PART A.4 Monitoring and Evaluation 64

PART I: Annex 1-4

Annex 1: Protected Areas in Brazil, Criteria for Selection of Reference Areas and their Description

A. Protected Areas in Brazil

1. 
   Brazil defines protected areas (PAs) as those areas of land or sea specially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and associated natural and cultural aspects, and managed through legal instruments or other effective measures. The table below lists the different types of protected areas in Brazil and their correspondence with IUCN categories.
   

A.1. National System of Conservation Units (SNUC)

2. 
   Brazil’s SNUC was established under Law No. 9.985/2000 and Decree No. 4.340/2002. The system is based on categories of protected areas adopted by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which is the most widely accepted and implemented classification system worldwide. The SNUC consists of special types of protected areas, called Conservation Units (UCs). UCs are divided up into two main groups: Strict Protection UCs (UPIs) and Sustainable Use UCs (UUSs).
   
3. 
   Strict Protection UCs have the objective of preserving nature. Only indirect use of natural resources is allowed, i.e. educational, scientific, and recreational activities. Five management categories are recognized under the strict protection group, each with different degrees of protection. These categories are: Ecological Station (EE), Biological Reserve (RB), National Park (PN), Natural Monument (MN) and Wildlife Refuge (Table 2 lists the number and area of federal Strict Protection UCs).
   
4. 
   Sustainable Use UCs: The aim of these units is to promote the use of the environment/ ecosystem in ways that ensure the sustainability of renewable natural resources and of ecological processes, thereby maintaining biodiversity and other ecological attributes in a socially just and economically viable fashion. Seven management categories are recognized, each with different levels of permitted uses. These are Environmental Protection Areas (APA), Areas of Ecological Interest (ARIE), National Forest (FLONA), Extractive Reserves (RESEX), Fauna Reserves, Sustainable Development Reserves (RDS) and National Heritage Private Reserves (RPPN) (Table 2 lists the number and area of federal Sustainable Use UCs).
   

5. 
   The management of UCs in the SNUC is based on the following specific instruments:
   

• 
  Management Plans: Based on the overall objectives of each conservation unit, this technical document provides for zoning and establishes norms for using the area and managing its natural resources, including the construction of infrastructure needed to manage the unit. This plan must encompass the area within the conservation unit, its buffer zone, and the ecological corridors.
  
• 
  Buffer Zone: This is the surrounding area of conservation units, where human activities are subject to specific norms and restrictions, with the purpose of minimizing negative impacts on the unit. The boundaries of the buffer zone must de drawn when the Management Plan is drafted.
  
• 
  Consultative and Steering Councils: These are mechanisms through which stakeholders participate in collective decision-making, management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of conservation measures and strategies.
  

6. 
   In addition to SNUC UCs, Indigenous Lands and Quilombo lands (former slave lands), Brazil uses a number of other land-use categories to provide some form of protection to biodiversity conservation. These include Biosphere Reserves and Ecological Corridors. Ecological Corridors are linking mechanisms between UCs and are not UCs themselves. They contribute to land management in the areas between UCs, and depend on the interest and cooperation of private land owners in these connecting areas. Biosphere Reserves are UNESCO sites created to improve land management of threatened biomes and can include more than one category. For instance, the largest Biosphere Reserve that is for the Atlantic Forest includes private and public land, national parks and other UCs.
   
7. 
   In addition to Biosphere Reserves and Ecological Corridors, Brazil uses other legal instruments such as those under the Forestry Code that afford conservation to biodiversity through a protected area approach. Amongst these legal instruments are the Legal Reserves that must be observed on private lands, and in which vegetation cannot be clear-cut but rather exploited through management plans that allow only sustainable extraction practices and levels. Legal reserves have to be preserved in order to guarantee minimal biodiversity protection and ecological functions. The percentage of a private property that has to be protected varies according to the biome. In the Amazon, 80% of private properties should be legal reserves. In properties located in the Cerrado biomes in the states of Pará, Tocantins and Mato Grosso it is 35%. In the rest of the country, independent of the biome, it is 20%.
   

8. 
   The legal basis of Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil lies in specific legislation, especially in the Indigenous Statute (Law No. 6,001/73) that is currently under revision by the National Congress, and a few juridical concepts established by the 1988 Federal Constitution.
   
9. 
   The “Indian Statute” is the name attributed to Law 6.001. Promulgated in 1973, it contains rules on the relations of the State and Brazilian society with the indigenous communities. In general, the state followed a principle established by the Old Brazilian civil code of 1916, that the Indians are “relatively capable”, and should be tutored by a state indigenous institution, (from 1910 to 1967 this was the Serviço de Proteção ao Indio/SPI; currently it is Fundação Nacional do Indio or FUNAI) until they are fully integrated in the national community i.e., integrated in Brazilian society.
   
10. 
    While the 1973 Indian Statute continues to be in force, it differs in significant ways from the Federal Constitution of 1998. The latter grants greater rights to indigenous peoples and does not call for the integration of the indigenous peoples into Brazilian society. In fact, it assures them the right to be different from the rest of the country.
    
11. 
    The 1988 Constitution consecrated the principle that the Indians are the first and natural owners of Brazilian lands. That is the primary source of their right, and one that precedes any other right. In consequence, constitutionally, the right of the Indians over a given land does not depend on formal recognition.
    
12. 
    The definition of lands traditionally occupied by the Indians is found in the first paragraph of Article 231 of the Federal Constitution. They are those lands “inhabited by them permanently, those used for their productive activities, those indispensable to the preservation of the environmental resources necessary for their well-being and those necessary for their physical and cultural reproduction, in accordance with their habits, customs and traditions”.
    
13. 
    Article 20 establishes that these lands are the Union’s property, and that it is recognized that the Indians have permanent possession and exclusive usufruct of the riches of the soil, the rivers and the lakes existing in them.
    
14. 
    However, the Constitution also requires the Public Power to promote such recognition. When an Indian community occupies a given area as described in Article 231, the State has to delimit it and promote the physical demarcation of its limits. The Constitution itself established a deadline for the demarcation of all Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil, which was October 5, 1993. The deadline, however, was not met, and today ILs are still in various stages of demarcation (Table 3). Demarcation includes seven different steps described below.