Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Development Vs. Preservation in Florianopolis

Fabiana Frayssinet

FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil, Mar 13 2008 (IPS) - With marvellous exceptions like the south and other historic and natural nooks and crannies, the island of Florianopolis in southeastern Brazil is not the same place visitors found 20 years ago.

The clearest sign of the changes is the chaotic urban growth that local authorities and residents are attempting to rein in before it is too late.

The rustic fisherman’s houses that gave character to the favourite resort towns of Argentinian tourists, like Canasvieiras and Jureré, have been replaced by modern concrete dwellings painted in pastel colours reminiscent of Miami, and the old dirt or paving stone streets have given way to modern asphalt roads.

The clean, transparent water surrounding the island have become muddy-looking near Florianopolis, the city on the island of the same name, which is also the capital of the state of Santa Catarina.

The Mata Atlántica or Atlantic Forest typical of Brazil’s coastline is also beginning to look patchy in places.

This is the “progress” celebrated by Mayor Dario Berger, but also “the biggest challenge that we’re facing,” as he told IPS and other media outlets at the recent launch of the book “Illustrated Cities – Florianopolis”.

The challenge is “to seek a balance between the development of the city and environmental protection, in order to maintain the quality of life for ourselves and for future generations,” said the mayor.

Eloar Guazzelli, the illustrator of the book put out by the Casa 21 publishing house, resolved the dilemma in one brush stroke: in his charming drawings, he simply left out the grey cement parts of the city while highlighting the romantic and picturesque aspects of the island.

The island of Florianopolis “represents, on a smaller scale, the great dilemma faced by our beautiful planet,” said the artist.

“To what extent is the expansion of our way of life tolerable? What are the limits of growth for our economic activities? And how far can the environment withstand this growing occupation” of wild spaces? Guazzelli asks in the introduction to the book.

The mayor is focusing on a sustainable development programme that includes a moratorium on construction in the most urbanised areas of the island.

Another aspect of the programme will involve applying for Blue Flags for beaches on the island – eco-labels rewarded by the International Blue Flag Jury to beaches that achieve high standards in water quality, environmental education, environmental management and safety and services.

In addition, local authorities are establishing urban biosphere reserves – areas that achieve a sustainable balance between the conservation of biological diversity and economic development.

One of the eight such conservation units on the island is the Lagoa do Peri, a 23-sq-km public park named after a lake surrounded by native forest on the southern part of the island.

The coordinator of the conservation units in the municipal government of Florianopolis, Mauro Costa, said the aim is to get tourists involved in the task of protecting natural ecosystems.

But, as Costa admitted, it is sometimes difficult to establish the limits between conservation and the survival of the local communities that were already living in the areas before they were declared protected zones.

“A fisherman sees fish in the Lagoa (lake) and wants to fish,” said a resigned Costa.

The family of Zeca Santos, for example, has been dedicated to the production of “cachaça”, the most typical Brazilian distilled alcoholic beverage, made from sugarcane juice, for at least a century.

Santos, whose farm is located within the Lagoa do Peri Conservation Unit, plants sugar cane on 23 hectares for the production of his home-brewed cachaça, which is made in a carved wooden still that has been in his family for generations.

He sells his liquor to bars in São Paulo, and even created a system to recycle sugar cane bagasse, or waste, to feed the handful of cows he keeps on his property.

But because his modest home and small farm are within the boundaries of a conservation unit, he cannot use the traditional system of leaving land to lie fallow, even though he has been cultivating the same land for 15 years and “it is tired and aging, just as we ourselves age.”

To do so, he would have to slightly extend his sugar cane field, within the limits of his property, which he is not allowed to do.

“This small-scale, homemade production, which is part of Brazilian culture, is going to disappear, the way things are going,” Santos complained.

“We hold the title deed to our land,” he said, “but it’s as if we didn’t, because we can’t plant or clear or rotate the land” which produces the livelihood with which he supports his three children, who walk several kilometres a day to their rural school.

Santos said he does not receive the same treatment that other, more fortunate and powerful interests in the conservation unit have received, like the water company that purchases water from the park.

“Where does that water come from? From our land?” asked Santos.

The people of Costa da Lagoa, a fishing village on Conceiçao lake in the east of the island, which has been declared a cultural preservation area, are seeking their own solutions.

The village, considered one of the last redoubts of Azorean culture (the island was inhabited by immigrants from the Azores Islands, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic ocean, starting in the 18th century), is home to 1,800 people, mainly fisherfolk, boat builders and fishing net makers who live just like their forefathers did.

After going out for the day’s catch, the local fishermen build and repair their boats on the beach.

Valdir Miguel de Andrade, president of the Association of Residents of Costa da Lagoa, told IPS that to survive, many local families have turned their homes into small bed and breakfast accommodations or guesthouses, which offer inexpensive lodging to the tourists they take out in their boats.

“They’re simple accommodations, but the tourists appreciate them as if they were big city hotels,” he said proudly.

The few people who have left the village, which can only reached by boat or on foot, “desperately want to come back,” said Andrade, who is also secretary of the local cooperative of boat makers.

To preserve their treasure, local residents have adopted their own collective rules and controls, like a ban on deforestation and restrictions on construction.

The growing problem now is “the people coming from outside,” he said, referring to companies that are buying up large properties and that don’t take the same measures to preserve the village’s charm.