Cattle ranching in extractive reserve: Threat or need? The case of Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, Pará State, Brazil

Abstract

The development of livestock activities within Extractive Reserves in the Amazon has been the cause of controversies and inflammatory debates in the environmental area since the establishment of the SNUC Law. The history of the extractive movement had in the "draws" its main fight flag, as a strategy to fight the advance of the agricultural frontier. Regardless of the advances made by the movement, it is a fact that, over the last 20 years, cattle ranching has been the predominant use in deforested areas in the Amazon, including within the Extractive Reserves. This work sought to measure the current environmental impact caused by the conversion of forests to pasture formation in Federal Extractive Reserves, under the management of ICMBio, based on the analysis of the data provided by INPE/TerraClass Project, from the years 2004, 2010 and 2014, especially in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, one of the most populous in the state of Pará, besides promoting a socio-environmental analysis of this case in the face of the management challenges of the Protected Area-PA. Among the main results, it was observed that the contribution of pastures is below 3% of land use in 28 of the 30 terrestrial Resex in the Amazon. It is noteworthy that in the Tapajos-Arapiuns more than 90% of the area is preserved, with only 0.35% being pasture, supporting a herd of about 3,000 heads and an average of 14 heads per farmer. Another relevant aspect is related to the financial and social importance of the activity, since 60% of breeders reported that their herds supply the Resex communities, that is, they are marketed within the PA itself. It is concluded that the cattle raising activity in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve was characterized as subsistence due to the size and modes of production identified and, finally, it is not the main vector of deforestation in the PA, and its contribution is practically irrelevant. © 2019 Universidade Federal do Parana. All rights reserved.