Resiliência de comunidades rurais: a freguesia de Cernache do Bonjardim, Portugal

Abstract

A temática abordada neste artigo é a resiliência de uma comunidade rural, situada no interior de Portugal continental. O objectivo foi retratar a resiliência desta comunidade e elaborarem-se análises posteriores para percepção dos pontos positivos e negativos apresentados. Actualmente a resiliência de uma comunidade é bastante discutida, mas não foram encontrados em Portugal, estudos que quantificassem ou permitissem percepcionar a real resiliência de uma comunidade rural. Para se conseguir este objectivo, foram feitas pesquisas bibliográficas que ajudaram a compreender esta questão e foram elaborados inquéritos, com base no método utilizado, para se conseguir delinear a questão. O principal resultado foi a confirmação do que se intuía na prática, o que veio a confirmar-se à posteriori: que a freguesia em estudo tem uma resiliência inata, mas que esta corre o risco de desaparecer devido ao problema da desertificação.

A Glimpse at Impacts and Resilience in the Parish of Cernache do Bonjardim, Portugal

“…The Zêzere river, with its hydroelectric dams, influences the territory of this parish, which is limited upstream by the Bouçã dam and downstream by the Castelo do Bode dam. This latter dam and its reservoir represent the key factor for the alterations experienced to the main watercourses of this territory (Gonçalves, 2016;Gonçalves et al, 2019). The territory under study consists mainly of mountainous areas but, despite being an essentially rural parish with self-consumption agriculture, the forestry sector also plays a prominent role in the region's economy (ibidem).…”

“…The main works found (Gonçalves, 2016;Gonçalves et al, 2019Gonçalves et al, , 2017Gonçalves et al, , 2021 address the intersection between the territory under study, its resilience and, in some cases, its heritage. In general, what these authors call a portrait of resilience is applied according to a method proposed by Colussi (2000) based on which SWOT analysis and advanced SWOT analysis approaches were applied.…”

“…Having carried out this portrait of community resilience, we were able to attain several conclusions and prepare the SWOT analysis, which allowed for the analysis and better understanding of the community of Cernache do Bonjardim (Gonçalves, 2016;Gonçalves et al, 2019Gonçalves et al, , 2021. From this analysis it was concluded that the internal factors present a positive balance, while the external factors present a negative balance, having identified more threats than opportunities.…”

“…In order to compare not only the internal and external factors of the SWOT analysis, we also undertook advanced SWOT analysis (Gonçalves et al, 2019(Gonçalves et al, , 2021, which interwove these factors, defining leverages (comparing strengths with opportunities); vulnerabilities (comparing strengths with threats); constraints (comparing weaknesses with opportunities) and problems (comparing weaknesses with threats) and assigning weightings to each factor listed. As a general summary, it was concluded that there were almost as many leverages as there are problems and, although there are a lot of vulnerabilities, the constraints are relatively few.…”

“…Despite these scenarios, this parish is very vulnerable, facing external threats but, despite these weaknesses, some of the opportunities arising are being capitalised upon (Gonçalves et al, 2019).…”