(05 June 2008) World Environment Day is commemorated this year with an agenda full of problems that affect the ecosystem and people's quality of life, among them, climate change and rising food prices. This week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for "urgent" measures to address the world food crisis, warning that "we cannot lose the battle against hunger."
The Brazilian "Association of Small-scale Agro-Silviculturists of the United and Condensed Economic Reforestation (RECA)" Project is an example of a sustainable human development initiative at a local level. Its founders explain that the Association combined the enterprising spirit of settlers from the south of the country, with the experience in conservation of the habitat. They benefit from the jungle without devastating it, and, on the contrary, strive to preserve this important source of income. Today, the 364 Association members have overcome the conditions of poverty they were immersed in during the 1990s.
In 2007, the project won the fourth place in the "Experiences in Social Innovation" contest organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
RECA has its origins in a settlement of the National Institute of Agrarian Colonization (INCRA) in the Amazon jungle, in the state of Rodônia. On the lands the government provided them in 1984, without technical or financial support to exploit them, the Association introduced a new collective, sustainable and organic mode of production that has substantially improved the farmers' quality of life. This is quite a success, given that both the geographic location and climate conditions made any crop cultivation there difficult, and more so if it is done in an environmentally-friendly way.
Producers, who just some years ago were hardly surviving, now make more than Brazil's minimum wage. In the face of adversity and government neglect, small-scale producers organized with seringueiros (rubber gatherers that have historically inhabited the region) to develop strategies to improve their income and life conditions.
The Association promotes implementing agro forestry systems, recovering deteriorated lands, and capacity-building for communities. With this model, today they produce prime material for the natural cosmetics industry, such as pulp and cupuaçu and açaí lard, as well as food products highly demanded in the market, concentrated juices and marmalades. The production is certified organic, adding value and opening niches in privileged markets.
The "Experiences in Social Innovation" project is based on a contest launched in 2004 that seeks to identify innovative social development programmes such as the Association of Small-scale Agro-Silviculturists of the United and Condensed Economic Reforestation (RECA) Project, to disseminate those experiences and contribute to improve practices and policies on behalf of the most impoverished in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some 4,400 projects have been submitted to the competition, now on its fourth round.
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