The American wide spaces between rural reorganisation, natural resources preservation and exploitation

Coordination : François Michel Le Tourneau, RD.

The Americas remain the continent of wide unexploited spaces, as only 13,5 % of the world population occupies them. On the other hand, according to the FAO (2005) they are home to more than 68% of the world primary forests (about 9 million squared km out of a total of 15 million squared km) for 1/3 of emerged land, where three American countries alone (Brazil, Canada and the USA) host more than half of the world primary forests. Overall the continent conserves an important proportion of wide spaces that have not been significantly affected by anthropic action. If we look at the ratio between the inhabited spaces and areas devoted to agricultural and cattle breeding activities on one end, and the wide spaces on the other we can observe that the Americas still preserve a particularly important percentage of these spaces versus anthropised areas (70% of wide spaces in the Americas, against 60% in other continents).

Ecosystems role and their rapid evolution have been at the centre of current scientific debate under a double perspective. Their climate regulating function (UNEP, 2009) is confirmed particularly with regard to CO2 absorption and storage, thermal regulation and their influence on rainfalls (Mahli et al., 2008). On the other end, ecosystems vulnerability is recognised vis-à-vis global climate change (Bates at el., 2008): emerging signs of transformation and adaption, and estimates forecasting transformation of vast areas of the Amazon and the Savannah (Cook and Vizy, 2008) are particularly emblematic in this respect. Consequently the evolving relation between American societies and their territories is crucial for our planet’s future. Such relation can be better appreciated looking at the evolution of three “frontiers”: the “rural”, the “environmental protection” and the “natural resources exploitation” frontiers.

The first can be indentified in Turner’s notion of “pioneer front”. The expansion of rural areas to conquer new natural spaces to be converted to agriculture continues to progress particularly in South America as this sub-continent seems doomed to become the “world farm”. In parallel to this, however, we assist to a reorganisation of existing agricultural areas, pushed by more intense cultivations in some regions and new cultivations in others. It is thanks to an agriculture-intensive use of spaces in the Americas, that specific programmes - such as bio-fuels’ and other forms to replace fossil-fuel based energy – are particularly advanced. Biofuel is especially pioneering in Brazil (Droulers, 2009) and in the USA. Concurrently, vast programmes of boreal-, tropical- and mountain-forest plantation continue be developed. Caught between agribusiness and family agriculture needs, the American continent adapts its agriculture and forestry techniques often privileging intensive methods that pose the issue of their sustainability, both from a social and an environmental standpoint.

The second frontier refers to the emergence of environmental protection in its multiple aspects: sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, efforts against climate change that have become guiding criteria in the way spaces can be used. This phenomenon can also be noticed in the continuous creation of protected areas. In the United States they are nearly 22.000, covering approximately 13% of the country. In Canada this percentage is lower, however the space concerned is equally significant: 9,6% of protected areas for a surface of about 950.000 km2.
This trend arrives in Latin America in the 1930, albeit protected areas here are more limited than in North America. The debate over environmental protection becomes more popular towards the end of the 1980, with the establishment of international bodies devoted to its promotion since the 1990. This triggers a major change in public policies in this part of the American continent (Vélut and Le Tourneau, 2011). South America turns thus into the first area in the world for protected areas, whose portion doubles from 1990 to 2009, rising from 10,5 to 20,8%. Concurrently, the establishment of reserves for special population groups knows an important expansion, particularly in favour of Amerindians and descendants of slaves (most notably those escaped from plantations, e.g. the quilomboas, or brown-blacks). The environment has by now become an integral part of the agenda of land-use managers, politicians and even local population, as other normative principles (not always respected in practice).

The third frontier concerns natural resources exploitation, with special emphasis on mineral resources. Although mining has traditionally been one of the economic drivers of American development, its current intensification is supported by enough political will to counterbalance environmental protection policies. Global growth and its related demand for natural resources and energy translate into accrued pressure on governments that adversely affects their environmental protection measures, as it can be noticed in the development of shale gas, off-shore oil exploration and drilling, or granting mining concessions in native-people reserves (e,g, in Canada, IWGIA, 2011).
The interaction of these three frontiers in the American continent results in a mosaic of territories featured by diverse logics of function - even if they all try to directly or indirectly follow environmental principles. In this mosaic the differing spatial logics of social groups generate increasing conflicts. Hence, the need to study these new logics, explain how they are defined, to which territory they pertain, and to show how the inclusion of the environmental dimension into the public debate impacts both social relations and political priorities. At the same time, attention must be paid to relations and mutual pressures among different spaces, as well as the resulting social reorganisations or the emergence of new rural and urban “territorialities”.

The CREDA team “devenir des grands espaces américains” (the future of big American spaces) intends to study under a multidisciplinary perspective these issues. Its objective is to look at the current functioning of rural and wild territories in the Americas in connection with the environment. Our approach methodology adopts several dimensions. A history or geohistory-based approach, to study the creation of and the relation between territories. An anthropologic approach, looking at the current relation between individuals and their space. A political-science approach, researching the movement that led to recognition of these territories by American governments and finally a geographic approach to identify, quantify and map these phenomena in the continent to better analyse the notion of geosystem.

The research team “territories and environment” will particularly focus on issues concerning big wild spaces and their past and current colonisation process. The “wild” essence of these spaces, or their being governed by natural phenomena, are a prominent subject of debate among researchers. The majority of these regions have been inhabited – they still often are – by older or younger populations that were able to preserve the natural functions of their lands, thus allowing natural spaces to regain territory after humans left. In this sense, “black soils” found in several regions nowadays uninhabited as are evidence of a previous agriculture activity (Fraser and Clement, 2008). In other regions, human impact has been less conspicuous and centred on the relative transformation of specific species, as shown by relevant studies focused on particular fruit species in the Amazon (Rival, 2006). The absence of tangible modifications on the environment did not imply that these lands were not used, nor divided into lots for human groups. The subtlety of usage and property mechanisms in fact, facilitated the appropriation of “free lands” by new colons. Hence, the importance to study these spaces before they were “naturalised” by people.

These spaces are equally important to our research as they reflect a paradox that is germane to the American continent where these spaces are both the frontier for natural resources exploitation and the core of public policies on protected areas development. American societies often implement antithetic policies where minorities living in these spaces (85% of South American protected areas are inhabited) hold an important political power, at times ambiguous, if not dangerous. So, native people can fin themselves under pressure by mining or oil companies, as it is the case in Nunavut.
Infrastructures development adds further pressure on natural resources or spaces. National governments accept sometimes to negotiate these issues with local populations. Normally however, governments prefer to focus more on compensation than on the infrastructure itself, in the name of the common good and country development (see for instance the hydroelectric power station de Belo Monte on Xingu river, or the transoceanic road in Peru). This research group capitalises on and is a continuation of the project ANR Duramaz (sustainability in Brazilian Amazon).

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