Produire des savoirs environnementaux face aux changements d’usage du sol : les enseignements du conflit pour la définition du Plan de Zonage de la Sylviculture du Rio Grande do Sul (Brésil)

Abstract

This paper investigates emerging logics in the production of environmental knowledge in Southern Brazil through the case study of a complex process launched in 2004 that led the state of Rio Grande do Sul to adopt a management tool known as “Environmental Zoning for Silvicultural Activity” (ZAS). In order to regulate the implantation of Eucalyptus, Pine, and Acacia tree-farms on its territory, the State Environmental Administration decided to regulate silvicultural activities by establishing a set of restrictions based on the ecological vulnerability of landscape units. A conflict between public administration, silvicultural companies, and environmentalist groups, led to a thorough reformulation of this zoning plan between 2007 and 2010. The companies succeeded in reducing the restrictions placed on their activity, however, environmentalist groups later successfully imposed the need to conserve biodiversity, most notably natural grasslands. The ZAS is innovative on a regional scale because it is the first attempt to regulate agrarian activities that underpin the advancement of the agricultural frontier over the natural grasslands of the Campos. It also represents the first legal definition of the physiognomy of this herbaceous vegetation, allowing conservation measures to be taken. We explore in this paper some salient aspects of this case study, representative of the current processes of environmental knowledge production in the neo-developmentist context of South America: The contribution of natural resource conflicts in the emergence and legitimation of new environmental categories; The greater capacity of multinational companies to reshape the legislation about environment management; The intensive use of free-access environmental geographical databases (public open data) during the zoning conflict, and the general consensus about the legitimacy of their use. We highlight how this use creates new ways of measuring environmental vulnerability and allows actors to implement new environmental strategies. In spite of being generally conceived as a factor of democratization of information and empowerment, environmental open data may reinforce asymmetries between actors in environmental controversies and the processes of knowledge production.