Management of natural resources in protected areas: interinstitutional dialogue, social capital, and agency in the transition to agroecological systems

Abstract

This article analyses the processes of participation and integration of groups living in and around protected areas, in efforts to convert conventional methods of agricultural production into agroecologicallysustainable practices. Taking as a case study a community located in the buffer zone of a large conservation unit, and part of the main contiguous remaining areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, this work focuses on the articulation among multiple existing elements in this area: an agroecological settlement, different levels of governance, internal social differentiation and classification systems, community agency, antagonistic visions of development, and their effects on community development practices. It also examines the external connections that the community establishes, acting as an instrument of compliance and reproduction of the dominant agrifood regime, and contributing to the formation and strengthening of an alternative short circuit of production and commercialization network, integrating local family producers to the consumers in large urban centres.