-action have growing roles in promoting regional sustainability. We review the history of development interventions influencing the emergence of place-based initiatives and their potential to promoting changes in productive systems, value-aggregation and market-access, and governance arrangements improving living-standards and environmental sustainability. We provide examples of initiatives documented by the AGENTS project, contextualizing them within the literature. We reflect on challenges and opportunities affecting their trajectories at this critical juncture for the future of the region.

Full text

Making
place-based
sustainability
initiatives
visible
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon
Eduardo
S
Brondizio
1,4
,
Krister
Andersson
2
,
Fa
´bio
de
Castro
3
,
Ce
´lia
Futemma
4
,
Carl
Salk
5
,
Maria
Tengo
¨
6
,
Marina
Londres
4
,
Daiana
CM
Tourne
4
,
Taı
´s
S
Gonzalez
6
,
Adriana
Molina-Garzo
´n
2
,
Gabriela
Russo
Lopes
3
and
Sacha
MO
Siani
1
From
state-based
developmentalism
to
community-based
initiatives
to
market-based
conservation,
the
Brazilian
Amazon
has
been
a
laboratory
of
development
interventions
for
over
50
years.
The
region
is
now
confronting
a
devastating
COVID-
19
pandemic
amid
renewed
environmental
pressures
and
increasing
social
inequities.
While
these
forces
are
shaping
the
present
and
future
of
the
region,
the
Amazon
has
also
become
an
incubator
of
local
innovations
and
efforts
confronting
these
pressures.
Often
overlooked,
place-based
initiatives
involving
individual
and
collective-action
have
growing
roles
in
promoting
regional
sustainability.
We
review
the
history
of
development
interventions
influencing
the
emergence
of
place-
based
initiatives
and
their
potential
to
promoting
changes
in
productive
systems,
value-aggregation
and
market-access,
and
governance
arrangements
improving
living-standards
and
environmental
sustainability.
We
provide
examples
of
initiatives
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project,
contextualizing
them
within
the
literature.
We
reflect
on
challenges
and
opportunities
affecting
their
trajectories
at
this
critical
juncture
for
the
future
of
the
region.
Addresses
1
Indiana
University-Bloomington,
USA
2
University
of
Colorado-Boulder,
USA
3
CEDLA,
University
of
Amsterdam,
The
Netherlands
4
NEPAM,
State
University
of
Campinas,
Brazil
5
Southern
Swedish
Forest
Research
Centre,
Swedish
University
of
Agricultural
Sciences,
Alnarp,
Sweden
6
Stockholm
University,
Sweden
Corresponding
author:
de
Castro,
Fa
´bio
(f.decastro@uva.nl,
f.decastro@cedla.nl)
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
This
review
comes
from
a
themed
issue
on
Transformations
to
sustainability:
critical
social
science
perspectives
Edited
by
Eleanor
Fisher,
Emily
Boyd,
Eduardo
S
Brondizio
Received:
16
October
2020;
Accepted:
17
March
2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.03.007
1877-3435/ã
2021
The
Author(s).
Published
by
Elsevier
B.V.
This
is
an
open
access
article
under
the
CC
BY
license
(http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Introduction
A
laboratory
of
development
interventions
for
over
50
years,
the
Brazilian
Amazon
is
again
experiencing
frontier
expansion,
resource
expropriation
and
deforesta-
tion,
pollution
and
pressures
on
Indigenous
and
rural
communities.
Today,
land-use
conflicts,
conservation,
climate
change,
urban
poverty
and
inequality,
and
a
devastating
COVID-19
pandemic
interact
in
complex
ways.
While
academic
and
policy
debates
rightly
empha-
size
these
forces
as
shaping
the
present
and
future
of
the
region,
the
Amazon
has
also
become
an
incubator
of
local
innovations
and
efforts
to
confront
these
pressures
and
historical
social
inequalities,
by
both
individual
and
col-
lective-action
[1–3,4

].
Place-based
initiatives
involving
individuals,
rural
com-
munities,
organizations,
associations
and
cooperatives,
while
often
overlooked
at
the
regional
level,
have
growing
roles
in
efforts
to
promote
sustainable
development.
Throughout
the
region,
they
are
contributing
alternative
approaches
to
manage,
conserve
and
restore
landscapes
[5,6],
promote
regenerative
agriculture
and
agroforestry
[7–9],
reduce
poverty
[10],
empower
women
[11],
pro-
mote
value-aggregation
and
market
access
[12],
and
make
environmental
governance
more
inclusive
[13].
They
have
been
important
protagonists
of
regional
change
during
past
decades,
but
remain
largely
marginalized
and
invisible,
challenged
by
land
invasions,
conflicting
policies
and
poor
access
to
transportation,
sanitation,
education
and
health
services,
and
credit.
In
this
article,
we
review
the
recent
history
of
develop-
ment
interventions
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon
to
examine
factors
and
conditions
influencing
the
emergence
of
place-based
initiatives
and
their
potential
to
promote
and
sustain
changes
and
innovations
in
this
time
of
uncertainty
for
the
region.
Specifically,
we
focus
on
rural
place-based
initiatives
pursuing
changes
in
productive
systems,
institutions,
and
access
to
markets
to
improve
living
standards
and
environmental
sustainability.
We
review
three
overlapping
phases
in
regional
development
ideas
(and
ideologies):
state-based
developmentalism
(1960–),
transnational
socio-environmentalism
(1990–),
Available
online
at
www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
www.sciencedirect.com

market-based
and
corporative
green
schemes
(2000–).
We
further
highlight
the
influence
and
lasting
legacy
of
three
key
interventions
‘enabling’
place-based
initia-
tives,
particularly
the
Liberation
Theology
movement
(19701980),
the
PPG7
program
(1990s–2000s),
and
socioenvironmental
policies
(2000–2010).
We
use
place-based
initiatives
to
refer
to
actions
by
on-
the-ground
actors
who
have
ownership
(and
take
the
risks)
in
implementing
ideas
and
actions,
even
if
the
initiatives
are
externally
initiated
and
supported.
While
many
of
these
initiatives
are
place-specific
(e.g.
a
rural
association’s
agroforestry
nursery
and
fruit-pulp
proces-
sing
micro-industry),
they
are
connected
in
various
degrees
with
governments
at
multiple
levels,
external
markets,
donors,
and
supporting
non-governmental
organizations.
As
reviewed
in
the
sections
that
follow,
place-based
initia-
tives
are
addressed
in
different
ways
in
the
vast
academic
literature
examining
(and
influencing)
the
transformation
of
the
Brazilian
Amazon
during
the
last
50
years.
On
the
one
hand,
attention
is
given
to
the
power
of
policy
and
external
interventions
in
impacting
local
practices,
landscapes
and
driving
conflicts
and
political
struggles.
On
the
other
hand,
attention
is
given
to
the
power
of
sustainable
practices
shaped
by
adaptation
to
local
contexts.
Beyond
normative
perspectives
of
‘negative’
external
drivers
versus
‘positive’
local
drivers,
the
literature
describes
regional
transforma-
tions shaped through
all kinds
of
dialectical
relations
among
interventions,
environmental
and
climate
change,
and
local-level
action.
For
decades,
alliances
between
external
and
local
inter-
est
groups
have
enabled
and
benefited
from
govern-
ment
policies
and
market
forces
supporting
the
spread
of
deforestation,
logging,
mining,
large-scale
infrastruc-
ture,
and
land
invasions.
Recently,
for
instance,
local
actors
coordinated
forest-burning
events
via
social
media
while
resonating
a
narrative
about
regional
development
promoted
by
the
Brazilian
president
and
allies
[14].
Conversely,
several
top-down
but
pro-
gressive
national
public
policies,
including
formal
titling
programs,
social
safety-nets,
Indigenous
land
demarcation,
and
environmental
regulation,
exist
to
a
large
extent
because
of
longstanding
coordinated
exter-
nal
and
bottom-up
pressure
from
social
movements.
For
instance,
the
rubber
tapper
movement
grew
from
and
inspired
a
multitude
of
other
social
movements
and
shaped
public
policies
on
conservation
with
implica-
tions
beyond
Brazil;
and
experiences
with
community-
based
management
of
floodplain
fisheries,
initially
inspired
by
external
interventions
have
been
scaled-
up
and
inspired
state-level
policies.
In
today’s
reconfi-
gured
Amazonia,
these
contrasting
legacies
are
increas-
ingly
intertwined
in
an
inescapable
interdependence
among
actors
and
levels
of
governance.
Examining
the
emergence
and
trajectories
of
place-based
initiatives
has
further
conceptual
and
practical
implica-
tions.
Ostrom’s
pioneering
Governing
the
Commons
[15]
contributed
immensely
to
understanding
the
conditions
where
communities
can
develop
long-term
sustainable
management
of
common-pool
resources,
at
least
where
external
pressures
are
limited.
Recent
work
investigates
the
conditions
promoting
bottom-up
initiatives,
and
sus-
tainability
initiatives
more
broadly,
to
replicate
and
amplify
[16–19].
Less
understood
is
under
what
condi-
tions
place-based
initiatives
can
connect
(e.g.
socially,
economically
and
institutionally),
consolidate,
and
inspire
broader
and
lasting
changes
while
confronting
growing
external
pressures
[20].
As
we
illustrate
below,
external
factors
have
sometimes
become
enabling
conditions
making
local
actors
more
visible,
empowered
and
creative
to
develop
innovative
paths
with
impacts
beyond
their
local
context.
But
in
periods
of
economic
and
political
hardships,
when
exter-
nal
forces
and
interventions
generate
conflicts
and
shrink
space
for
local
actions,
local
actors
have
also
developed
new
ways
to
mobilize
socially,
resist,
reshape
alliances,
redefine
their
livelihoods,
build
new
knowledge
and
inspire
one
another.
In
these
spaces,
transformative
paths
are
being
re-imagined
from
conflicting
but
hopeful
nar-
ratives
of
development
and
resistance,
new
ideas,
political
alliances,
and
exchange
of
experiences.
During
the
past
two
decades,
these
paths
of
action
and
place-based
initia-
tives
have
proliferated
in
the
region;
they
are
gradually
connecting
through
new
alliances
and
collective
narra-
tives
with
support
from
external
actors
and
new
technol-
ogies.
However,
counter-forces
of
fragmentation,
vulner-
ability
and
silence
have
gained
strength.
In
response,
to
realize
these
imagined
transformative
paths,
these
seeds
of
innovation
are
seeking
to
expand
and
develop
new
connections.
The
recent
history
of
the
region
shows
that
place-based
initiatives,
if
adopted
by
social
and
political
movements,
can
shape
regional
landscapes
and
policies;
they
can
also
be
undermined
and
disappear.
Following
a
review
of
regional
development
interven-
tions,
we
illustrate
our
discussion
with
examples
of
place-
based
initiatives
promoting
sustainability
in
the
region
today
as
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project
(Amazo-
nian
Governance
to
Enable
Transformation
to
Sustain-
ability)
and
contextualize
them
within
the
regional
liter-
ature.
We
then
reflect
on
challenges
and
opportunities
affecting
their
potential
trajectories
at
this
critical
junc-
ture
for
the
future
of
the
region.
Fifty-years
of
development
interventions
and
conflicting
legacies
From
state-based
developmentalism
to
community-
based
initiatives
to
market-based
conservation,
the
Bra-
zilian
Amazon
has
been
the
focus
of
actions,
overlapping
in
time
and
space,
to
reconfigure
the
region
since
the
Place-based
sustainability
initiatives
in
Amazonia
Brondizio
et
al.
67
www.sciencedirect.com
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78

68
Transformations
to
sustainability:
critical
social
science
perspectives
Figure
1
1970-1975 1975-1979
1988
Chico Mendes
murdered
2004
PPCDAm
DETER
PIN
1974
PND II
POLAMAZÔNIA
1989
PRODES
2006
Soy moratoria
2008
Deforestation
mapping project
1992
Rio-92
Beef moratoria
Amazon Fund Deforestation
thousand km²
29
20
10
large-scale deforestation
0
1960 65 70 75 80 85 88* 90 95 00 05 10 15 2020**
1960s
State-based developmentalism
1990s
Transnational socio-environmentalism
Since 2000s
Market based & corporative green schemes
1970s-1980s
Liberation theology & Base Education Movement
1990s-2000s
PPG7 program
2000s
Socioenvironmental policies
1990s-FNO
1970s-1980s
Geopolitical goals
Investments in roads
Rural settlements
Subsidies for agriculture, mining, cattle
ranching & industries
Since 2000s
2010s
Green municipalities
program
Agroecological movement
1970s-2000s
Rural resistance movements emerged supported by progressive catholic groups
1980s-2000s
Strengthening of rural unions & confederations
Since 1980s
Formation of rural associations & cooperatives
Support programs from social & environmental NGOs
1990s-2000s
Demarcation of protected areas, Indigenous & community land
2000s
Inclusive social policies
Bolsa Familia
Bolsa Floresta
PRONAF,PPA, PNA
Mid 2010s
Dismantling of forest
monitoring & enforcement
Increase land invasions
Military dictatorship
Enablers Phases
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Development
interventions,
initiatives,
and
deforestation
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon.
Data
source:
PRODES/INPE.
Notes:
*
PRODES
data
is
available
from
1988
to
2019.
The
absence
of
bars
before
1988
does
not
mean
there
was
no
deforestation
in
the
period.
**
The
deforestation
rate
in
2020
is
a
preliminary
estimate.
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
www.sciencedirect.com

1960s
(Figure
1).
Between
1960–1990,
state-based
devel-
opment
projects
promoted
top-down,
large-scale
infra-
structure,
land
occupation,
and
a
vision
of
economic
extractivism
that
lead
to
high
deforestation
rates,
land
ownership
concentration,
and
social
inequities
[21–24].
From
1990–2010,
following
the
United
Nations’
Rio
Earth
Summit
in
1992,
a
unique
version
of
‘transnational
socio-environmentalism’
emerged
along
with
programs
to
strengthen
environmental
policies,
expand
environmental
monitoring,
and
demarcate
Indig-
enous
lands
and
protected
areas.
These
efforts
slowed
deforestation,
improved
land
security
of
traditional
com-
munities,
and
expanded
sustainable
production
initia-
tives
grounded
in
cooperativism,
value-aggregation,
improvements
in
local
infrastructure
and
social
services
[25,26,28].
As
socio-environmental
policies
declined
after
2010,
market-based
nature
conservation
initiatives
grew,
such
as
voluntary
compensation
schemes,
certifi-
cation
programs,
and
multi-stakeholder
roundtables
[24,27,29].
Since
2010,
these
advances
have
happened
in
parallel
to
resurgent
state-based
developmentalism,
including
the
systematic
dismantling
of
environmental
policies
and
monitoring
systems,
expansion
of
large-
scale
infrastructure,
illegal
deforestation
and
continuing
land
conflicts
[24,30,31,32

,33

].
While
these
different
development
framings
and
interventions
emerged
in
different
periods,
today’s
ideas
and
visions
of
regional
development
not
only
overlap,
but
interact
in
synergistic
and
conflicting
ways.
Place-based
initiatives
have
emerged
and
changed
in
several
phases.
Local
actors
have
articulated
experiences
and
elements
from
each
phase
by
adapting
and
seeking
new
opportunities
to
support
their
livelihoods
using
knowledge
co-production,
alliances
with
other
actors,
and
self-governance.
Causing
or
responding
to
the
out-
comes
of
development
programs,
three
groups
of
inter-
ventions
have
enabled
structural
changes,
and
influenced
each
other,
at
both
ground
and
policy
levels:
the
Catholic
Liberation
Theology
movement
during
the
1970s
and
1980s,
the
externally
funded
Pilot
Program
to
Conserve
the
Brazilian
Rainforest
(PPG7)
during
the
1990s
and
2000s,
and
the
development
of
a
bundle
of
socio-envi-
ronmental
policies
by
the
federal
and
some
state
govern-
ments
supported
by
non-governmental
organizations
and
social
movements
[24]
(Figure
1).
Based
on
social
justice
principles,
the
Liberation
Theol-
ogy
movement
catalyzed
social
and
economic
interven-
tions
in
rural
Amazonian
communities
[34].
Parish
leaders
and
supporting
organizations
organized
rural
families
into
communities,
often
based
on
external
ideals
and
practices
of
collective
governance
and
ownership.
The
term
‘community’
gained
region-wide
usage
to
represent
place-based
social
and
political
organizations,
progres-
sively
gaining
relevance
as
a
source
of
identity
and
land
rights,
and
as
a
unit
for
project
implementation
and
public
policies
[35–38].
Based
on
Paulo
Freire’s
methodology,
they
promoted
literacy
and
political
consciousness
among
marginalized
rural
populations,
building
rural
leaders
who
became
vital
in
land
struggles
during
the
1980s
re-democ-
ratization.
These
programs
have
continuously
influenced
the
formation
of
rural
community
associations,
forest-
peoples
organizations,
and
rural
worker
unions
through-
out
the
region
since
the
1970s.
Movements
such
as
that
of
rubber-tappers
reached
inter-
national
visibility
[39]
and
continue
influence
many
grass-
roots
environmental
movements
today.
They
helped
connect
local
concerns
and
actors
to
international
levels,
created
alliances
connecting
social-ecological
concerns,
and
articulated
a
forest/river-based
development
narra-
tive.
They
gave
rise
to
‘socio-environmentalism’
a
move-
ment
during
the
1990s
and
2000s
grounded
in
transna-
tional
alliances
between
social
and
environmental
movements
for
alternative
development
pathways,
based
on
local
knowledge
and
resource
governance,
and
the
economic
value
of
biodiversity
and
local
products
[24,35].
Focused
on
controlling
deforestation,
creating
protected
areas
and
demarcating
Indigenous
lands,
and
recognizing
local
knowledge
and
territorial
governance,
these
com-
munities
became
the
main
allies
in
a
larger
socio-envi-
ronmental
project
involving
governmental
and
nongov-
ernmental
organizations
[40,41].
These
transformative
paths
in
social
organization
and
territorial
governance
strengthen
from
the
launch
of
the
Pilot
Program
to
Conserve
the
Brazilian
Rainforest
(PPG7)
on
the
heels
of
Rio-92
(Figure
1).
PPG7
became
the
largest
environmental
program
implemented
in
Brazil
at
the
time,
and
arguably
the
most
influential
to
date
for
the
Amazon.
7
It
shaped
the
current
environmental
gov-
ernance
of
the
region
and
the
experiences
of
rural
and
Indigenous
communities
with
sustainable
development
initiatives
[42,43,44

].
The
program’s
impact
has
been
seen
in
support
for
the
then-nascent
Ministry
of
Envi-
ronment
and
of
the
Legal
Amazon,
supporting
the
craft-
ing
socioenvironmental
policies,
and
advancing
Brazil’s
comprehensive
satellite-based
deforestation
monitoring
system.
PPG7
contributed
to
unprecedented
territorial
policies,
including
the
expansion
of
demarcated
Indigenous
lands,
new
extractive
and
sustainable
use
reserves
based
on
co-management
arrangements
with
communities,
and
other
types
of
protected
areas.
Hundreds
to
thou-
sands
of
communities
received
support
from
PPG7
pro-
grams
for
local
projects
before
it
wound
down
around
Place-based
sustainability
initiatives
in
Amazonia
Brondizio
et
al.
69
7
Organized
in
four
main
areas,
the
program
supported
(1)
the
devel-
opment
of
a
national
environmental
policy,
including
deforestation
monitoring
for
the
region,
(2)
the
creation
of
protected
areas
and
the
demarcation
of
Indigenous
lands,
(3)
research
about
regional
ecosys-
tems,
and
(4)
local
sustainable
development
initiatives.
www.sciencedirect.com
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78

2012.
Concomitantly,
many
initiatives
also
benefited
from
the
credit
program
FNO
(National
Fund
for
the
North),
approved
as
part
of
the
new
1988
constitution,
which
included
credit
granted
through
associations
and
local
organizations
[45].
These
initiatives
were
boosted
by
socioenvironmental
policies
implemented
during
the
Workers’
Party
govern-
ment
(2003–2016)
such
as
credit-lines
to
improve
agricul-
tural
practices,
expanded
rural
energy,
and
conditional
cash-transfer
programs
[24,46–48].
In
addition,
the
crea-
tion
of
the
Amazon
Fund
in
2008
expanded
the
financial
support
for
place-based
initiatives
(Figure
1).
Local
and
regional
organizations,
such
as
rural
workers’
unions,
Indigenous
and
rural
community
associations,
and
women’s
networks
were
strengthened
significantly.
They
gained
experience
working
with
governments,
national
and
international
NGOs,
and,
not
least,
by
sharing
lead-
ership
and
organizational
expertise.
Regionally,
a
com-
prehensive
Action
Plan
for
the
Prevention
and
Control
of
Deforestation
in
the
Legal
Amazon
(PPCDAm)
eventu-
ally
led
to
an
80%
reduction
in
deforestation
rates
by
2012
(Figure
1),
helping
to
decrease
pressures
on
forest-depen-
dent
communities.
However,
government
policies
during
the
same
period
also
supported
the
expansion
of
large-
scale
commodity
agriculture,
logging
and
mining,
and
large-scale
infrastructure,
creating
a
situation
where
these
diverse
forms
of
living
and
interacting
with
the
region
co-
exist
today
[24].
Since
2000,
market-based
sustainable
development
pro-
jects
also
emerged
through
various
partnership
arrange-
ments
[49].
Carbon
compensation
schemes
for
forest
conservation
started
to
gain
more
attention
as
corpora-
tions
allied
with
environmental
NGOs
to
develop
mar-
ket-based
mechanisms
to
incentivize
forest
conserva-
tion.
Voluntary
sustainable
supply
chain
certification
schemes
emerged
from
the
private
sector
to
comply
with
sustainability
criteria
increasingly
demanded
by
global
consumers.
Although
supply
chain
certification
arrangements
remained
largely
non-accessible
to
small-
holder
producers,
diverse
forest
product
entrepreneur-
ship
emerged
in
the
form
of
cooperatives
and
micro-
industries
for
processing
and
commercializing
oils,
fruit-
pulp,
food
products,
jewelry,
timber
and
other
products
sold
to
local
and
to
external
markets.
Credit
lines
for
family
farming
(PRONAF),
and
institutional
purchase
of
family
farmers’
products
(PAA
and
PNAE)
(Figure
1)
as
well
as
partnerships
between
grassroots
organizations,
researchers,
private
actors
and
NGOs
were
instrumental
in
establishing
these
initiatives
[50–52].
Also
relevant
during
this
period
is
the
rise
of
the
agroecological
move-
ment,
which
gained
force
throughout
Latin
America
(Figure
1)
in
tandem
with
the
international
peasant
movement
Via
Campesina,
and
has
since
expanded
in
the
Amazon
and
Brazil
as
a
whole
promoting
regenera-
tive
agriculture
and
advocating
for
the
social
value
of
smallholder
producers,
gender
and
collective
identity
[53,54,55

].
Making
visible
place-based
initiatives
pursuing
social
and
environmental
goals
The
legacy
of
this
history
of
ideas
and
interventions,
and
their
interactions,
is
a
range
of
social-institutional
arrange-
ments,
innovations,
and
conflicts
endemic
to
the
Brazilian
Amazon.
Most
of
the
initiatives
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project
were
enabled,
directly
or
indirectly,
by
interventions
associated
and
experiences
gained,
among
others,
with
Liberation
Theology,
PPG7,
and
socioenvironmental
policies
by
both
federal
and
some
state
governments.
These
enabling
programs
were
instru-
mental
in
building
political
consciousness
and
re-organiz-
ing
kinship-based
groups
and
migrant-colonist
families
into
‘communities’
and
issue-based
associations.
Com-
munity
identity
and
formal
associativism
have
not
only
helped
‘binding
social
capital’
across
horizontal
networks
of
mutual
support,
but
‘bridging
social
capital’
with
regional
and
supra-regional
networks,
and
with
municipal
and
higher
governments
[4

,56].
These
experiences
con-
tinue
to
be
instrumental
as
new
opportunities
and
chal-
lenges
have
emerged.
In
this
section,
we
illustrate
exam-
ples
of
place-based
initiatives
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project,
contextualizing
an
illustrative
set
of
these
initiatives
within
the
regional
literature.
Since
2019,
the
AGENTS
project
has
documented
through
participatory
workshops,
fieldwork,
archival
and
interviews
over
200
place-based
initiatives
in
over
900
localities
and
174
municipalities
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon
(Figure
2).
These
are
mostly
small-scale
initia-
tives
dedicated,
among
others,
to
timber
and
NTFP
management
and
certification,
land
restoration,
expan-
sion
of
agroforestry
systems,
capacity-building,
women’s
empowerment,
micro-industries,
production,
processing,
and
commercialization
cooperatives,
and
community-
based
natural
resource
governance.
Some
of
these
inno-
vations
emerged
from
local
knowledge
and
experimenta-
tion,
such
as
intensive
agroforestry
systems,
while
others
came
from
interactions
between
external
agendas
and
local
goals,
such
as
the
creation
of
sustainable-use
reserves
and
community-based
management
arrange-
ments.
They
have
sought
to
govern
more
inclusively
to
manage
conflicts
or
create
new
and
more
effective
agree-
ments
among
stakeholders,
guiding
local
people’s
deci-
sions
and
actions
around
rivers,
forests,
agricultural,
and
urban
landscapes.
Figure
2
presents
a
preliminary
map
of
initiatives
identi-
fied
by
the
AGENTS
project
based
on
collaborative
work
with
local
organizations,
individuals
and
groups
in
three
focal
areas.
A
database
of
initiatives
was
built
with
con-
tributions
from
collaborators
and
participants
in
dialogue
workshops,
fieldwork,
and
interviews.
Initiatives
were
included
based
on
their
intended
scope
and
also
70
Transformations
to
sustainability:
critical
social
science
perspectives
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
www.sciencedirect.com

recognition
by
local
actors
and
organizations
as
contrib-
uting
to
positive
environmental
and
social
transforma-
tions
at
different
scales.
This
is
but
a
small
sample
of
initiatives
taking
place
in
the
region,
yet
illustrative
of
the
diversity
and
scale
of
efforts
happening
today.
About
half
of
the
initiatives
in
the
database
are
located
in
community
or
private
lands,
18%
in
communities
living
in
conser-
vation
units,
15%
in
Indigenous
or
Quilombola
lands,
8
and
17%
in
rural
settlements.
As
Figure
2
illustrates,
these
initiatives
have
expanded
significantly
since
2000
reflecting
not
only
the
impact
of
the
programs
discussed
above,
but
the
building-up
of
experiences
and
social
capital
among
local
actors.
For
instance,
the
development
of
‘vegetable
leather’
(‘couro
vegetal’)
in
the
mid-1990s
in
Acre,
as
a
value-aggregation
technology,
emerged
from
efforts
involving
rubber-tap-
ping
communities,
the
state
government,
external
orga-
nizations
and
funders.
While
the
initial
enterprise
folded,
the
know-how
continued
to
be
disseminated
throughout
the
region
through
collaborative
networks
and
women’s
groups,
leading
to
the
emergence
of
numerous
micro-
industries
and
new
products
elsewhere
in
the
region,
as
illustrated
in
Figure
3
(lower-left).
The
map
reveals
the
regional
distribution
of
place-based
initiatives,
many
of
which
are
nodes
of
regional
networks.
They
are
found
among
families
and
communities
connected
by
roads
and
rivers,
in
some
cases
under
larger
institutional
arrange-
ments
and
property-regimes,
such
as
in
national
forests,
sustainable-use
reserves
and
Indigenous
and
Quilombola
territories.
Others
are
reconfigured
agrarian-reform
set-
tlements
or
juxtaposed
with
large-scale
properties.
For
analytical
purposes,
the
database
allows
organizing
initia-
tives
into
multiple
groups
of
working
categories,
such
as
in
terms
of
functional
structure
(e.g.
Figure
2),
types
of
activities
performed
(e.g.
Figure
3),
and
transformation
outcome,
such
as
production,
market,
and
governance
arrangements
(e.g.
Figure
4).
It
is
relevant
to
note
that
most
initiatives
today
approach
intended
outcomes
in
production,
market,
and
governance
as
interdependent
and
requiring
synergistic
approaches
to
leverage
and
sustain
advances
[57–60].
Several
groups
of
initiatives
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project
have
been
widely
discussed
in
the
regional
literature,
some
of
which
we
briefly
review
here.
Experimentation,
innovation,
and
the
diffusion
of
agro-
forestry
systems
(AFS)
have
been
common
practice
in
the
Amazon
since
pre-Columbian
times
[61]
and
are
currently
practiced
by
Indigenous
people
[62,63],
and
small-scale
to
medium-scale
farmers
of
diverse
backgrounds
[4

,9,
64–67].
During
the
past
20
years,
AFS
have
become
a
Place-based
sustainability
initiatives
in
Amazonia
Brondizio
et
al.
71
Figure
2
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
A
preliminary
map
of
initiatives
identified
by
the
Agents
project
in
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon.
8
Afro-Brazilian
rural
settlements
recognized
in
the
1988
constitution.
www.sciencedirect.com
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78

preferred
approach
towards
sustainable
land-use
transi-
tion,
including
for
land
restoration
from
abandoned
pas-
ture
and
fallow
areas
[68].
As
productive
systems
with
a
forest-like
structure,
AFS
build
on
synergistic
effects
of
crop
diversity,
soil-plant
interactions,
and
ecological
ser-
vices.
Since
the
1990s,
they
have
been
framed
as
innova-
tive
and
resilient
production
systems
that
provide
an
alternative
to
deforestation
[72,69],
engender
a
forest-
based
economy
[8],
address
hunger
and
poverty
[8],
minimize
production
risks
[7],
promote
innovations
[76

,70],
and
connect
farmers
to
different
markets,
increasing
their
income
[2,9,71].
Agroforestry
production,
particularly
of
fruits
and
oils,
also
provides
employment
in
processing
industries
of
various
scales,
commercialization,
and
direct-sales
to
consumers.
For
instance,
the
agrofor-
estry-based
intensification
of
acai
fruit
production
has
contributed
to
an
economy
employing
hundreds
of
thou-
sands
of
people
throughout
the
supply
chain,
restoring
and
maintaining
forests
in
the
region’s
floodplains
and
upland
areas
[72].
Even
where
smallholders
have
developed
intensive
agro-
forestry
production
for
valuable
products,
their
share
of
profits
is
small
within
the
supply
chain
[9].
Many
efforts
have
tried
to
address
these
challenges
with
limited
or
uneven
success.
The
economic
valorization
of
Indigenous
and
local
ecological
knowledge,
from
bioprospecting
to
certification,
emerged
during
the
1980s
as
a
response
to
destructive
policy
interventions
[77,73].
State
govern-
ments
have
also
promoted
value-aggregation
projects,
such
as
in
the
state
of
Amapa
´starting
in
the
late
1980s
[74]
and
the
forest-economy
policy
program
implemented
in
the
state
of
Acre
in
the
late
1990s
[75].
Currently
emerging,
but
yet
to
be
implemented,
the
‘bioeconomics’
paradigm
is
proposing
to
re-articulate
development
through
valorization
of
biodiversity
and
local
knowledge,
but
also
bringing
attention
to
new
technologies
and
market
arrangements
[76

].
Concomitantly
to
these
efforts,
rural
associations,
coop-
eratives
and
micro-industries
have
emerged
across
the
region
to
confront
the
bottleneck
of
value-aggregation
and
market
access
for
forest-dependent
and
smallholder
communities.
Producers
grassroots
cooperatives
emerged
and
proliferated
from
a
process
of
education
for
citizen-
ship,
autonomy
and
participation,
with
the
mediation
of
local
and
regional
organizations,
including
the
aforemen-
tioned
enabling
programs
and
efforts
[77].
While
there
are
many
failures,
there
are
several
successful
examples
of
producers’
cooperatives
in
the
Amazon
providing
jobs
and
income
generation,
promoting
of
forest
management,
agroforestry
and
crop
diversification,
72
Transformations
to
sustainability:
critical
social
science
perspectives
Figure
3
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Examples
of
place-based
initiatives
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon.
Upper-left
to
right:
P.A.
Benedito
Alvez
Bandeira;
Women‘s
association
AMABELA,
P.
A.
Moju
I
e
II;
COMFLONA
and
Jamaraqua
´community,
National
Forest
of
Tapajo
´s;
Lower-left
to
right:
Communities
of
Jamaraqua,
Maguary,
and
Sa
˜o
Domingos,
National
Forest
of
Tapajo
´s;
Sa
˜o
Sebastia
˜o
community;
Tome-Acu,
PA.
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
www.sciencedirect.com

enabling
political-institutional
links
with
different
regional,
national
and
international
actors,
and
stimulat-
ing
innovation,
creativity,
mutual
respect
and
participa-
tion
[1,78–80].
Initiatives
focusing
on
building
women’s
empowerment
have
contributed
to
promoting
inclusion
in
governance
and
in
the
production,
processing,
and
commercialization
of
agricultural
and
forest
products
with
variable
degrees
of
success
[81].
According
to
Shanley
et
al.
[82],
many
of
the
women’s
groups
and
associations
‘capitalized
on
interna-
tional
donors’
interest
in
gender
issues
and
garnered
funding
from
external
sources,
(
.
.
.
)
while
others
came
about
from
the
confrontation
of
discriminatory
policies
favoring
large
ranchers
and
monoculture
plantations’.
Yet,
while
women
in
leadership
roles
in
the
governance
of
local
and
regional
organizations
have
increased
over
the
last
two
decades
with
the
support
of
non-governmental
organizations,
including
religious
groups,
they
remain
largely
invisible
and
lacking
specific
support
in
public
policies
[89,83,84].
Finally,
governance
arrangements
grounded
on
commu-
nity-based
natural
resource
management
(CBNRM)
have
been
documented
among
rural
communities
engaged
in
community
fishing
agreements
[85],
turtle
nesting
pro-
tection
[86],
community
NTFP
management
[87–89]
and
timber
management
[90–92].
Although
community-based
organizations
have
been
part
of
the
Amazonian
rural
landscape
since
the
1980s,
CBNRM
systems
became
more
visible
in
Brazil
in
the
1990s
with
the
emergence
of
transnational
socio-environmentalism
(Figure
1),
which
emphasized
the
role
of
forest
communities
in
sustainable
development
and
climate-mitigation
strate-
gies
[93].
This
perspective
opened
new
opportunities
for
support
from
international
donors
and
policymakers
to
CBNRM
systems.
Many
of
these
grassroots
initiatives
have
received
legal
recognition,
funding,
and
training
programs
to
further
develop
their
community-based
initiatives.
Formal
com-
munity-based
territorial
rights
[92]
and
fishing
agree-
ments
in
the
Lower
Amazon
[94],
commercial
develop-
ment
of
community-based
management
of
the
fish
Arapaima
gigas
[95]
and
community-based
timber
man-
agement
in
the
Tapajo
´s
National
Forest
[10]
are
only
a
few
examples.
In
the
state
of
Amazonas,
the
perceived
success
of
Arapaima
management
among
a
dozen
Place-based
sustainability
initiatives
in
Amazonia
Brondizio
et
al.
73
Figure
4
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Illustrating
synergies
between
production-market-governance
arrangements
and
outcomes.
www.sciencedirect.com
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78

communities
in
the
late
1990s
led
to
an
expansion
of
the
program,
through
government
incentives
and
arrange-
ments,
to
around
500
communities
today
[96].
A
common
denominator
of
these
experiences
is
hybrid
governance,
where
national
policies,
international
funding
and
multi-
stakeholder
networks
support
local
institutions.
Learning
from
failures
is
key
to
engender
long-lasting
transformation
While
place-based
initiatives
provide
social
support,
innovations,
and
inspiration
towards
more
sustainable
development
pathways,
they
also
chronicle
some
of
the
frustration
and
failures
that
have
marked
the
ups-and-
downs
of
development
interventions
and
programs
in
the
Amazon.
A
literature
on
place-based
interventions
has
highlighted
the
ephemeral
nature
and
the
‘pilot-project
syndrome’
that
have
come
to
characterize
many
experi-
ences
but
also
the
long-lasting
effects
of
some
external
influences
in
local
livelihoods
[49].
Discontinuities,
frus-
trations,
and
failures
of
community-based
projects,
for
instance,
have
also
equipped
local
actors
and
organiza-
tions
to
anticipate
challenges
and
to
take
charge
and
leadership
of
new
opportunities
[97].
An
emerging
literature
on
regional-level
case-studies
highlights
the
importance
of
cross-scale
interactions
in
hindering
or
enabling
the
intended
outcomes
of
place-
based
initiatives,
and
it
demonstrates
the
complexities
involved
in
both
understanding
whether
an
achieved
goal
at
one
level
is
resilient
and
whether
goals
achieved
at
one
level
may
contribute
to
more
emergent
desirable
states
at
higher
levels
[98–102],
or
be
undermined
by
external
pressures
[64].
A
key
to
moving
forward
is
recognizing
the
factors
and
conditions
that
have
undermined
the
successes
of
place-
based
sustainable
development
initiatives
in
the
past
[103].
These
include
a
lack
of
attention
to
local
needs
and
capacities
in
program
formulation
[104,105],
reliance
on
technocratic
management
[106]
or
dependence
on
financial
subsidies
with
limited
attention
to
project
con-
tinuation
[107,108].
By
overlooking
local
limitations,
con-
texts
and
expectations,
some
sustainable
development
initiatives
have
deepened
conflicts,
inequalities,
and
unsustainable
practices
[109,110]
or
proven
to
be
ephem-
eral
or
to
have
mixed
outcomes
[49,51,111].
Local-level
factors,
such
as
lack
of
administrative
experience
and
unfamiliarity
with
complex
bureaucracies
(e.g.
financial
management,
sanitary
certification,
exporting
rules)
have
also
frustrated
expectations,
including
bankruptcy
of
local
associations
and
cooperatives,
community
conflicts
and
frustration
with
collective
engagements.
Many
initiatives
documented
by
the
AGENTS
project
reflect
the
ways
actors
have
gained
experience
in
interact-
ing
and
responding
to
external
interventions
and
pressures.
They
have
formed
new
associations
and
inter-association
networks,
created
new
partnerships
with
state
and
non-
state
actors,
and
melded
local
knowledge
about
resource
management
and
production
systems
with
new
ideas,
technologies,
and
market
opportunities.
As
illustrated
in
Figure
4,
place-based
initiatives
now
take
more
cross-
sectoral
approaches
(Figure
4).
They
are
combining
actions
intended
to
advance
production
systems
(e.g.
agriculture,
forestry,
fisheries,
NTFP)
in
tandem
with
infrastructure
for
agricultural
product
storage,
value-aggregation
in
micro-
industries,
improving
access
to
markets
and
direct-sales
to
consumers,
and
redefining
underlying
governance
institu-
tions.
These
more
synergistic
arrangements
tend
to
address
multiple
goals
and
involve
a
wider
range
of
participants,
help
increase
the
profitability
of
local
products,
form
new
alliances
and
supporting
networks,
and
balance
individual/
family
interests
and
collective
governance
institutions.
However,
they
remain
dependent
on
and
limited
by
exter-
nal
support,
lacking
visibility
and
recognition
as
important
drivers
of
the
regional
economy
and,
thus,
more
favorable
policies
and
access
to
basic
public
services.
The
power
and
limitations
of
place-based
initiatives
to
engender
transformative
paths
in
a
post-pandemic
Amazon
The
growing
complexity
of
the
Amazonian
landscape
juxtaposes
contrasting
relationships
between
and
among
local
populations,
a
changing
environment,
and
conflict-
ing
views
intervening
in
regional
transformation
and
sustainability.
The
irreducible
and
intertwined
social-
ecological
fabric
of
the
region
—
the
rivers,
forests,
animals,
weather
systems,
cultures,
actors,
politics,
insti-
tutions,
economies
and
land
uses
—
represents
a
micro-
cosm
of
the
sustainability
dilemmas
faced
by
actors
from
local
to
global
levels.
Beyond
a
Lilliputian
or
Leviathan
view
of
the
forces
affecting
regional
transformation,
we
examine
these
interactions
as
historical
processes
that
result
in
emergent
outcomes,
either
enhancing
or
under-
mining
local
goals,
and
from
which
lessons
can
be
learned.
Place-based
initiatives
are
powerful
forces
of
change
in
the
Amazon,
but
they
also
show
that
the
governance
of
a
complex
region
must
be
a
multi-level
process.
It
is
well
recognized
that
effective
local
governance
benefits
from
tenure
security,
access
to
conflict
resolution
and
media-
tion,
as
well
as
legal
back-up
and
support
in
the
enforce-
ment
of
local
rules,
which
depend
on
governance
pro-
cesses
and
policies
within
governmental
organizations
at
higher
levels
[20,112,113].
Promising
place-based
initia-
tives
by
themselves,
despite
their
success
in
transforming
local
spaces,
are
often
insufficient
to
advance
sustainable
development
at
broader
societal
scales,
whereas
political
and
environmental
factors
are
beyond
their
reach.
Con-
fronting
the
persistent
structural
and
multi-dimensional
inequalities
(social,
political
and
economic)
of
the
region
calls
for
action
at
all
levels,
from
all
sectors.
More
than
in
previous
periods,
the
regional
socioenvironmental
infra-
structure
is
being
systematically
dismantled,
while
74
Transformations
to
sustainability:
critical
social
science
perspectives
Current
Opinion
in
Environmental
Sustainability
2021,
49:66–78
www.sciencedirect.com

inequalities,
conflicts
on
the
ground,
and
the
pressures
of
climate
change
have
been
increasing
[37,38].
Rural
social
movements
continue
to
be
vital
in
supporting
political
mobilization
around
agrarian
struggles
and
new
pathways
to
more
sustainable
production
systems
and
better
living
standards.
The
current
challenge,
however,
is
how
to
develop
a
[eventual]
post-pandemic
transformative
path.
The
COVID-19
pandemic
is
revealing
both
the
power
and
limitations
of
local
governance
amid
a
national
and
global
crisis.
The
absence
of
national
coordination
in
govern-
ment
programs
to
combat
the
COVID-19
pandemic
in
Brazil
in
general,
and
in
the
Amazon
in
particular,
has
led
to
a
collapse
of
the
health
system
and
many
other
eco-
nomic
sectors,
alongside
increasing
deforestation
and
fires,
violence
and
invasion
of
Indigenous
lands
and
conservation
areas.
Conversely,
one
observes
the
emer-
gence
and
consolidation
of
collective-action
at
multiple
levels
to
further
limit
the
current
sanitary
and
environ-
mental
crisis
affecting
the
region’s
vulnerable
majority,
that
is,
the
urban
and
rural
poor,
Indigenous
and
Afro-
Brazilian
communities
[114].
Pathways
to
a
more
sustain-
able
and
just
future
will
depend
as
much
on
coordinated
and
inclusive
policies
as
on
the
emergent
successes
of
place-based
initiatives.
Conflict
of
interest
statement
Nothing
declared.
Acknowledgements
We
are
indebted
to
two
anonymous
reviewers
who
provided
invaluable
comments
and
suggestions
on
the
first
version
of
this
manuscript.
We
are
thankful
for
the
support
of
the
Belmont
Forum,
NORFACE,
and
the
International
Science
Council’s
T2S
Program
and
the
national
funders
supporting
the
AGENTS
project,
in
particular
FAPESP
(Brazil),
National
Science
Foundation
(USA),
NWO
(The
Netherlands),
and
Vetenskapsra
˚det
(Sweden),
and
to
the
European
Commission
through
Horizon
2020.
We
are
also
thankful
for
the
support
of
Indiana
University’s
Emerging
Areas
of
Research
program
for
the
project
Sustainable
Food
System
Science.
We
are
indebted
to
the
support
of
all
individuals,
communities,
and
organizations
who
have
been
collaborating
with
us
in
the
Amazon.
The
views
and
ideas
expressed
in
the
paper
is
the
sole
responsibility
of
the
authors.
References
and
recommended
reading
Papers
of
particular
interest,
published
within
the
period
of
review,
have
been
highlighted
as:

of
special
interest

of
outstanding
interest
1.
Burke
BJ:
Cooperatives
for
“fair
globalization”?
Indigenous
people,
cooperatives,
and
corporate
social
responsibility
in
the
Brazilian
Amazon.
Latin
Am
Perspect
2010,