Socioeconomic differences among resident, users and neighbour populations of a protected area in the Brazilian dry forest

Highlights

• Protected areas (PAs) are an important strategy to safeguard biodiversity.

• Poorly incepted and managed PAs may increase poverty and degrade nature.

• Most families (76%) living inside the Catimbau Park are below the poverty line.

• Low-income, forest-dependent families are forced to use Park's natural resources.

• Management strategies should address poverty alleviation and human well-being.

Abstract

Protected areas are an important strategy to safeguard biodiversity. However, if social development is not considered, biological conservation targets may not be achieved. In this empirical study, we assess the relationship between poverty and conservation goals in dry forests within a 62,000-ha Brazilian National Park (Caatinga biome). We conducted 81 structured household interviews between January and July of 2016 to assess socioeconomic, resource management and land-use variables. We used non-parametric analysis of variance to test for differences in socioecological variables among families living inside and outside the Park and both (double dwelling). The majority of families (76%) residing inside the Park were living below the poverty line while less than 14% in outside and double dwelling residences faced the same issue. Families living inside the park had lower socioeconomic conditions such as limited water availability, poor house infrastructure, low income, and high dependence on firewood than outside and double dwelling families. They were also more dependent on external financial support and natural resources. We found that failures in protected areas inception and implementation have driven people towards a mutually reinforcing and declining situation in which negative socioeconomic outcomes are associated with nature degradation. Therefore, our results suggest that the future of dry forests, characterized worldwide by the presence of low-income populations, will be largely dependent on conservation strategies that address poverty alleviation and human well-being.

Introduction

Protected areas (PAs) have been the main strategy to safeguard biodiversity worldwide (Brockington and Wilkie, 2015, Laurance et al., 2012, Myers et al., 2000, Naughton-Treves et al., 2005). Due to the current and global biodiversity crisis, high loss and species extinction rate, one of the targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity is to expand PAs to around 17% of all terrestrial areas worldwide by 2020 (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets). However, many studies have highlighted the limitations of PAs in accomplishing species conservation and distributing benefits to humans, dwellers of PAs or not (Butchart et al., 2010, Laurance et al., 2012). Additionally, PAs have generated conflicts of interest between social goals and environmental conservation policies given that, in most cases, human settlements were present before the creation of PAs (Brockington et al., 2006, Nicolle and Leroy, 2017) and a substantial proportion of natural resource allocations upon which human population is dependent is inside PAs (Chape et al., 2005). In developing countries, the negative impacts of PAs on local communities can be significant, particularly for those living in poverty prior to PA creation (Adams and Hutton, 2007, Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau, 2006).

Many studies from the last few decades have tried to understand whether PAs have created positive or negative impacts in attempts to reduce local poverty (Adams and Hutton, 2007, Brockington et al., 2006, Ferraro and Pressey, 2015, Kepe et al., 2004, Roe and Elliott, 2004, Watson et al., 2014). In Thailand and Costa Rica, governments have been investing in policies to protect biodiversity associated with poverty reduction (Andam et al., 2010, Ferraro et al., 2011). In some cases, though, human populations inside or in PA boundaries are incapable of escaping poverty because they are strongly resource reliant and fall into a cycle of dependence due to few opportunities to improve their socioeconomic condition (Nakamura and Hanazaki, 2016, Vedeld et al., 2012). Poverty can drastically reduce the household's capacity to invest in land management, for example, limiting the additives, tools or irrigation purchase to improve livestock and food production (Nkonya et al., 2008, Swallow et al., 2008). Poor families can also have high dependence on natural resources harvesting (Medeiros et al., 2012, Specht et al., 2015). Usually, in forest-rich areas in remote places in developing countries, people have fewer opportunities for income improvements (Wunder, 2001), low or no access to markets, and sometimes reduced water supply (Blackie et al., 2014, Top et al., 2004). As such, the socio-economic parameters of landscapes (Papadimitriou, 2012) and the mechanisms that create and maintain poverty in PAs need consideration for a successful environmental management and a local social development (Barrett et al., 2011, Ferraro et al., 2011).

There is a consensus that PAs are more effective when they are well supported by local residents; therefore, conservation plans in these areas have been increasingly considering the protected areas as coupled human-natural systems (Chen et al., 2017) or socioecological systems - SES (Wei et al., 2018). SES are defined as complex and linked systems of people and nature composed of multiple subsystems and internal variables. The concept of SES implies that PAs do not exist in isolation: they are dependent on the broader SES in which they are inserted, driven by both socioeconomic and ecological processes; in turn, PAs can influence not only ecological processes, but also local livelihoods and human well-being (Wei et al., 2018).

Since the 1980s there has been increasing emphasis on ensuring that local communities benefit from biodiversity conservation (Emerton et al., 2006). While there is evidence of support to PAs from local communities that experienced losses related to their livelihoods (Martin et al., 2018), a meta-analysis based on data from 165 PAs revealed that positive conservation outcomes are more likely to occur where PAs lead to socioeconomic benefits for the affected communities (Oldekop et al., 2016). The quantitative analysis of these benefits suggests that tourism and recreational activities contribute most to poverty alleviation (Ferraro et al., 2014), even though they are known to be limited by the few people involved and the capabilities and infrastructure required to engage in tourism (Kiss, 2004).

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) constitutes another option that, when designed appropriately, can be an alternative for delivering conservation goals in PAs while benefiting local people (Clements and Milner-Gulland, 2015, Yang et al., 2018). The central idea of PES is that conservation costs suffered by communities in target areas should be compensated to avoid impeding socioeconomic development of those local communities (Yang et al., 2018). Nevertheless, PES programs often induce the decrease in traditional livelihood activities, which can have cultural implications and affect SES resilience, i.e., its capacity of continually change and adapt yet remains within critical thresholds (Folke et al., 2010). Therefore, the most successful PES schemes are the ones that secure the continued provisioning of a critical resource while positively contributing to local livelihoods in rural communities and PAs (Grima et al., 2016).

Brazil has approximately 220 million ha covered by PAs (Bernard et al., 2014), being one of the largest protected area systems in the world (Oliveira and Bernard, 2017). National Parks (NPs) in Brazil are strict PAs where direct natural resources exploitation is not allowed (Law 9.985/2000, Brasil, 2000). Thus, local residents established before NP creation expect to be notified of Park creation, receive assistance during the process and be fairly financially compensated to leave the area in the first five years of PA inception (MMA and IBAMA, 2011). However, compensation has failed in most cases and thousands of families remain living in Brazilian NPs (in not regularized land tenure condition). In the new conditions, where livelihood becomes particularly fragile, the biodiversity and the PA's existence themselves are threatened (Bernard et al., 2014, Bragagnolo et al., 2016, Diegues, 1998). More than 60% of the NPs in Brazil created before 2000 had problems related to land tenure involving local residents (Rocha et al., 2010, Oliveira and Bernard, 2017). Nevertheless, Brazil is not unique in sustaining “paper parks”, in which the PA exists only in name (Stolton et al., 1999). Also, removing residents from PAs, although supported by law, can further represent a serious threat to human rights and exacerbate poverty especially in developing countries (Adams et al., 2004, Kipuri, 2006).

The Brazilian Caatinga is one of the world's most populated seasonally dry tropical forest. It has ∼28 million inhabitants distributed over 800,000 km² with a history of poverty associated with water scarcity, often even for basic human needs (Barbieri et al., 2010, Redo et al., 2013, Santos et al., 2011). It is also the largest and most diverse seasonally dry tropical forest in the world (Silva et al., 2018). About 43.5% of the Caatinga population lives in rural places and most of it is comprised of small farmers living in high dependence of natural resources for their livelihoods. Thus, the socioeconomic and environmental context of the Caatinga offers an interesting opportunity to examine the relationships between poverty and conservation in PAs.

In this study, we use the Catimbau National Park, located in the Caatinga of Pernambuco state, Brazil, as a case study to assess the relationship between poverty and conservation goals. Our main objective is to evaluate whether families living inside the Park are in a worse socioeconomic condition and dependence on natural resources use more than outside families. We do this by describing socioeconomic conditions and infrastructure development, as well as use of landscape and plant resources by dwellers. We then discuss the consequences of local socioeconomic condition associated to natural resources use by local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in the PA.