Communities debate new biodiversity law in Acre

To bolster the participation of indigenous people, members of riverside communities and small farmers in the regulation of the Biodiversity Law, sanctioned in May this year, the National Committee of Peoples and Communities began on Wednesday (Aug. 26), in Rio Branco, a series with six regional and one national workshops to be held by the Genetic Resources Department of the Environment Ministry.

According to the department manager, Rafael Marques, the goal is to make people understand the law, recognize regulatory gaps, and get as much feedback as possible from the people participating in the workshops.

"When President Rousseff sanctioned the law, she recognized the importance of traditional communities and indigenous peoples, not only as preservers of traditional knowledge, but also as supporters of biodiversity. So she ordered the government to make regulations with closer and direct contact with them," said Marques.

He explained that, in a collaboration with the National Commission of Traditional Peoples and Communities, the Articulation of Indigenous Communities of Brazil and Via Campesina, the government joined civil society in a bid to decide how the goal should be met.

The new biodiversity law regulates the access to genetic resources of Brazilian plants and animals for research and exploration, and also access to indigenous and traditional knowledge about them. It also provides for the sharing of benefits and compensation for traditional communities and populations who make their knowledge available to the productive sector, and provides for the conservation and sustainable use of such biodiversity.

Leaders highlighted the importance of participation of these communities in the process of regulating the law, since, according to them, they did not participate actively in drafting the law itself.

"It's bad to only take part in it at this stage of the process, but it would be worse if our communities had no idea whatsoever about the law," said the representative of the Network of Traditional Communities from the Pantanal, Cláudia de Pinho, from Mato Grosso do Sul. She is a member of the National Committee of Sustainable Development of Traditional Population and Communities (CNPCT).

According to her, our purpose is to teach people about the law. "We have the opportunity to discuss it together and formulate proposals to improve it. This is the moment to understand what this law is, what it enforces and what impact it has upon our lives," she mentioned.

In the view of the representative of the National Council of Rubber Tappers, Manoel Silva da Cunha, from the state of Amazonas, it is important to acquire the necessary knowledge to debate the law in the community. "The law talks about very abstract and intangible things; it gets a little complicated," said Cunha, adding that it is an opportunity to "contribute effectively to the regulatory process so that the law can be as feasible as possible to people in their everyday life, and for everyone to identify with it," he noted.

*The reporter traveled at the invitation of the Environment Ministry.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta