Diálogo de saberes e contribuições ao planejamento participativo das paisagens com comunidades indígenas do Território Mendonça no semiárido potiguar, Brasil

Abstract

Native peoples of the Americas, subjected to slavery and genocide since European invasions, lost great part of their territories and diversity of cultures and epistemologies. In Rio Grande do Norte, a Brazilian state, there is no demarcated Indigenous Land yet, even with the strengthening of the indigenous movement claiming their rights, widely stipulated by international conventions and Brazilian legislation. The study of the landscapes makes it possible to perceive the complex societynature interaction, and through planning and landscape management it is possible to mitigate the anthropic impacts on the environment and to propose a sustainable use of the environmental services. Thus, the general objective of this research is to contribute to the participative planning of landscapes through the dialogue between scientific and local knowledges, to sustainability and territorial and cultural strengthening of Mendonça potiguara indigenous territoty, with an emphasis to the community of Mendonça do Amarelão, in João Câmara, Rio Grande do Norte. On the systemic perspective of landscapes geoecology, this investigation follows the adaptation of the planning and sustainable landscapes management script, proposed by Rodriguez and Silva (2016), which includes analysis of landscape structure, perceptions diagnosis and landscapes’ uses, mapping and scenario forecasting, and converge to what is determined by the National Policy for Territorial and Environmental Management in Indigenous Lands (Brasil, 2012) and the Sustainable Development Goals (ONU, 2015). This study contributes to the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge through the dialogue between knowledges and to the local sustainability, since it is an instrument that may subsidize public polices; it is a qualitative, participative and applied research; and in the instruments, with an anticolonial bias, there are workshops and participant observation, guided walk, photographic register, interviews and the elaboration of the Sustainability Qualitative Indexes. Respecting the local toponymy, in the results section, aspects of the landscape structure and the socioenvironmental and cultural local perceptions emphasized in the diagnostic participative workshops and social mapping are addressed, in accordance to what is summarized in the construction of the thematic maps, in the socioenvironmental and cultural indicator, in the social maps and in the image-letter. Among the main potentialities that contribute to the ethocultural and territorial strengthening, it is possible to cite: the community’s association and its accomplishments, the role of indigenous leaders, the ethnotouristic trail, the cultural revival of toré and the teaching of tupi, as well as the chestnut party. The main problem is the lack of demarcation of their lands, what leads to other socioenvironmental, economic, cultural, and political problems, and impact on sustainability, what happens in many indigenous communities. Through the sustainability indicators, it is possible to notice that there is a positive emphasis on the sociopolitical organization and education; however, they present health, work and income, land access, community infrastructure and environmental quality levels that go from fragile to critical. The systematization of the scenario forecast stage is a dynamic instrument based on the local demands and indicates possibilities to local sustainability such as: institutional partnerships; zoning of the relevant areas, strengthening of the ethnotourism; appropriation of the stages of the cashew nut production chain through cooperativism; the improvement of the community infrastructure with water, basic sanitation, and the diversification of income generation. However, in order to achieve what was previously presented, it is crucial that public authorities get involved with specific and special policies that prioritize the demands presented by the indigenous movement.