Sustainable Land Use in Brazilian Northeast the case of “Sertão”

Luciana Costa Brandão

ABSTRACT This article addresses the issue of land use in Brazilian “Sertão”, a typical dry area in the northeast of the country. In the first part, the region is presented as a case study of a “collapsed land”, where we further analyze its environmental, geographic and climatic conditions. Based on literature from authors like Jared Diamond, Thomas Malthus and Elinor Ostrom it is developed a discussion over the possibilities of recover in Sertão’s land. In a second moment, considering also cultural and social aspects we argue over the necessity of regional and local development. At last, we briefly consider three different options of development, comparing them regarding economical and environmental aspects. We conclude that the local development in the region is possible and that, through participation and empowerment of local communities, it has been noticed sustainable socio-economical development in the last few years.

Leiden University

Minor: Sustainable Development

September, 2013.

Sustainable land use in Brazilian Northeast: the case of Sertão Luciana Costa Brandão

“We are too many Severinos, and we are equal in everything, we are the same in our destiny:

sweating blood to soften these rocks,

trying to bring life into this extinguished earth, wanting to harvest some grass from the ashes.

But in order for You, Sir, to know me better; in order for you to follow the story of my life,

I hereby pronounce that I am Severino, the one that in your presence migrates”.

The Death and Life of a Severino, by João Cabral de Melo Neto

(Free translation, “Morte e vida Severina” in the original in Portuguese)

1. Introduction and presentation of Sertão

A central point in the discussion about Sustainable Development is the relation between land resources and the communities that live and use this land. Bearing it on mind, the main purpose of this paper is to give some thought on the vital challenge of sustainable land management, and the possibilities that arise for people to improve their quality of living meanwhile respecting and preserving the surrounding environment. For this objective, I would like to propose an exercise: picture the Earth on the verge of a collapse. Try to imagine how our planet would look like without many natural resources. Pretend that the threat of Climate Change combined with the contemporary challenges of overpopulation and overconsumption destroyed almost of all Earth’s natural habitats and what remains is not much green. If you tried to figure out how would be this worst-case scenario, you might have well imagined a semi-desert planet. Not many trees remain standing; the ground earth is very dry and doesn’t have enough nutrients to bare plantations. Most of the water supplies went dry. The rivers are very narrow, and simply don’t reach the outcome to the sea anymore. All groundwater reservoirs have been exhausted and the rainfalls are totally unpredictable. There is no grass on the ground, no bushes, no livestock around – only dead corpses of cows over the thick, tired and cracked desert (see Box 1).

Just the simple idea that this imaginary apocalypse could one day become reality is alone a threat by itself. But I would like to focus now on something much more real. The truth is that this “fake-collapsed-world” already exists. We are not talking about a distant future anymore. Actually, there are some regions around the planet in which people have to deal with those unbearable conditions as part of their everyday life. A lot of examples can be given from the African continent, or from Australian’s “outback” deserts. Instead, the region this paper will refer as a case study is located in Brazilian northeast and is called “Sertão”1.

The Brazilian Sertão is located in the northeast of Brazil, roughly between the coastal urban area in the east, and the wild nature of the Amazon rainforest at west (see Image 01

below). Its area of more than 950.000,00 km2 covers almost 12% of Brazilian territory2. At first, might sound strange to associate Brazil with images that resemble drought and deserts. Most known for its huge rainforest or by its tropical cities near the Atlantic Ocean, the possibility that a country is able to account for all this different types of ecosystems might be difficult to associate. In fact, the Sertão is a very unique region of Brazil, and differs from all the rest not only in terms of nature itself, but also on its culture, its history, its habits and its socio-economical dynamics.

Image 01: Maps of Brazilian regions and Northeast subregions, including Sertão.

The population of Sertão is one of almost than 22 million people – bigger than the entire population of Netherlands. The main ecosystem (biome) in Sertão is called Caatinga, and is composed by typical bushes adapted to grow in dry-areas. The interesting fact about the drought in Sertão is that, despite the reasonable level of annual amounts of rain for this kind of ecosystem, the rainy season happens during a very short period - the average of rain stands between 200mm and 800mm per year, with precipitation concentrated in March and April. Besides that, the kind of soil present in the area is not good in retaining water, which means that the water that falls in the rainy season won’t stay available for consumption during the rest of the year. All rivers are seasonal kinds of rivers, which mean that they only exist during the “winter” (winter is how the person from Sertão names the rainy season, despite the time of year it happens). In the rest of the year, the river disappears and in its place can only be found dry land – and that is why, if one search for the rivers of Sertão in radar images software, such as Google Earth, they cannot be seen, for probably the satellite pictures were taken during the drought period.

Image 02: The drought in Sertão.

Summarizing the information given so far, it is possible to characterize the Brazilian Sertão as a “collapsed” area, not in the sense that humans caused it, but as a region that was born already collapsed due to its dry climate, unpredictable rainfalls, sandy soil and temporary rivers. The short supply of water and the lack of economical resources so far, has perpetuated in this area only misery and tragedy, which takes the form of epidemics and high level of migrations towards urban zones and southern states (also known as rural exodus). Taking into account that the Brazilian Northeast Sertão assembles with the worst-case scenario of a collapsed Earth, it should be kept in mind that this region can be seen as a “lab” where shall be possible to see, in the present time, how a non-sustainable future would look alike – and to explore viable options. Besides its value as a metaphor for a global problem, the Sertão is also taken into account with regard to its national and local relations. The region by itself is a fair challenge when it comes about finding sustainable solutions to create good-living standards in the most inhospitable environments.

This paper, therefore, will first get deep into the discussion about the necessity of creating a sustainable living environment in an area that traditionally repels its inhabitants, opposing and criticizing the idea, driven by market-oriented models of economical thought, that the best cost-beneficial arrangements for people will be met by, and only by, the “liberty” derived by free-market arrangements. It will be taken into account a perspective that values the cultural and social aspects of the communities living in the Sertão, as well as the importance on the occupation of this region in terms of National Security for Brazilian State. In a second moment, shall be mentioned and briefly analyzed three initiatives for land use: the growth of grapes near São Francisco basin; the program for development of sustainable familiar agriculture; and, at least, we will consider the approach of holistic management, which is not yet being implemented in the region. It concludes that, although the Sertão can be seen as a metaphor for Climate Change and unsustainable economical development in a global scale, the possibilities of overcoming the challenges in Brazilian Northeast depends upon the private initiative and on governmental programs, the second one being easier to monitor in terms of sustainable use of land. New possibilities arise for recovering the land, although yet very criticized, they may represent a central role when fighting Global Warming and Climate Change in the long-term, for these events threaten to destabilize even more the hydrological cycle in the region of Sertão.

What about environmental collapse? BOX 1 The idea expressed here of a “collapsed Earth” refers to Jared Diamond book Collapse: how societies choose do fail or succeed. In its book the author explains the concept of collapse as “a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time”3. Diamond draws its argument over several historical examples, from the Maya civilization until nowadays Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world located in an island in Central America. During his research he was able to make a list of the main causes that led societies towards collapsing, including also the contemporary threats. Those causes can all fit in the category of “unsustainable management of the environment”, such as habitat and soil destruction, water depletion, overhunting and overfishing, which are connected with the broader situation of human population growth and increase in income per capita. Nowadays, intensification of climate change and over utilization of the Earths energetic resources are also major threats that could lead to a future environmental collapse.

There are, of course, other explanations for why certain region would suffer with declines. Malthus, for instance, may have been one of the first theorists to be concerned with the problem of overpopulation. The classical Malthusian thought says that since population density grows in a much faster rate than food supply (geometrical progression versus arithmetical), one day, eventually, we would run out of livelihood and end up dead4. Other authors will identify the main reason for failure in a mix of social friction derived from scarcity, corrupted institution permeated by individual interest only and unavailability of capital, technology or scientific knowledge that permits one society to find new solutions through innovation5. Another theory, most known as the “tragedy of commons”6 relates the collapse of public resources (unoccupied lands or non-private spaces) with the unbalance between the individual will of maximization of profit and the optimum level of a system with shared and common resources – which means, in the end, that if each and every single individual tried to extract from the environment the maximum amount of richness, his action combined with the same attitude of all the others individuals, will bring the system to a total collapse.

A much more interesting approach, however, comes up when we start thinking also in terms of technology and institutions (that will make this technology available for social use). Arguing against the idea that common properties are doomed to disaster, the author Elinor Ostrom presents alternative institutional solutions for managing common property resources based on empirical case studies7. She designs some principles upon which collapsed could be avoided in this kind of social arrangement, based on the main idea that for the institution to work it has to be generated, developed and maintained by the people inside the community that uses the resources. This means that the rules, the agreements, the monitoring activities and the implementation of graduated sanctions shall be coordinated by the same actors over which they are applied. We will see later on that this might be an important feature when thinking about solutions for the case of sustainable use of land in the Brazilian Sertão.

Moreover, it is also possible to list some pre-conditions for success in avoiding collapse – or, in the case of Sertão, recovering from it. The first step would be to consider if the concerned community is in real need for change; after that, one has to ask if the population has the motivation and the capacity to solve its problems. This means that is useless try to establish a new system or new programs for sustainable land use if the community is not interested or does not have the technological and practical tools to realize the implementation and maintenance of the system. Other questions can also be posed when looking to the environment before trying to transform it8: A) is the available technology within reach of the actors? Do the actors and the available tools share the same level and scale of action? B) Do we have enough information and good systems to monitor the effects of the project in time for change? C) Are there enough people interested and being helped by the project in order to make it economical available? Will they stay attached to the region enough time to reap the rewards of their initial investment? D) The culture of the community is in accordance with the assumptions of the project? E) Is the environment a favored one? Are the soils good enough – or not so bad – that they will have a good response after investments in labor and nutrients? F) Do we have available institutions to help carrying the work? If no, is it possible and convenient to create them? If the answer for most of those questions is “yes”, it is possible to say that there is an open case to improvement in the analyzed region, in order to avoid an environmental collapse or to recover from it.

2. Why to invest in the Sertão: urban markets, migrations and local development

When considering the Brazilian Sertão according to its former mention characteristics, its is possible do question the argument that it is necessary to invest in that region’s land in order to improve the levels of social welfare. A possible argument would be that the soil is too poor, and the climate conditions are so unstable that it would require huge amounts of investment to transform the place in somewhere worth living. A better option in the allocation of scarce resources – the main concern of economical science – would be, for example, to invest the same amount of capital in more suitable areas, near urban zones and markets, where the return rates will be higher and more secure. “And what about the people who already live in the Sertão?” one might ask. According to this liberal economical perspective, they could very well just migrate from the inhospitable environment towards the coastal areas or the bigger cities in the southeast and there they would certainly find a better place to settle in – for this is predicted by models oriented according free-market principles.

This section will take in account this argument and explain why the model given by the liberal school in economics cannot be applied to the case of Brazilian Northeast9. The idea here is not to prove that the development in Sertão completely disregards the power of markets or that it happens in an isolated system where economical forces doesn’t exercise any kind of influence – for, arguing something like that would be not just completely wrong, but could probably lead to misunderstanding of the main problem, which is how to deal with the need for development in Sertão regarding its local and national context. In fact, we will see that the markets and the urban zones nearby the Sertão bare a great influence over its possibilities of growth. What is supported is, on the other the hand, the basic idea that liberal models don’t take into account some important and central features of the problem in Sertão, which are, mainly, the culture and the “non-rational” will of the population who inhabit the region; and, in a more national scale, the importance of occupying the Sertão in terms of security for the country as a hole (see Box 02).

As a better option in approaching the problem, this paper suggests that models based in equity and sustainability should be taken into account10. We defend the position that, when it comes about thinking the development in Sertão, it is needed to first considerer the pillars of social justice and ecological equilibrium, for then, only in a second stage, to include the efficiency of economic rationality into the analyzes. In this case, the amount of profit in consideration – or the return rates – are not considered to be an excluding factor. As long as the two main targets of social welfare and environmental sustainability are accomplished, the economical efficiency can be studied as a supplementary variable, that if well managed can make the projects easier to implement.

Although it is not a matter of concern in this paper to further discuss the concept of “development” it is necessary to make clear one assumption of the present argument. The idea of development cannot be based simply on the amount of economic resources, and cannot be reduced to the mere increase in income rates. Otherwise, freedom to choose what one believes is the best option for himself is a pre-condition to the existence of development11. In this sense, “freedom of opportunity” exists only in a situation where the individual is empowered to make its own decisions, which includes protection from misery and access to employment,

credit and possibility of production. In this case, when a person living in the Brazilian Sertão feels it is being forced to migrate to a different region, because it has no other possibility but drought-related misery and early death if remains in its native land, it is not possible to consider this as part of a development process. The migration can only be considered a viable option in terms of development when it is a free choice, made with no background constraints, picked up among several other possibilities of existence in or outside the region.

The verses that start this paper illustrate the lack of freedom of the communities who live in the Sertão. They are part of a poem from Brazilian writer and diplomat João Cabral de Melo Neto, himself born in Brazilian Northeast12. The whole composition stands as a poetic illustration of the life in Sertão’s region, where people have to work the entire day, every day, during their whole lives, only for subsistence. In the Sertão “people die before they are even 30”, and when they decides to migrate, the journey is not easy. The writer shows in its poem the tough reality of the immigrant, who faces death all along the way towards the coastal urban cities, for then, when the mission is finally accomplished, only to realize that his opportunities in the city are not much better than the ones in the Sertão. Most of immigrants from Sertão, when they can survive during the journey, end up unemployed and marginalized in the urban centers when, not rare, sick and disable or dead. In this sense, the process of migration stands as synonym of misery, and cannot be considered as part of the process of development.

Image 03: The “sertanejo”

The differences in the cultural aspects also have to be taken into account when thinking about migration process. The “sertanejo” is the way a person who was born in the Brazilian Northeast Sertão is called (see Image 03). It is necessary to mention that the population in Sertão, just like other communities around the world, has its own cultural background that is different from the rest of the country. It doesn’t mean, necessarily, that because of that the individual should not consider moving to a different place. We all have our own cultural habits and still we enjoy travelling and visiting different places. The reservation is that when the migration process is seen as a “last resource”, the abandon of the land - along with the culture, the life style and the community itself – can also signifies the renunciation of the individual “self”. The citizen gives up its identity, and may not be able to see itself as an integral member of the new urban reality, ending up outcasted, sometimes living in slums, lacking dignity. This shows part of the reasons why it is necessary to find sustainable solutions to allow the local development in Sertão’s land, together with the improvement in the quality of life of the sertanejo.

The National Security dilemma and the need for sustainable settlement A observable event nowadays, mainly in developed countries, is that the most preserved natural areas tend to be agglutinated next the urban centers. This phenomenon can be explained by a land use theory developed by a German economist named Von Thünen13 and its contemporary versions. The basic idea is that there are different types of land use zones, and they tend to organize around urban centers and market corridors – such as roads -, in a concentric shape. These zones, however, are not always the same: they have dynamic relations, and they tend to expand with the growing of urban markets. When this happens, areas that were used to be dominated by wild nature start to be invaded by logging and extraction activities, extensive agricultural and livestock systems and, at last, by intensive agriculture, until remains very little from the wild nature. The inhabitants of the cities, however, tend to start feeling nostalgic about the way “nature used to be”, and then it arises in the urban cities a new tendency towards nature conservation – e.g. creating National Parks and Forest Reserves. Then, the idea that the nearer the cities, the safer it is for nature.

This model, although very good to explain and demonstrate the way urbanization have been going on so far, poses some great questions concerning developing countries where the process of cities’ expansion is yet in course. The main problem is that, if we let the urbanization follows its traditional path, most of biodiversity and natural resources will be destroyed in the developing countries, one which Brazil stands as example. In order to avoid this kind of “environmental collapse” it is necessary to think of new alternatives for promoting the insertion and maintenance of communities into the nature, without the necessity of expanding the extraction and agriculture frontier. The challenge is to create a new model of self-sustainable communities that will, at the same time, promote local development and increase the capacity for people to live with dignity in long-term standards inserted in the surrounding natural environment.

The dilemma is that, it is needed to find a way to conciliate sustainable living standards with local development. This means that roads will have to be constructed connecting people in local communities to urban centers and facilitating their access to national and world markets; energy plants will have to be build up, in order to provide electricity and heat for the people living in the middle of nature; access to information through internet, food and cloth variety, modern education and health care systems: these are just a few examples of the demands that urges from the communities settled inside the “nature zone”. How to conciliate their rights of having access to what the modern and globalized world offers with the necessity of protecting the surrounding environment? The idea is that it is, in fact, possible to promote a different kind of sustainable urbanization from inside out, without the need of depletion that comes necessarily from the traditional land use model analyzed by Von Thünen.

One of the main causes of environmental depletion is the lack of economical opportunities in the communities that practice the depletion – like the cutting of trees, etc. It is also noted that in those remote areas where the National State doesn’t reach with its active presence, the tendency is for those illegal depletions to increase – together with other illegal activities, such as drug traffic. If the frontier of a country is not occupied, if there is no active presence of its citizens, or if the governmental institutions cannot have access due to lack of infrastructure, there is no guarantee that the natural resources over the sovereignty of that National State can be protected. This will be a guiding principle when thinking about solutions for sustainable use of land in Brazil – be it in Amazon Rainy Forest or Semi-Arid Sertão -, considering this country as an example of a State with a huge territory, a great amount of natural resources and lots of challenges when it comes about protecting them.

3. Alternatives for sustainable land use in Brazilian Northeast

In this section will be briefly analyzed three different alternatives for the use of land in the Sertão, considering their social viability, ecological aspects and economical returns. First, it will be presented a private initiative for cultivating grapes in São Francisco river basin, in the east side of Brazilian Sertão. In a second moment, we will look into a governmental program called PAIS (which stands for Sustainable and Integrated Production System for Agroecology, free translation from Portuguese), developed by the Ministry of National Integration alongside with a national bank and other institutions. At last, it will be given a short insight on to Allan Savory’s technique of holistic land management, based on the idea

BOX 2  

of recovering land and increase its production by the insertion of livestock miming wild herds – which is not being applied in Brazil, but might be consider as an alternative, despite its critics and risks.

3.1. São Francisco vineyards and development of local enterprises14

The production of grapes in Brazilian Sertão are an unusual enterprise, considering the fact that vines are usually planted in places where the climate is colder, mainly in the temperate zones – and note in a semi-desert near Equator Line. The element that has made this investment a rather successful one is a combination of modern technology, available land and workforce. Despite the fact that the soil in the region has low fertility rates, with high levels of clay and rock sediments, investments in the creation of a irrigation system based on São Francisco basin made possible to sustain the vineyard production during the entire year.

Nowadays the production occurs in the model of an enterprise, with some local producers from families from the region and some establishments of big national chains in the business. However, the beginning of the investment in infrastructure on that area started in the middle of 1960, and it was entirely coordinated and implemented by government agencies, with foreign aid from World Bank, resulting in the construction of dams that allowed to create a modern irrigation system.

The profitability of the vineyards in the Sertão are very high, accounting for almost half of the entire Brazilian revenue from vines exportation. The relation with national and global markets is very strong: since it is not a habit in the culture of Sertão to drink wine, all the production is destined to sells in urban markets or exportation, mainly to the Netherlands, and other European countries. It is important to notice, however, that some challenges concerning the sustainability of this enterprise have appeared in the last decade. Although the biggest amount of the farming land is in process of expansion, already 15% is in decline, which brings some doubts about the economical sustainability of this system in the long term. Besides, most of the production still doesn’t have a certificate with the Indication of Origin, which makes it difficult to monitor the quality levels of the product, creating barriers to export the vines to more rigorous markets. On the other hand, there have been very interesting institutional initiatives aiming to promote the organic farming in the region, some of them proposed by the farmers themselves, which can be seen as a consequence of the improvement in education standards in the region, indicating that there has been an increase in the social equity levels.

3.2. Sustainable agriculture and development of local families15

With the main purpose of empowering rural families with low income rates through their insertion in a sustainable and organic agriculture system, the project named PAIS was developed by an agronomist from Senegal in 1999, and has been implemented by national institutions since then. The program already installed 1400 units, each one in the property of a different family, in several different municipalities, including some in the region of Brazilian Sertão. The basic unit needs 5.000km2 of land to be constructed, in which area it will be possible to grow different varieties of fruits and vegetables, as well as poultry, in an integrated manner with the local flora (see Image 04). The cost of the set of raw materials to

build up the unit, including what is called the “ecological backyard” and a drip irrigation system, is calculated in R$ 3.500,00 (around $1.170,00 Euros). This investment, alongside with the management costs of the project, are financed by three national institutions: a brazilian financial institution with focus on social projects that is a branch of the Brazilian national bank; the Ministry of Social Integration that takes care of part of the executive agenda in the government; and Sebrae, a company that promotes social development offering consultation to small producers.

The most interesting aspects of the project PAIS are the ones that have been making it to achieve success during the last decade. The implementation of the unit in the land of the family takes only four days, but the training that is given to the local producer and the monitoring process are continuous activities, guaranteeing that the family will learn how to use the system of organic agriculture and will keep producing without pesticides in a sustainable manner in the long-term. Another interesting feature is that the system doesn’t aim only the self-sustainability of the small farmer. In fact, the unit is designed in order to increase not only the variety of crops but also their quantity. Because of that, the benefits for the small organic farmer will come also through its participation in the local markets, which reflects in the amount of income and profit one can gain from the organic agriculture. The consequence are that the rural family not only improve the quality of food they are eating but is also more integrated in the local commerce, selling and buying different products. Most of the families that participated in the project more than doubled their average wage. The “organic brand” is considered an attractive for the products in market selling, and the organization of the producers in cooperatives helps them to minimize costs and become more economical competitive, gaining more space for selling their products.

Image 03: Examples of agorecological systems implemented by PAIS project

3.3. Holistic management: a possibility for development of large-scale farming?

Historically, one of the main activities in Sertão area has been cattle raising. Not as an agroindustry – which happens in other regions of Brazil such as Cerrado and, nowadays also Amazon forest – but as an option for large portions of land owned by few people, rich farmers that inherited the land in Sertão through the centuries. However, due to the climate and the soil conditions in the region, this has not been a very successful experience. This situation resembles the same problem of other “deserts” around the world, like in Africa or even United

States. With the purpose of finding a way to produce in these areas, a non-conventional scientist has come up, in the last years, with a new proposition. Allan Savory coordinates the Savory Institute and he defends that the only way of increasing the rates of production in the deserted areas is by the insertion of livestock in an organized manner through a system of “holistic management and planned grazing”16. The basic idea is that the movement of the cattle would be coordinated to mime the natural movements of prehistoric herds, and with their manure deposits and gentle trampling, the soil ability to hold water would increase an become more fertile. He also points out that the grazing derived from this process would help in the absorption of the released carbon by cows, compensating the emissions.

Other scientists, however, harshly criticized the theory of holistic management17. It is said that the theory lacks of scientific knowledge in several points, and that contradicts some basic principles in ecology and biology. Some also argue that the theory does not have enough empirical prove to be applied in a global scale: the examples from deserts in Zimbabwe during the 60s are too specific and too outdated to bare as proof of nowadays application of the system in several different countries. In this context, Savory’s work has been led forward by partnerships with private companies and landowners. The Brazilian government, for instance, does not consider the use of its technique as a viable option for reducing desertification and increasing production in the semi-deserts of Brazil, like the Sertão.

Conclusion

In this paper were accessed three initiatives to possibly deal with the problem of environmental collapse in Brazilian Northeast Sertão. Some of them have proved very successful both in terms of increasing social equity in an ecological basis and also bringing economical growth to the region and to the local population. Some differences can be seen mainly between the two projects that were already implemented, the vines production and the agroecology units. While the production of grapes is more focused on an enterprise basis, which the main actors being already known companies in the field, the agroecology production occurs in a familiar basis, with the small producer growing crops alongside with his relatives. Besides noticing a difference in the main actors involved in the program, the roll of governmental institutions also divers: in the first, the government and international financial institutions had to contribute with great investments in infrastructure to transform the land and make it become attractive for economical purposes. In the second case, there was also government investment, but it was planned in partnership with national institutions, focusing not only in the economical availability of the project, but also in continuous monitoring after the implementation of the unit, in order to guarantee the sustainability in the long range.

In this sense, it is possible to say that the second project is easier to check in terms of sustainable use of land. On the other hand, the scale of economic profit is higher in the first project of the vineyards. Aiming not only the local market, but also the exportation sector, the scale of the income in the enterprise of vines is in the order of millions, while for the small farmer it stays at the level of thousand. This, however, should not be seen as a problem, but

just as different projects reaching different goals. The important thing to retain is that in both of them there was the creation and/or increase in the local network of commerce, accompanied by improvements in social indexes, such as education and health, without harming the environment. In both actions, the availability of land, of workforce, the private interest (of companies or of small producers) and the planned investment of the government were key conditions for achieving success. The greatest result is that there was the strengthening of local communities, where they became more attached to their land, while this land can provide a better quality of life for the citizens in Sertão.

It is also important to mention that this paper aims to face the challenges of local sustainable development with an optimistic look. The fact that it is possible to recover a degenerated or “collapsed” land should not be seen as a reason do diminish the political concern towards the environment. It is not because in some cases there are remedies for the disease that one should not try to prevent itself from getting ill. The purpose is to show that besides preservation, it is also necessary to keep in the quest for new sustainable tools, both in the technical and institutional framework, for inserting the human life in different ecosystems in harmony with the surrounding nature.

At last, it is necessary to remember that although these initiatives have presented success so far, the global warming and the climate change still poses a threat, also for the region of Sertão. Those phenomenon derived by human actions can destabilize even more the hydrological circle in Sertão, and cases of increasing in the desertification areas have already been noticed in the last couple of years. The example of holistic management, therefore, may present as a viable option for regenerating the soil in the Sertão, but much more scientific research would be needed before deciding do implement a project on that extent. There it comes the paramount importance of keep operating in all possible fronts, including what the liberal economical school would call as a less valuable area.

                                                                                                               References: 1 Sertão. Definition of “Sertão” according to Wikipedia. Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sertão>. 2 Information available at <http://www.barcelona.educ.ufrn.br/mitos_sertao.htm> and <http://dc.itamaraty.gov.br/publicacoes/textos/portugues/revista1.pdf>. 3 Available at Jared Diamond, Collapse: how societies choose do fail or succeed. Penguin books, 2005, p.13. 4 T.R Malthus, An essay on the principle of population. Classics in Environmental Studies, p.29-38.  5 Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity and Violence. Princenton University Press, 1999. 6 Garret Hardin, The tragedy of the commons. Science, vol.162, 1968. 7 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press, 1990. 8 Wouter de Groot, Sustainability or Collapse? Theory and outlook. Slides available on Leiden University Blackboard, 2013. See also: B. L. Turner II, Goran Hyden and Robert W. Kates, Population growth and agriculture change in Africa, 1993; AND Mary Tiffen, Michael Mortimore and Francis Gichuki, More people, less erosion, 1994. 9 This paper does not intend to prove that the liberal thought is mistaken – this is not even a viable option. It merely points out that, comprehending the different models of thought as analytical tools to study, research and analyze different process, there are other models that fit better and can be more useful when trying to comprehend the situation in Sertão. For further information on the idea of theoretical models as analytical tools, see: Ottar Brox, The common property theory: epistemological status and analytical utility. Human Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1990. 10 Wouter de Groot, Thinking about sustainability 2: the institutional line. Slides available on Leiden University Blackboard, 2013. 11 For a further development of this idea, see: Amartya Sen, Development as freedom. 1999. More information can be found at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_as_Freedom>. 12 João Cabral de Melo Neto, Morte e vida Severina, 1955. The original text in Portuguese is available at: <http://bibliotecadigital.puc-campinas.edu.br/services/e-books/Joao%20Cabral%20de%20Melo%20Neto.pdf> 13 Wouter de Groot, Thunian land use theory, visions of nature, and the future of sierra madre forest. In: The Sierra Madre mountain range: global relevance, local realities. Papers presented at the 4th regional conference on environment and development. 2003. 14 For more information on vines production in São Francisco basin, access: <http://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-vale+do+sao+francisco>; <http://www.winesofbrasil.com/WineMap.aspx?reg=7>; <http://www.sober.org.br/palestra/6/189.pdf> and <http://www.bnb.gov.br/projwebren/exec/artigoRenPDF.aspx?cd_artigo_ren=1146> 15 For more information about PAIS, access: <http://www.rts.org.br/publicacoes/arquivos/cartilha_pais.pdf>; http://www.ipea.gov.br/desafios/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1444:catid=28&Itemid=23; <http://www.rts.org.br/entrevistas/entrevistas-2008/aly-ndiaye-agronomo-idealizador-do-pais/> and <http://revistagloborural.globo.com/EditoraGlobo/componentes/article/edg_article_print/1,3916,1101982-5061,00.html> 16 To see Allan Savory TED talk on the matter, visit: <http://www.ted.com/speakers/allan_savory.html> 17 To read more on the critics of Savory’s technique, access: <http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/04/allan_savory_s_ted_talk_is_wrong_and_the_benefits_of_holistic_grazing_have.html>. See also the article “Gado para salvar o planeta”, in Revista Galileu, no. 265, by Tiago Cordeiro, pp. 55-59. 2013.