Amazonia y Desarrollo

AMAZONIA 21
R. Lukesch, H. Payer (Eds.)

C. Amann, M. Binder, W. Bruckner, M. van Drunen, E. Hinojosa,
N. Fenzl, M. Fischer-Kowalski, C. Grünbühel, A. de Lisio,
F. Rennie, C. Zárate
Operational Features for Managing Sustainable

Development in Amazonia (Final Report)
Publication Series Vol. 1

Operational Features for Managing
Sustainable Development in
Amazonia
Robert Lukesch, Harald Payer
Christof Amann, Manfred Binder, Willibald

Bruckner, Michiel van Drunen, Eduardo
Hinojosa, Norbert Fenzl, Marina Fischer-
Kowalski, Clemens Grünbühel, Antonio de Lisio,
Frank Rennie, Carlos Zárate
ÖAR Regional Consultants Ltd. (Coordination)
Adress: A-1010 Vienna, Fichtegasse 2/17

Phone: ++43-1-512 15 95-0
Fax: ++43-1-512 15 95-10
E-Mail: wien@oear.co.at
http: www.oear.co.at
February 2002
Funded by the European Commission, DG Research and the Austrian Federal Ministry for
Education, Science and Culture
Page 2
Amazonia 21 – Operational Features for Managing Sustainable Development in Amazonia
Contents
Preface __________________________________________________6
Executive Summary ______________________________________10
1 Introduction ___________________________________________23
1.1 The region of Amazonia ...................................................................................................23

1.2 Structural Problems in Amazonia .....................................................................................25
1.3 Sustainable Development: A Process Approach..............................................................30
1. 4 Indicators (task 1)............................................................................................................31
2 Material Flow Accounting in Amazonia (task 2) ______________34
2.1 Conceptual and methodological framework .....................................................................34

2.1 1 Socio-economic metabolism and material flow accounting (MFA) _______________ 34
2.1.2 Methodological Approaches used to Provide MFA’s for PAC ___________________ 39
2.2 Applying National Material Flow Analysis in PAC ............................................................40
2.2.1 Core questions and the research process__________________________________ 40
2.2.3 Results: Metabolic profiles of PACs ______________________________________ 42
2.2.4 The Metabolic Profile of Brazil and Venezuela, compared internationally _________ 44
2.3 Applying Local Material Flow Analysis in three Amazonian Communities .......................50
2.3.1 Overview ___________________________________________________________ 50
2.3.2 Results ____________________________________________________________ 50
2.3.3 Comparisons ________________________________________________________ 55
2.3.4 Conclusions_________________________________________________________ 59
3 The Environmental Dimension of Economic

Key Activities (task 3) ___________________________________61
3.1 Analysing Economic Sectors.........................................................................................61

3.2 A Comprehensive Analytical Framework for Environmental Impacts of Economic
Activity and Environmental Strategies...........................................................................62
3.2.1 A simple model ______________________________________________________ 62
3.2.2 A more elaborate model _______________________________________________ 64
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3.3 Understanding Economic Restructuring........................................................................67

3.4 The Case Studies: An Overview ...................................................................................71
3.4.1 Natural Gas in Venezuela ______________________________________________ 71
3.4.2 Charcoal and Pig-Iron Production in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon ______________ 71
3.4.3 Timber Production in Pará (Brazilian Amazon) ______________________________ 72
3.4.4 Timber Production in Puerto Nariño (Colombia) _____________________________ 72
3.4.5 Fishery in Puerto Nariño (Colombia) ______________________________________ 73
3.4.6 Natural Renewable Resources in Bolivia __________________________________ 74
4 Patterns of Sustainability in Regional Development

Initiatives (task 4) ______________________________________76
4.1 Research themes and partners ........................................................................................76

4.2 Research process and methodology................................................................................78
4.2.1 The sequence _______________________________________________________ 78
4.2.2 The tools ___________________________________________________________ 78
4.2.3 The case study areas _________________________________________________ 80
4.3 Results .............................................................................................................................84
4.3.1 Results in the study areas ______________________________________________ 84
4.3.2 Lessons upon the appropriateness of the applied assessment tools _____________ 89
4.3.3 Observations on some key issues of sustainable regional development in Amazonia 94
5 Integrated Training Programme on Sustainable

Development (task 5) ___________________________________98
5.1 Train the Trainers .............................................................................................................98

5.1.1 Unit 01: Concepts of sustainability - parameters and indicators for sustainable
development_____________________________________________________________ 98
5.1.2 Unit 02: Theory and practice of material flow accounting on national, regional, local and
sectoral level ____________________________________________________________ 99
5.1.3 Unit 03: Structural change and eco-restructuring in strategic sectors of national
economies ______________________________________________________________ 99
5.1.4 Unit 04: International experiences and evolution of regional sustainable development
initiatives________________________________________________________________ 99
5.1.5 Unit 05: Agenda 21 __________________________________________________ 100
5.2 The Implementation of the ITP at the PAC partner institutions .....................................100
5.2.1 NAEA - Brazil ______________________________________________________ 100
5.2.2 CIMAR – Bolivia ____________________________________________________ 100
5.2.3 IMANI – Colombia ___________________________________________________ 101
5.2.4 CENAMB – Venezuela _______________________________________________ 101
5.2.5 FES - University of Amazonas _________________________________________ 101
5.3 Conclusions....................................................................................................................101
6 Synthesis: Nine strategic recommendations________________104
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6.1 Institutional changes.......................................................................................................105

6.1 1 Integrated territorial development in a perspective of subsidiarity ______________ 105
6.1.2 Decentralisation and institutional strengthening ____________________________ 106
6.1.3 Social equity and access to land ________________________________________ 106
6.2 Productiveness and innovation ......................................................................................107
6.2.1 Local ownership ____________________________________________________ 107
6.2.2 SME support and new markets _________________________________________ 107
6.2.3 Technological change ________________________________________________ 108
6.3 Capacity Building............................................................................................................109
6.3.1 Promotion of social skills ______________________________________________ 109
6.3.2 Empowerment of social actors and participation____________________________ 109
6.3.3 Transregional and transnational co-operation______________________________ 110
7 References ___________________________________________111
Annex _________________________________________________114
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Preface
The “Amazonia 21” partner-ship: Built for more than just one cruise
In 1998 representatives from the ÖAR Regional Consultants, four Latin American
university institutes and five European research institutes, joined up to form the
consortium for “AMAZONIA 21”. During the first year the FES at the Federal
University of Amazonas also joined the project as subcontractor of the NAEA. The
project partners were:
• ÖAR Regional Consultants Ltd., Vienna, Austria (coordinator)

• NAEA (Núcleo dos Altos Estúdios Amazónicos) / Universidade Federal do
Pará, Belém, Brazil (vice-coordinator)
• FES (Faculdade de Estudos Sociais – Programa Integrado de Pós Graduação
em Desenvolvimento Regional) / Universidade Federal do Amazonas,
• CENAMB (Centro de Estudios Integrales del Ambiente) / Universidad Central
de Venezuela, Caracas
• CIMAR (Centro de Investigación y Manejo de Recursos Naturales) /
Universidad Gabriel René Moreno, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
• IMANI (Instituto Amazonico de Investigaciónes) / Universidad Nacional de
Colombia, Bogotá and Letícia
• IFF (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at Austrian Universities) / Department
of Social Ecology, Vienna, Austria
• WIKUE (Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Wuppertal,
Germany
• FFU (Environmental Policy Research Unit) / Free University of Berlin,
Germany
• IVM (Institute for Environmental Studies) / Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
• LCC/Lews Castle College, Scotland, United Kingdom
After three years, the project has not only proven the fruitfulness of global exchange
between researchers and trainers committed to a common purpose, it also revealed
to us the fascination of co-operation, teamworking and project management across
continents, cultures and language barriers. The transnational project team of
“Amazonia 21” can be regarded as a microworld representing the enormous
significance of the region, and our global responsibility to preserve its uniqueness,
richness and diversity. Its success has grown in a spirit of mutual respect, humour
and sincerity.
Today, we know that there are a lot of common interests to develop further – in
follow-up projects involving more Amazonian partners. Our consortium has become a
pulsating node in a network which is able and which will in the near future bring forth
more co-operation projects, not only in academic research, but especially in training,
consultancy and local action for a sustainable future of Amazonia.
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The “Amazonia 21” mission: To acknowledge what is, and to understand how it
can be changed
The project was funded by the EU-GD Research (budget line INCO-DEV) and the
Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. It aimed at
• Comparing European and Panamazonian countries’ (PAC) approaches to
sustainable development;
• Elaborating a joint approach to assessing and measuring sustainable
development, with special regard to sustainable land and resource use in the
basin of the river Amazonas/Solimões;
• Integrating these approaches and instruments into PAC university training
programs and study schemes;
• Elaborating recommendations for innovative actors and policy makers;
• Establishing long term relationships between scientific institutions and these
actors for promoting sustainable development in the PAC.
The “Amazonia 21” outcomes: A fertile seedbed for future co-operation

Until the end of 2001, the project team has produced 16 empirical studies, 11
publications for various international journals and conferences, and six, partially
published concept papers. Building on this knowledge base we have produced
materials for a complete university training course on theoretical and practical issues
of sustainable development, called the “Integrated Training Program” (ITP). The ITP
has been delivered twice as a post graduate specialisation course at the Brazilian
Universidade Federal do Pará and, in parts, at the Universidad Central de
Venezuela. Similar courses at the universities in Colombia and Bolivia are under
way.
From 24 to 26 October 2001, an international conference was held at the Parque do

Mindu in Manaus, bringing together around 150 participants, mainly students and
representatives of the academic world and non-governmental organizations from the
regions of Manaus and Belém to discuss the results and consequences of our
research project. The conference was also supported by the municipality of Manaus,
the state government of Amazonas and the regional development agency called
SUFRAMA1. Televison spots on Austrian, Swiss and Brazilian TV stations reported
from the conference.
From the starting phase up to now the project offers its own website
(http://www.amazonia21.org) for all kind of information upon the project – including
links to partner institutes and further relevant websites. This final report, the case
studies and other documents can be downloaded from there. It is mainly used by the
students passing through the post-graduate courses at our partner universities in
Amazonia.
1
Superintendência da Zona Franca de Manaus
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Acknowledgements
The project, its written results, the training courses and the international conference
are the outcome of outstanding efforts of a large number of committed and loveable
researchers, assistants, students and back office staff. As we can not mention them
all here, we want to thank the following collaborators hoping that they will pass on
this expression of gratitude to those who worked with them more in the background.
• ÖAR Regionalberatung: Richard Hummelbrunner, Elisabeth Lukesch, Robert

Lukesch, Karmen Mentil, Harald Payer, Ronald Portner, Michaela Vosseler,
Waltraud Winkler-Rieder, Angelika Brechelmacher.
• NAEA/NUMA: Norbert Fenzl, Luzia Jucá, Fernanda Martins, Fernanda
Nascimento, Karina Ninni, Armin Mathis, Adagenor Ribeiro, Vicky Schreiber, Nair
Sember.
• FES: José Machado, Alexandre Rivas.
• IFF: Christof Amann, Willibald Bruckner, Clemens Grünbühel, Marina Fischer-
Kowalski, Simron Singh.
• CENAMB/CENDES/UNELLEZ: Sergio Barreto, Gilberto Buenaño, Hercílio
Castellano, Luisa Guevara, Antonio de Lisio, Luis Perez.
• IMANI: Fernando Franco, Gustavo Martinez, German Ochoa, Allan Wood, Carlos
Zárate.
• CIMAR: Antonio González, Eduardo Hinojosa, Margareta Ferguson, Gary
Mendoza, Irma Lizarazú, Guido Pedraza, Alejandro Pierrot.
• IVM: Sander de Bruyn, Michiel van Drunen.
• LCC: Frank Rennie.
• FFU: Manfred Binder.
• WIKUE: José Fernandez, Helmut Schütz.
We express our gratitude to the staff of LITTERA, Adonay Barreto, Helena Turenko
and all the others, who organised our conference with great diligence and
responsibility.
Many thanks to the co-sponsors of the Manaus conference, the State of Amazonas,
the Manaus municipality, the SUFRAMA development agency and other contributors.
We also like to thank the interlocutors having accompanied the project on behalf of
the funding institutions, for their commitment and trustful devotion: Michaela Wright;
Yves Motteu and Paul Tzimas (EU-DG RESEARCH), Heide Borns (Austrian Ministry
of Science) and Bernd Schuch (BIT Austria).
Page 8
Content and structure of this final report

The final report in hand presents the synthesis of the empirical studies and common
reflections upon sustainable development in Amazonia.
Chapter 1 starts with an overview of key figures on the geographical, ecological and
socio-economic dimensions of the whole region, a brief description of the region´s
main structural problems and a few words upon our understanding of sustainable
development as a process approach.
Chapter 2 sums up the theoretical background of material flow accounting, the

methods in use and the empirical results from all the national and local case studies
in Amazonia.
Chapter 3 deals with the environmental impacts of some selected economic key
activities and the conditions for their ecological restructuring.
Chapter 4 summarizes the investigations undertaken to explore sustainable

pathways in regional development initiatives.
Chapter 5 reports on the implementation of the integrated training programme at the

PAC partner universities.
Chapter 6 leads to our conclusions and a set of nine strategic recommendations for
sustainable transformation in Amazonia, based on our three years’ experience of
intensive research and dialogue.
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Executive Summary
The joint research and training project “AMAZONIA 21” followed three main
objectives:
• Comparing European and Panamazonian countries’ (PAC) approaches and
elaboration of a joint approach to assessing and measuring sustainable
development, especially sustainable land and resource use in the basin of the
river Amazonas/Solimões,
• Integrating these approaches and instruments into PAC university training
programs and study schemes,
• Elaborating recommendations for innovative actors and policy makers and
establishing long term relationships between scientific institutions and these
actors for promoting sustainable development in the PAC.
During the three years of co-operation, around 50 scientists and 300 students in
various task groups and post-graduate courses at the Amazonian university institutes
became involved in examining the applicability and usefulness of some of the most
recent theoretical and methodological approaches to sustainable development in the
Amazonian geographical, economic and political context. Topics of the project were
willingly taken up by students for their Masters and Doctors Theses.
By the end of 2001, Amazonia 21 created the working base for the following thirteen
publications and presentations:
• de Bruyn, S. and van Drunen, M. 1999: Sustainability and indicators in Amazonia,
conceptual framework for use in Amazonia. Report number W-99/37, Institute for
Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
• Aiking, H., de Bruyn, S., van Drunen, M. 1999: Indicators for sustainability, in:
M.A. van Drunen and P. Vellinga (Eds.): The Environment, a multidisciplinary
concern, Report number R-99/08, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije
Universiteit, p. 231-259.
• Lukesch, R., Fenzl, N., Payer, H. 2000: A ten-string polyphonic experience of
transcontinental research and training cooperation. Conference proceedings of
the biannual conference of the European Society of Ecological Economics
(ESEE) in Vienna, May 2000.
• Fenzl, N. 2000: Como formular e implementar a Agenda Amazônia 21. NUMA-
UFPA, Belém.
• Fenzl, N., Monteiro, M. 2000: Energetic-material losses and regional
impoverishment: Pig iron production case in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon, in:
Gaia 3/2000.
• Mathis, A. 2000: Local material flow accounting at Caxiuanã and Laranjal. Paper
presented at the 4th S/ISSR Conference “World in Transition” in Vienna, Austria,
September 2000.
• Mathis, A. 2000: Agenda Amazônia 21: Por que, para quem e como? In: Aragon
L.E. (ed.): Debates sobre a Agenda Amazônia 21. p.21-30. Belém (UNAMAZ).
Page 10
• Mathis, A. 2001: Instrumentos para o desenvolvimento regional. VI Congreso

Internacional del CLAD sobre la Reforma del Estado y de la Administración
Pública. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 5-9 de noviembre de 2001.
• Mathis, A. 2001: Instrumentos para o desenvolvimento sustentável regional.
Adcontar: Revista do Centro de Estudos Administrativos e Contábeis. Belém. v.2
n2, p. 19-30.
• Lukesch, R. 2001: Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften im Amazonas-Gebiet.
Internationales Forschungsprojekt unter österreichischer Führung, in: impulse!
Newsletter der ÖAR Regionalberatung GesmbH 1/2001, 6.
• Fischer-Kowalski, M.; Amann, C. 2001: Beyond IPAT and Kuznets Curves:
Globalisation as a Vital Factor in Analysing the Environmental Impact of Socio-
Economic Metabolism. In: Population and Environment, Vol. 23, No. 1, 7-47.
• Amann, C. 2001: National Material Flow Accounting in Developing Countries.
Methodological Experiences “, presented at “The Science & Culture of Industrial
Ecology” ISIE 2001 Meeting in Leiden, The Netherlands, 12-14, November 2001.
• Fischer-Kowalski, M., Fenzl N., Machado J., Bohorquez H. 2001: Rapid Metabolic
Change as a Chance and a Threat to Sustainability: The Case of Amazonia.
Presented at the Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global
Environmental Change Research Community of IHDP in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6-
8 October 2001
We also produced six concept papers, which have been disseminated among the
scientific communities and served as background papers for theoretical and practical
applications:
• Sostenibilidad y ciencia: Elementos para la profundización y actualización del
debate (A. de Lisio 2000),
• Municipio Amazónico: Un modelo sin armar (F. Franco 2001),
• Sistemas e Indicadores de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel para a Amazonia
(Adagenor L. Ribeiro 2001),
• Los condicionantes Sociales, Politicos e Institucionales del Ordenamiento
Ambiental de la Amazonia (Carlos G. Zárate Botia).
• The Innovation Compass: An Interactive Tool for Strategic Area Assessment (R.
Lukesch 2001),
• Patterns of Sustainability: Towards a Meta-Model of Instruments for Sustainable
Development (R. Lukesch 2001).
We carried out 17 empirical studies:

• 3 national material flow analyses (Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela)
• 3 local material flow analyses (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia)
• 1 study on fishery (Colombia)
• 1 study on gas industry (Venezuela)
• 1 study on natural renewable resources (Bolivia)
• 1 study on pig iron and charcoal production (Brazil)
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• 2 studies on forestry/timber extraction (Brazil, Colombia)

• 1 study on agroforestry (Bolivia)
• 1 study on regional fishery (Venezuela)
• 3 studies on local development (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia).
We produced materials for a complete university training course on theoretical and

practical issues concerning sustainable development, called the “Integrated Training
Program” (ITP). The ITP has been delivered twice as a post graduate specialisation
course at the Brazilian Universidade Federal do Pará and, in parts, at the
Universidad Central de Venezuela. Similar courses at the universities in Colombia
and Bolivia are under way.
From 24 to 26 October 2001 an international conference was held at the Parque do

Mindu in Manaus, bringing together around 150 participants, mainly students and
representatives of the academic world and non-governmental organizations from the
regions of Manaus and Belém to discuss the results and consequences of our
research project.
On the project website (http://www.amazonia21.org) all kinds of information upon the

project is available – including links to the partner institutes and further relevant
websites, as well as the final report, the case studies and documents for
downloading.
For achieving the objectives the project was structured into tasks. The table below
gives an overview over all these tasks, their goals, the co-ordinating institutions and
the related case studies.
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Table 1: The structure of Amazonia 21
Objectives Coordi Case studies

nators
CO-ORDINATION
Task 0 Project management ÖAR
Milestones
Reporting
Public relations
RESEARCH & TRAINING

Task 1 Building a common understanding of IVM
basic concepts and theoretical
approaches on sustainable
development
Creation of a set of sustainability
indicators
Task 2 Feasibility of material flow accounting IFF 3 national material flow analyses
in the PAC for Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia;
3 local material flow analyses in
Brasil, Colombia, Bolivia.
Task 3 Analysis of structural changes in FFU 2 studies on forestry/timber

selected key sectors of the Amazonian extraction in Brazil, Colombia;
economy 1 study on fishery in Colombia;
1 study on gas industry in
Venezuela;
1 study on pig iron and charcoal
production in Brazil;
1 study on natural renewable
resources in Bolivia.
Task 4 Patterns of sustainability in regional ÖAR 3 local development studies;

development initiatives 1 regional study on fishery.
1 study on agroforestry in Bolivia.
Task 5 Knowledge transfer from research NAEA
experience to post-graduate courses at
the PAC partner universities (ITP)
Task 6 Synthesis ÖAR,

Recommendations NAEA
& IVM
EXPLOITATION
Task 7 Manaus Conference, FES,
Publishing the results and experiences NAEA
Networking & ÖAR
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Local-regional-national-transnational
Nested in the trans-continental approach for dialogue and experience exchange, the
case study areas can be categorized according to their levels of scale. The three
national material flow analyses (Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia), and likewise the sectoral
study on the gas industry in Venezuela have been carried out with regard to the
national level. The Brazilian case studies on structural change in the pig iron and
charcoal production (Maranhão), timber production (whole Amazonian area of Brazil)
and the Venezuelan fishery study (Apure State) have been conducted at regional
levels. Finally, the local material flow analyses in Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia, the
agroforestry study in Bolivia, the local development studies in Brazil, Colombia and
Bolivia have been conducted at local levels (municipalities or communities). The
natural resources study in Bolivia focuses on the local level, too, but contains many
references to the national situation and the situation in Bolivia’s parts of Amazonia.
The local and regional studies reveal many elements which certainly can be
extrapolated to other communities and regions of Amazonia – such as the
methodology adopted for local material analyses, as well as sectoral and local
development studies in small rural communities which largely depend on subsistence
economy. This can be said to a much lesser extent for the regional sectoral studies.
In any case, generalizations require uttermost prudence.
Indicators for sustainable development in Amazonia

The first step was to build up a common understanding of basic concepts and
theoretical approaches on sustainable development. The introductory inputs by the
IVM helped to create an overview of the different concepts of sustainable
development. It reviewed the international policy debate on sustainable development
and the different purposes, possibilities and obstacles with regard to
operationalisation with the help of indicators. The IVM report was published after the
first year of the project. It distinguishes between five different approaches behind the
most of the well-known sets of sustainability indicators. The IVM recommends to
assess the quality of indicators by the following criteria of good practice:
1. Data availability and reliability
2. Scientific value
• Scientific validity and significance
• Applicability
• Sensitivity to change in time, across space and over social distribution
• Sensitivity to reversibility and controllability
• Predictive ability
3. Communicative value
• Symbolic relevance
• Integrative and aggregative values
• Reference values
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For Amazonia, the use of the Agenda 21 indicators proposed by the UN Commission
on Sustainable Development has been recommended for future studies. The IVM
report exposes a list of indicators derived from the UN Agenda 21 proposal and
divides them into the three categories “driving forces”, “state” and “response”.
However, the precise set of indicators to be used depends also on the sustainability
patterns to be investigated (economic sectors, regions, communities), the availability
and reliability of the data, and the questions the concerned stakeholders are ready to
answer.
Proceeding on the IVM contribution, the NAEA doctorand Adagenor L. Ribeiro

(NAEA-UFPA) elaborated a system of SD indicators for Amazonia based on systems
theory and the orientor approach of Hartmut Bossel. Ribeiro recommended a broad
integration and application of systems theory in development planning approaches
and decision making in territorial policies and local agenda 21 processes, which he
considers as essential for the development of Amazonia in the new millenium.
Feasibility of material flow accounting in PAC

During the late nineties national material flow accounting (NMFA) has become a
harmonised tool of environmental monitoring and a common element of the official
economic-environmental statistics within the European Union. The assessment of the
applicability of material flow accounting (MFA) within the four participating PACs
(Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia) constituted the first attempt to use this
methodology in less developed countries. The test ran very successfully both at the
national and the local level. The case studies resulted in substantial results on the
particular metabolic profiles and development trends of some PACs. At the national
level, MFAs and MFA indicators were calculated for Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia,
and, as far as possible, compared with data from industrialized countries.
The results show that domestic material input (DMI) per capita in Brazil and
Venezuela is quite about as high as it is in industrial countries. However, GDP per
capita, calculated with purchasing power parities (PPP) for Brazil and Venezuela, is
very low. Both cases display a material intensity quite above that of the industrial
core. Both Brazil and Venezuela have a large primary (and secondary) sector,
producing raw materials and first stage products (such as pig iron), selling them on
the world market at a comparatively low price. Time series present a picture
completely different from that in industrial countries. DMI grows more quickly than
GDP, and material intensity is even rising – quite in contrast to the industrial core,
where we have found GDP to be the fastest growing variable with a subsequent
decline in material intensity. Developing countries seem to play, to an increasing
extent, the role of suppliers of material-intensive processes and products for affluent
countries throughout the last two decades. That is also underpinned by the physical
trade balance (PTB), representing the difference of imports and exports of a country
in physical terms. Both Brazil and Venezuela export more materials than they import,
while the opposite is true for industrial countries.
Page 15
At local levels, MFAs were carried out for the municipality of Santa Rosa del Sara
(Bolivia), Puerto Nariño (Colombia), and the three communities Pedreira, Caxiuanã,
and Laranjal on the island of Marajó (Brazil). The study areas represent typical
extractive economies, exporting virtually unprocessed natural resources, while there
is an increasing pressure, through both economic and social channels, forcing local
consumers to obtain industrial products from traders and merchants.
The three local MFA studies reveal a remarkably higher difficulty for comparability.
They describe the material basis of – albeit culturally very different – non-industrial
communities in Amazonia. Their transitory character is due to outside influences, as
well as to their own yearning to link up to what they perceive as the modern society.
All three communities face different types of obstacles in their struggle for economic
well-being. This diversity led us conclude that the ways and degrees of integration
into the modern world economy vary enormously all over the Amazon basin. The
specific location, the distance to commercial hubs, the politico-administrative function
of the settlement, and its specific economic and political history seem to determine
the degree of integration to a much wider extent than the fact that the communities
share the same wider ecotope.
Structural changes in selected key sectors of the Amazonian economy

The starting point of the analysis of structural changes in key economic sectors is a
life cycle analysis of those activities, which expose specific threats to the Amazonian
environment (therefore nicknamed “dirty” industries). All along the life cycle from
resource extraction to final consumption, we discover a broad range of possibilities
for interventions for ecological restructuring. Moreover, the analysis provides new
insights to adequate measurements for the early anticipation and avoidance of
undesirable social impacts.
In the OECD countries, the manufacturing industries alone produce some 15-25% of
GDP with 70-85% of final energy consumption of all economic sectors. Mutatis
mutandis, the same holds true for most of the environmental problems: They are
caused to a large extent by a rather small group of “dirty” industries dealing with
resource extraction like mining, forestry, and the early stages of resource processing,
i.e. the production of electricity and of industrial goods such as steel, aluminum,
cement, paper, chlorine or petroleum products. In developing countries, as well as in
less developed parts of newly industrialized countries, natural resource extraction still
causes the main environmental problems. While research in industrial countries has
focused on studying the production of metals, non-metallic minerals, chemicals,
paper, the transformation of energy and the mining sector for the last fifteen to fifty
years, the Latin American partners of Amazonia 21 decided to focus rather on the
actual situation of small-scale producers dealing with primary industries like forestry,
agriculture and fishing. The case studies related to timber production in the Brazilian
Amazon, timber production in Puerto Nariño (Colombia), fishery in Puerto Nariño
(Colombia), natural renewable resources in Bolivia, natural gas in Venezuela,
charcoal and pig-iron production in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon2.
2
The regional study upon fishery in the State of Apure (Venezuela) was carried out on the basis of a different
methodology (see below).
Page 16
The analysis goes through the four categories:

Technological conditions;
Market forces;
Economic and political institutions;
Discretionary decisions both in private business and governmental agencies.
The case studies were based upon a common questionnaire, adapted from similar
ones used in previous studies in industrialised countries. The questionnaire explores
the driving forces of economic change, the social management of change, the
influence of environmental policy and future perspectives with regard to the selected
sectors.
In spite of the different ways in which the case studies were actually carried out, they
offer a useful information base for the integrated training programme and a starting
point for further steps towards a better understanding of structural change processes
in economic key activities of Amazonia. Furthermore, they allow some general
insights concerning the analysis and the management of economic sectors:
- There tend to be interesting alternatives which have been ignored by major

actors. Very often, actors take too much for granted: The environmental impact
necessary to use a certain technology, the technologies necessary to produce a
certain product, the products necessary to fulfil a certain need, the needs to be
fulfilled in order to achieve sustainable development. It is worthwhile to check
systematically for alternatives at very different levels of analysis addressing very
different groups of actors: Supplementary environmental measures, as well as
integrated ecological modernisation, intra- and inter-sectoral structural change, or
general economic, regional or population policies. Besides, the knowledge of
other cases - especially successful ones - as well as the inclusion of new actors
might also help to identify previously overlooked options.
- Different kinds of actors always have to be emphatically involved. Whenever one
or two of the relevant stakeholders is able or even obliged to decide alone, things
are bound to go wrong: Local communities alone might lack the know-how and
the resources, while both big private enterprises and public authorities might try to
organise each and everything according to their organisational needs and
purposes. This may lead to undesirable outcomes even if it is done with the best
intentions (which seldom is). Participation combined with reciprocal networks of
as many and as different kinds as possible (economic, political, cultural, religious,
scientific) are pre-requisites for sustainable development.
Patterns of sustainability in regional development initiatives

The specific aim of tracking success and failure in territorial development initiatives
was to identify viable options for local and regional sustainable development in
Amazonian territories. For the implementation, the PAC partners chose a local
territory (in the case of Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia), or a wider region (in the case of
Venezuela), and a local or regional extra-university partner to carry out the task. The
duration of the partner search varied from several days (Brazil) up to one year
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(Colombia). The partnership was either based on a longer history of collaboration

(Bolivia, Brazil), or gradually built up during the project itself (Colombia, Venezuela).
• CIMAR (Bolivia) focused on rural development at the agricultural frontier of the

dwindling Amazonian forest. Since several years, CIMAR puts strong emphasis
on the development of appropriate agroforestry schemes, for which it undertakes
field research with farmers. The study was carried out together with ASPACH, an
association of four farmers unions in the El Chore colony, a rather young
settlement mainly inhabited by migrants having come down from the highlands in
search for fertile land.
• NAEA (Brazil) focused on local development of a rivershore community on the
island of Marajó. The study was carried out in close partnership with the non-
governmental development organisation POEMA (“pobreza e meio ambiente”).
POEMA is an initiative linked to the NAEA and the NUMA through the active
participation of a number of teachers and students. It is supported by various
development funds, e.g. the German Development Cooperation (GTZ), the World
Bank and the European Commissions’ GD Development. POEMA’s main interest
lies in the diversification and sustainable development of small communities in
Pará and other Amazonian areas, in developing new products based on the
biodiversity of Amazonia, in building up new commercial links for local producers
and in training of academic people and local actors.
• IMANI (Colombia) focused on the local development of the mainly indigenous
communities in the trapecio amazónico near to the Peruvian border. The
researchers succeeded in establishing good relationships with the “cabildo”, the
representative body of the indigenous reserve, which covers most parts of the
municipal territory, and with the municipal council, represented by the mayor of
Puerto Nariño, as well as with local stakeholders (fishermen, tradesmen,
lumberjacks). The chosen area coincided with the local material flow analysis and
local sector studies for fishery and forestry, thus the exchange between academic
researchers and local people became very intensive.
• CENAMB (Venezuela) focused on the development of the fishery sector and the
fishing communities in the State of Apure which stretches along the Orinoco-
Apure river axis in the sparsely populated Llanos area, south of the Caribbean
coast mountain ridge. CENAMB co-operated with another institute of the central
university in Caracas (CENDES), and with the private university (UNELLEZ) in the
capital of the study region, San Fernando de Apure. The researcher, at the same
time teacher at the UNELLEZ, built up close contact with important stakeholders
in the fishery sector on the national, regional and local levels.
The research team put strong emphasis on the provision of tools facilitating
integrative approaches:
• The “innovation compass”, a strategic tool for area assessment, by which not only
different aspects of a territory can be integrated, but also diagnosis and strategy
building, which constitute the first two stages of a programming cycle. The
innovation compass was elaborated by a work group of the European Rural
Observatory for the LEADER II programming period 1995 – 1999.
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• The “INSURED framework for sustainable regional development”, which allows to

support planning, management and monitoring sustainable development by
applying a multi-dimensional matrix.
• The “Grassroots Development Framework” of the Interamerican Foundation.
• The Bolivian partners conducted experimental and comparative on-farm research
in order to assess different agroforestry systems for economic long-term viability.
During the final conference, a basic measurement tool for sustainable development
was introduced by Frank Rennie from the Scottish Lews Castle College. It foresees a
rating procedure similar to the innovation compass, but using just 40 indicators
distributed on four axes: Social, economic, environmental conditions and equity. The
indicators are established by the community itself in a previous dialogue process, in
the course of which the participants create a common picture of what is really
meaningful to their future.
The case studies succeeded through the diffusion of the applied assessment tools,
which have stimulated reflection among stakeholders and, to various degrees, have
resulted in practical proposals and concrete action. They strengthened the links
between the academic world and the local actors and stakeholders, thus preparing
the seedbed for future collaboration. The project also helped to improve the
appropriateness of the tools. This resulted in the production of a new version of the
innovation compass (attached in the annexes) and the background paper “Towards a
Meta-model of Instruments for Sustainable Development”, which includes a new
format of the INSURED framework as a “generative toolbox for instruments for
sustainable development”. This toolbox aims at helping local actors, researchers,
agenda 21 coordinators etc. to develop instruments for diagnosing, planning,
implementing and evaluating sustainable development according to the specific
conditions and needs (attached in the annexes).
Finally, the local development studies provided the following insights:

• The relative weakness of regional market exchanges: Infrastructure and
equipments in river ports do not correspond with the overall importance of
waterways in Amazonia’s interior economy. On the other hand, when global flows
directly plug into local subsistence activities without being buffered through
intermediate, regional economies, they quickly destabilize local ecosystems and
the social fabric of local communities. Toothless law enforcement and weak local
and regional governance hardly provide protection from unlawful practices.
• The richness and diversity of the Amazonian environment is mirrored in the
subsistence practices and knowledge of indigenous people and traditional forest
dwellers. The sustainable use of the traditional practices and the corresponding
knowledge needs gradual and selective transformation of subsistence economies
into local and regional market systems.
• Environmental destruction in Amazonia shows a typical sequence. It mostly starts
with the selective logging of valuable species by foreign companies or local
sawmills, in some cases with the exploration of new mines or oil wells. Job and
land seeking migrants follow the access roads built by the extractive enterprises,
and practice slash and burn agriculture. Either immediately, or only after a few
years of agricultural use, the land gets converted into pasture, until it is left
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exhausted and infertile. People push the agricultural frontier further and the spiral
of destruction restarts.
• In many Amazonian municipalities, formal decentralisation of power coincides
with the factual impotence of local authorities. The inefficiency of public
authorities and the absence of spatial development policies may be partially
compensated by the self-organizing capacity of the local society. However, local
communities can only be effectively supported by external partners, when their
level of social competitiveness allows for entering a structured dialogue which
eventually leads to cooperation in projects for sustainable development.
Final recommendations: Three dimensions and nine strategies

The operationalisation of sustainable transformation in Amazonia requires strategies
with regard to three dimensions:
A. Institutional changes
B. Economic innovation
C. Capacity building
In the light of our three years of co-operation we have achieved consensus upon the
following nine strategic recommendations, which we mainly address to public
authorities and universities. These actors represent the immediate social
environment of the research project.
A. Institutional changes
1. Integrated territorial development in a perspective of subsidiarity

Sustainable development in Amazonia should based on the endogenous potentials
and corresponding development programmes should mainly be shaped by those
living in and for that region. These programmes have to integrate environmental
preservation measures under a strategic point of view, i.e. as an integral part of the
sustainable development of the wider area.
2. Decentralisation and institutional strengthening

Decentralisation of power structures takes positive effects, if the different levels of
governance communicate with each other in similar ways. The higher level of
governance has to provide a transparent framework of general goals and sufficient
resources for the lower levels to work out their area-specific development strategies.
Local people and communities have to be capable to articulate their interests. Local
people and their organisations have to have sufficient space for participation and
public negotiation. The achievements of negotiations are to be laid down in reliable
contractual agreements.
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3. Social equity and access to land

Only people’s just and equitable access to resources, such as land, energy and
income opportunities, can lead to a decisive shift away from poverty and exclusion
towards prosperity, sustainable livelihood in a climate of public security.
Land redistribution is an essential measure of relief for poor populations bound for
migration. Putting underutilized land under production, will take pressure from the
forest fringes, where landless populations continue to settle.
B. Productiveness and innovation
4. Local ownership
Local ownership means a model of responsibility sharing, which involves knowledge
transfer and capacity building and a free flow of information between generations,
sectors and cultures. This requires a common agreement upon the principles and
conditions and a simple language.
Priority should be given to supporting community-based tenure. Community-based
tenurial shells are a necessary condition for ecological sustainability in certain
situations. Specifically, tenurial shells offer a way to protect existing indigenous and
other traditional community-based resource management systems in biologically
diverse and ecologically fragile areas.
The local communities should be organised into larger and larger groups within a
nested hierarchy, with the larger groups serving to co-ordinate the activities of the
component neighbouring groups and to resolve disputes. The larger resource
management groups should form appropriate links with political institutions at
corresponding levels.
5. SME support and new markets

In the search to foster diversified local economies, there are some strategic elements
which should be taken into account by public programmes:
- SME development, enterprise start-ups, innovation transfer and business co-
operation projects.
- Sectoral self-organisation and regional business networks need advisory and
infrastructural support until becoming self-sustaining.
- The establishment of local and regional development funds.
Biodiversity is the major resource for Amazonian people. The great challenge is to
use this asset without depleting or deteriorating it. There are many studies on
alternative activities and new products, but only a few are implemented to date. Local
entrepreneurs have to become aware of the real opportunities offered by the
Amazonian environment.
The protection of sensitive areas offers major assets for economic development,
provided they enjoy public (international) significance. Eco-tourism, which is
embedded in an integral concept of local development, can play a key role in
stabilising rural economies even in very remote and sensitive areas.
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6. Technological change
Urgent measures should be taken to replace inefficient technologies by others which
relieve pressure on local resources. This can be done either
- by raising eco-efficiency: e.g. it can even be recommendable to replace firewood
by gas or petroleum stoves),
- by structural measures: e.g. the downscaling of an industry, more service
orientation, infrastructure planning for new settlement areas, urban renewal
measures
- by substitution of products in favour of less resource-consuming ones.
C. Capacity building
7. Promotion of social skills

Democratic participation, local resource stewardship and entrepreneurship require
self-esteem and social competitiveness encompassing technical capabilities and
organisational skills.
8. Empowerment of social actors and participation

The participation of local people in decision making processes, which affect their
habitat and the ways they make their livings, is a key element of sustainable
development. This is also true for environmental monitoring, the primary task of those
who live close to or make their livings from the respective resources. Effective
participation at the local level is intrinsically connected with an integrated,
intersectoral local development approach.
9. Transregional and transnational co-operation

Panamazonian countries and the world community, in recognition of the global
relevance of the ecological fate of the Amazon river basin, shall join their forces for
an integrated and sustainable development of the Amazonian region, allowing to
make its unique biodiversity its greatest asset not only in conservationist terms, but
also in economic terms.
With respect to this strategy we specifically want to stress the importance of further
strengthening European-Amazonian co-operation links through networking, staff
exchange and joint projects between public and private actors.
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1 Introduction
1.1 The region of Amazonia
Amazonia is the geographical area surrounding the Amazonas/Solimões river and its
tributaries. It transcends nine countries – Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia,
Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana. It is the basin of the world’s
largest rivers and the largest tropical rain forest on earth, representing one third of all
tropical forests.
An immense waterworld
Over most of this vast region the climate is very warm and humid. Rain falls about
200 days p.a., and total rainfall exceeds 2000 mm per year. The main river is fed by
more than 1.000 tributaries, including seven that are more than 1,600 km long. It
drains more than half of Brazil, as well as parts of the other neighbouring countries.
Its total drainage basin encompasses about one-third of South America, an area
nearly as large as the European Union or the entire United States. The river can
reach a width of more than 100 km and carries by far the largest volume of water of
any river in the world. Every second around 175 thousand cubic meters of water flow
into the Atlantic ocean. The discharge is so huge that it noticeably dilutes the salinity
of the Atlantic ocean's waters for more than 160 km offshore. The complete river
system is estimated to hold between 15 and 20% of all the fresh water of the planet.
A planetary sanctuary of biodiversity

Another result of so much rain is that Amazonia is covered by the largest remaining
tropical rainforest. Originally, nearly 4 million km2 of Amazonia were covered with
dense tropical forest, about two thirds of which is located on Brazilian territory. The
region is well-known for its outstanding, exuberant biodiversity. Most of the species in
this region remain uncharted, updated estimations amount to 30 millions. Presumedly
one square km of the Amazon region shelters more species of plants and animals
than the whole of Europe. Only a tiny percentage of Amazonia's millions of species of
plants and animals are known to science, but those few that have been studied have
already yielded valuable food, medicinal drugs, cosmetics, fibres and other
commodities.
In spite of the exuberant life, the soil under the Amazon forest is very poor in
nutrients. Since the tropical forests use their own residues as aliments, they sustain
themselves by permanent reproduction. Losses in forest cover quickly lead to
irreversible damages to the fragile ecological balance of the region. Secondary
succession grows rapidly, but it lacks the biodiversity of primary forest.
A largely urbanized population

Although there are a few sizable cities along the river banks and scattered
settlements inland, large parts of Amazonia are almost uninhabited. Most of the great
rain forests are still pristine wilderness, one of the few large areas left on earth where
nature's creation remains more or less unspoiled and intact. The population of the
whole region is roughly estimated to around 20 million inhabitants.
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Amazonia shows a high ethnic and cultural diversity reaching from at least 350
different indigenous groups like the Yanomami, Ticuna, Huitoto or Kayapó, other
traditional dwellers (like the Brazilian “caboclos”) making their livings from
subsistence farming, fishing or rubber tapping, to the modern way of life in and
around the few larger cities and tourist spots. At least one half of the population settle
in the big urban agglomerations, two thirds of which live in the Brazilian river ports of
Manaus and Belém.
Table 2: Large cities in Amazonia, number of inhabitants in millions

Manaus, Amazonas/Brazil 2,0
Belém, Pará/Brazil 1,8
Iquitos, Peru 0,5
Porto Velho, Rondônia/Brazil 0,4
Rio Branco, Acre/Brazil 0,3
Santarém, Pará/Brazil 0,3
Boa Vista, Roraima/Brazil 0,2
The national contexts

Amazonia is not a homogeneous area. The only thing which can be said that all its
parts have in common, is its heterogeneity in terms of natural conditions, cultural
diversity, development potentials and political situations. Amazonia is divided
between nine countries, whose economic and political centers are situated outside
this area. The national contexts in the four partner countries are extremely different.
Brazil’s share is by far the largest one. Even if the forest fringes are exposed to many
threats, its vast heartlands still remain largely untouched. Venezuela shows the
economic features of a typical oil producing country with a relatively low share of
agriculture related to the GDP. In Venezuela, large parts of Amazonia are under
protection. In Colombia, important parts of the Southeast escape government control.
They are the stage of guerrilla warfare, paramilitary armies and coca production. The
Amazon region of Bolivia is suffering growing demographic pressure from highland
peasants in search of farmland. Concerning economic performance, Brazil is on the
upper end, Bolivia on the lower end with regard to national products.
Table 3: Main features of the national parts of Panamazonia
Bolivia Brazil Colombia Ecuador Guyana French Surina- Peru Vene- Total
Guiana me zuela
2 * *
Area, km 600.000 5.010.982 419.346 130.832 135.784 81.000* 110.612 735.984 175.950 7.400.490
National 55 59 37 48 62 89 77 57 19
share, %
Panamazo- 8.1 67.7 5.7 1.8 1.8 1.1 1.5 9.9 2.4 100,0
nian share, %
Population 344.000 15.949.790 588.646 372.524 250.000 21.510 164.000 2.713.118 55.717 20.459.305
Indigenous 49,9 1 12 25 16 n.a. 4 11 69
population, %
estimated
*
Including forest areas outside Amazonia
Sources: Atlas Panamazónica 2001, own calculations; Comisión Amazónica de Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente (BID-PNUD-TCA)
1994: “Amazonia sin mitos”, Bogotá. Editorial Oveja Negra, 2. ed.
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Table 4: Economic features of the project partners’ countries (ref. year 1999)
Brazil Venezuela Bolivia Colombia
Population (millions) 168.1 23.7 8.1 41.5

Annual population growth rate 1.4 2.1 2.3 1.9
in % (93-99)
Life expectancy at birth (years) 67 73 62 70
GDP (US$ billions) 742.7 102.2 8.3 86.6
Average annual growth rate 2.6 2.3 4.2 1.6
(89-99)
GNP/capita 4,420 3,690 1,000 2,170
DMC (Domestic material 2.269,239 169,381 43,866 n.a.
consumption) 1995, mio. tons
DMC 1995/capita, tons/capita 13.9 7,8 5.9 n.a.
Agriculture (% of GDP) 8.4 5.1 18.4 12.2
Industry (% of GDP) 31.7 36.4 18.1 24.8
Services (% of GDP) 59.9 58.5 63.5 62.9
General government 15.6 7.6 14.6 21.1
consumption (% of GDP)
Imports (% of GDP) 9.0 15.4 27.1 19.5
Exports (% of GDP) 9.7 22.0 17.4 17.8
Source: World Bank 2001
1.2 Structural Problems in Amazonia

The “manifest destiny” of Amazonia: A giant reserve for future progress
Embedded in the positivist view of progress which has inspired the constitutions of
Panamazonian countries since their early days of independence, Amazonia has
always played a significant role in their “image of the future”. Similar to the Americas’
19th century perception of the West, the Amazon rain forest was perceived as an
empty wilderness in need of civilisation. It was believed that the region’s wealth could
fuel the development of the whole region (Barbosa 2000).
This spirit still echoes in the preamble of the Amazon Treaty signed in Brasilia on the
3rd of July 1978 by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Panamazonian countries
(except French Guiana), when they declared to feel “inspired … to promote the
harmonious development of the Amazon region, to permit an equitable distribution of
the benefits of said development among the Contracting Parties so as to raise the
standard of living of their peoples and so as to achieve total incorporation of their
Amazonian territories into their respective national economies”.
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Centralist governance
Amazonia is shared by nine nations, whose political and economic centers lie outside
the area. Most of these nations came into being after the Bolivarian revolution, which
followed the shockwave of the Napoleon era in Europe. The rationalist and positivist
view of progress, based on the concepts of the French revolution and European
thinkers of the 19th century, is engraved in the early Republics’ constitutions, stipulating
a unitary centralised state and a governance which operates on rational planning.
Obviously, there is a rigid momentum in this quest for rationality, order and progress.
Having inherited colonial governance structures and an extreme inequality of social
structures, the ruling elites opted for a strong central authority in order to maintain
their view of order and to ensure obedience.
However, within the last century populations grew considerably and societies
became incomparably more complex. Whenever the propertied classes felt a loss of
dominance, they were easily tempted to support a military coup to stabilize their
position, i.e. to remain in power, regardless to democratic and human rights
principles.
As we know, the recourse to centralist and dictatorial forms of governance is short of

breath. The illusion of total control of these complex societies collapses in the same
way, as the controlling authority becomes incontrollable. Therefore most
Panamazonian countries have made strong efforts to meet the demands of modern
democratic societies and to decentralise their power structures. But this process is
only at its beginnings and it meets a number of important obstacles:
• Accompanied by a general economic crisis, the decentralisation process appears

as a corollary to globalisation. It resembles more a dismantling of public
institutions in the sense of decentralising responsibility for everything which costs
(basically education, health, infrastructure, etc..), but of nothing which would be
lucrative.
• Thus “municipalisation” does not automatically lead to a decentralisation of
political power. The central government decentralises basically social
responsibilities. The financial and the decision making power remain in the
national capitals outside Amazonia, the municipalities account for the
consequences of these decisions.
• Centralist approaches do not vanish just by de-centralising some institutions and
decision making processes. Centralism is only superficially tied to the
constitutional definition of territorial relations. It is much more a mindset of
thinking and acting, deeply engrained in the attitudes and organisational routines
of both private and public actors.
• The production and processing of coca leaves has, in some parts of Amazonia,
constituted the first and sudden break-in of “globalisation”. Albeit inscribing itself
in the typical cyclic pattern of other boom sectors based on natural resources
(chinine, rubber, oil, gold, diamonds), the possibility of quick enrichment through
drug producing, processing and trafficking shaped the entrepreneurial attitudes
and habits of at least one generation, maybe deeper than the precedent cycles.
Instead to invest in value adding processes, the involved actors and their
Page 26
followers constantly keep searching for a “pirate’s treasury ” (Franco 1999). Public
money is a possible source of enrichment, and corruption (not only) at municipal
levels remains an enormous plague.
On the other hand, the decentralisation process undoubtedly brought with it an

awakening of political awareness for breaking up political and economic
dependencies and to reorganize the municipalities with regard to more efficiency,
financial transparency and citizen’s active participation.
Paradoxically (or not), the centralisation of power is coupled with a weak institutional
capacity at the local levels and a general inability to enforce common rules and laws,
such as social or environmental protection regulations. At least 80% of timber
extraction in Amazonia is reported to be illegal (ACT 1/2000).
Economic disparities
For centuries, the vastness and inaccessibility of Amazonia made it extremely difficult
to exploit the major part of the forest, and still does so today. However, over the past
forty years, government sponsored road building projects, colonisation schemes and
industrial developments have transformed large areas of Amazonia from pristine
forest into polluted factory sites, mining areas and sprawling settlements.
During the late nineties this transformation process slowed down for the first time,
more due to the economic crisis of Latin America’s national economies than to
growing international pressure for a policy shift towards sustainable development.
However, public awareness for Amazonia´s ecological and cultural uniqueness has
caused serious hindrances to some economic activities. But in spite of remarkable
green successes the exploitation of nature and the crude industrialisation of the
region still goes on.
Concerning the national governments, their budgets largely rely on long-term loans
from abroad and on the benefits of big industries, which, since colonial times, are
oriented towards exploitation and exportation of barely processed natural resources.
These industries either belong to members of the ruling elites, multinational
corporations or, to a diminishing extent, to state-owned holdings. Decision making
power is linked to economic key activities, such as mining, gas and oil, energy and -
slowly but surely - biotechnology. Why should national governments give away their
influence over the main assets of the economy?
The ruling elites are historically linked to direct exploitation of natural resources and
to trading with imported goods, but there is a smooth transition to land and financial
speculation and even unlawful activities such as drug trafficking.
There is also a large sector of micro- and small enterprises trying to survive under
these circumstances. These enterprises are pressed by high interest rates, heavy
taxes and a high-handed bureaucracy. This situation obliges small enterprises to stay
with one foot in the so-called informal market, escaping taxation but at the same time
renouncing legal expansion.
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The ongoing economic crisis and the structural conditions drive a growing
percentage of the active population into informal activities and poverty. Urban people
try to survive by combining officially tolerated informal activities, mostly street trade.
Personal security becomes a privilege and any property, be it a modest one, has to
be protected by special construction measures (grills, walls) or private guards.
Apart from the main agglomerations, local economies and small or medium
enterprises as their driving forces suffer from people’s low purchasing power. Local
economies are not sufficiently diversified, their owners and employees lack technical
and social skills, investment capital, public support, market information and,
moreover, they keep being vexed by deficient infrastructures. E.g. investments in
ports, the most important modal nodes along the water courses, are badly neglected
in comparison to airports or roads, whose construction and maintenance is probably
much more difficult under Amazonian conditions.
In remote rural areas, landless peasants follow the tracks made for extractive
activities, burn down a piece of forest, struggle for survival using mostly inappropriate
agricultural methods, and finally keep on migrating after a few years because of the
depletion of soils, repeating the same destruction cycle some kilometres further.
The skills gap

Effective decentralisation would have to be accompanied by capacity building and
empowerment of people and local communities, which needs time and requires
sufficient resources. At the same time, the undersupplied public education system
does not reach the mass of the poor and does not deliver the skills they would need
to improve their living conditions. There are local models of participation and self-
organisation, encouraged by civic or religious associations, but mostly aloof from
public authorities.
There is a lot of knowledge embodied in indigenous people and traditional settlers

about efficient and ecologically sound survival strategies. This is widely disregarded
by the mainstream of society - and to a growing extent by their own offspring. In spite
of many laudable efforts to preserve and to utilise this knowledge for the sake of local
communities and for the modern society, this huge heritage of wisdom is threatened
either to be forever lost or turned into commercial value by patent owners outside
Amazonia.
Apart from social deprivation, the lack of technical skills and organisational capacity
is a main driving force of inappropriate and inefficient resource use. This does not
only accelerate the downgrading of the living space, but also leaves local
entrepreneurs incapable to meet the required skills of modern businesses.
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Growing problems in the light of increasing awareness

The vicious interaction between dysfunctional governance, a monopolised, externally
dominated economy and people’s desperate struggle for survival with inappropriate
means necessarily ends up in an ongoing destruction of natural resources, still
growing in intensity. In the light of our empirical studies the most serious troubles
might be summarized as follows:
The increase of GDP in Panamazonian countries is dearly paid with a growing

relative material consumption. Endogenous natural resources are quickly turned into
volatile money, which does not fertilise regional economies. Most of it leaves the
region, very much of it leaves the subcontinent. Local entrepreneurs lack both skills
and information to make use of the existing market potentials of forest products and
non-timber forest products.
The mass of the poor, in their survival struggle, have little interest in preserving the
environment. Most of them are not rooted in the land where they live. They lack the
skills to use their local ecosystem in sustainable ways. Although there exist a number
of applicable exploitation schemes elaborated by committed researchers, there is a
conspicuous gap between theory and practice. However, successful experiences at
community levels, as marginal and homeopathic they might appear, give hope.
Generally spoken, much of what local universities investigate and teach, has much
more to do with the reality of industrialized countries than with the reality of the
region. The domains of research and higher education, depending on public or
private corporate budgets, have little capacity to act as facilitators or even change
agents, in spite of the high qualification and admirable commitment of many
academic professionals.
Public authorities have little capacity to enforce environmental regulations. Local and
transnational NGOs, out of solidarity or charity, intervene on the side of the poor and
for environmental concerns. In case of conflict, their legitimacy of claim can be
quickly put in question by private companies or public officials. However,
Panamazonian governments officially support initiatives to bundle global forces in
order to cope with the global problem of deforestation of the river basin.
In the so-called Manaus Declaration (10th of February 1992), proclaimed in the eve of
the UNCED conference, the Presidents of the Amazon Treaty Nations confirmed that
“we are convinced that an environmentally healthy planet goes hand in hand with
global social and economic justice. In order to achieve this aim, it is fundamental to
change habits, development models and unsustainable consumption patterns.”
In an attempt to support the Panamazonian Countries in their commitment to save

the “cradle of life in the name of biodiversity and climatic stability”, powerful
institutions such as the World Bank, the G7 and the EU engage in co-financing
development and conservation programmes. For the first time in history, interests of
open-minded central governments, indigenous people, traditional Amazonian settlers
(e.g. rubber tappers) and environmentalists seem to converge, but at the local levels
tactical interests often outweigh the noble spirits. Intercultural communication
Page 29
problems are frequent, not only between local people and authorities, but also
between local people and voluntary supporters from outside (Barbosa 2000).
To sum it up, the natural potentials and geographic conditions for regional self-
reliance would be favourable in many Amazonian areas, but the reality shows a
different picture. Instead of the formation of sustainable regions around the core of
the Amazonian basin, economic forces drive people deeper into the virgin forest,
engaging in an ongoing and unproductive colonisation, like a scornful travesty of the
early Republics’ dreams of national integration and conquest of “empty territories”.
1.3 Sustainable Development: A Process Approach

Sustainable development is a global objective. It offers a positive long-term vision of
a society that is more prosperous and more just, and which promises a cleaner,
safer, healthier environment – a society which delivers a better quality of life for us,
for our children and for their descendants. Achieving this in practice requires that
economic growth supports social progress and respects the environment, that social
policy underpins economic performance, and that environmental policy is cost-
effective (European Commission 2001).
We find plenty of similar descriptions of sustainable development in scientific papers

and political statements. They leave an enormous margin for possible interpretations.
What is common, is that they mainly focus on a set of goals that society should attain
in order to accomplish universal values. Apart from the notion of “sustainable
development as a goal”, it can also be defined “as a property of a system, i.e. the
ability of a system to fulfil a set of goals over time” (de Bruyn / van Drunen 1999).
In contrast to this, we would call sustainable development a permanent challenge

rather than a goal. Under this perspective sustainable development is a “regulative
idea” (according to Immanuel Kant), such as “love”, “sincerity” or “respect”. According
to the theory of self-organised systems the thread of life in a viable (=sustainable)
system would never get torn except through sudden, unpredictable changes of the
framework conditions. But in fact, these conditions do always change and viable
systems, such as human societies, constantly adapt themselves to these changes.
Eventually they evolve and co-create the environment in which they are going to
develop further. Sustainable development is an ambitious, on-going task which
requires integral concepts, approaches and effective instruments and tools, most of
which still have to be invented.
This process approach to sustainable development makes it obsolete to measure a

“state” or “level of sustainability” at a certain time or in a particular area, whereas it is
possible to identify unsustainable practices.
Firstly, a practice can be evaluated by extrapolating its effects into the future. It can
be regarded as unsustainable, if the continuation of the practice leads to a
breakdown of the carrier system (e.g. the depletion of a strategic resource or the
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increase of pollution beyond the threshold of viability). In other words, if the end of
the road is in sight, it is by definition unsustainable to go on in its direction.
Secondly, we can measure relative changes by comparing the situation over time. In
this case, we get enough information to say that the situation has become more or
less (un)sustainable.
Our case studies focused on the significance, the causes and the consequences of
current practices in selected economic key sectors and local territories. Not
surprisingly, they reveal that most of these practices are unsustainable, but they also
allow us to outline some plausible “paths” that would allow the Amazonian society to
adopt more sustainable practices.
1. 4 Indicators (task 1)
In the report “Towards Sustainable Development – Indicators to Measure Progress”
the OECD (2000) states that “a framework for sustainable development linking
economic, environmental and social issues is essential to permit the identification of
key indicators and to illuminate their interaction. Frameworks and indicators are inter-
dependent and both are necessary. The framework should also include links to policy
goals and be easily comprehensive to policy makers” (p.16).
With respect to the consistency requirement, the first step was to build up a common
understanding of basic concepts and theoretical approaches on sustainable
development. The introductory contribution of the IVM (Van Drunen / de Bruyn 1999)
helped to create an overview of the different concepts of sustainable development. It
reviewed the international policy debate on sustainable development and the
different purposes, possibilities and obstacles with regard to operationalisation with
the help of indicators. The IVM report was published after the first year of the project.
It distinguishes between five different approaches behind most of the well-known sets
of sustainability indicators:
• The wealth approach: This approach originates from economics. It states, that
wealth, expressed in terms of (human, social, human-made and natural) capital is to
be equally passed over to future generations. Concepts of “weak” and “strong”
sustainability derive from this approach.
• The mosaic-systems approach: This approach has become popular at the World
Bank. It distinguishes various development dimensions, or systems, relevant for
sustainable development. Three systems, sometimes also called dimensions, play
the dominant role: The economic, the environmental and the socio-cultural system.
The three dimensions break down in numerous sub-dimensions or subsystems,
which can bring difficulties when defining sustainable development in operational
terms. Trade-offs between the various dimensions (and sub-dimensions) are very
difficult to assess when using this approach.
• The mosaic-principle approach: This approach is closely related to the above
mentioned mosaic-systems approach, but focuses on main principles of importance
in the concept of sustainable development: Economic, ecological and equity
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principles (“the three E”). This approach results in some guidelines towards
sustainable development and can therefore essentially be interpreted as a normative
variant of the mosaic-systems approach. Also in this model the number of
dimensions and sub-dimensions to be distinguished are rather extensive.
• The political approach: It has been suggested that the definition of what
sustainable development is, depends on the outcome of a voluntary agreed decision
making process. In the international context, the UNCED conference in Rio de
Janeiro forms an important international debate on what sustainable development
implies. Governments have decided to adopt Agenda 21, which comprises four
sections: The social and economic dimensions (chapters 1-9); the conservation and
management of resources for development (chapters 10-22); strengthening the role
of major groups (chapters 23-32) and means of implementation (chapters 33-40).
Van Drunen and de Bruyn recommend to build on the architecture of the Agenda 21:
“Given the fact that Agenda 21 constitutes a main element in the discussion
concerning sustainable development in PAC countries, it seems to be logical and
consistent to follow the indicators of progress towards sustainable development in
the PAC countries.” The IVM recommends to assess the quality of indicators by the
following criteria of good practice:
1. Data availability and reliability
2. Scientific values
• Scientific validity and significance
• Applicability
• Sensitivity to change in time, across space and over social distribution
• Sensitivity to reversibility and controllability
• Predictive ability
3. Communicative values
• Symbolic relevance
• Integrative and aggregative values
• Reference values
The political approach is also commonly used in local development initiatives. At the
Manaus conference, Frank Rennie, who defines sustainable development as
“improving the life of communities”, presented a flexible tool using 4 * 10 = 40 made-
to-measure indicators, set out on four axes: Social, environmental, economic and
equity indicators. The axes combine the mosaic-systems (social, environmental,
economic) with the mosaic-principles approach (equity).
• The systemic-principles approach: This approach comes from systems theory.

Hartmut Bossel, who calls indicators “guideposts in a complex world” (1996) , derives
at least six so-called basic orientors from the viability requirements of self-organised
systems: Existence, effectiveness, freedom of action, security, adaptability and co-
existence.
For generating indicators for systems viability, the basic orientors are put in relation
to six subsystems of the society: Infrastructure, economic system, social system,
human development, governance, environment and natural resources.
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Most importantly, the indicators do not only refer to the sub-categories, but also to
the contribution of each sub-category to the whole system. Thus the model becomes
coherent and self-recursive.
Starting from a different background, the so-called INSURED framework for

sustainable regional development (EURES 1998) stipulates four systemic principles
(diversity, partnership/networking, subsidiarity, participation) as elementary process
characteristics for projects and programmes oriented towards sustainable
development. Developing further this approach, Robert Lukesch (2002) identifies the
four operational principles subsidiarity, participation, co-operation and competition
(“the systemic cross”) as essential characteristics for viable systems, recognizable in
many scientific concepts and traditional world views.
Adagenor L. Ribeiro (NAEA-UFPA) combines the political approach with the systemic
principles approach. He elaborated a system of SD indicators for Amazonia based on
the orientor approach of Hartmut Bossel and tested the model in a Local Agenda 21
in the municipality of Barcarena in the State of Pará. As a conclusion, Ribeiro
recommends a broad integration and application of systems theory in development
planning approaches and decision making in territorial policies and local agenda 21,
which he considers essential for Amazonia’s destiny in the new millenium.
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2 Material Flow Accounting in Amazonia (task 2)

Can material flow accounting inform policies of sustainable development? Or, put in a
more humble way, does it provide systematic clues to identify particular risks and
opportunities of sustainability? At the onset of this project, it was felt that the analysis
of socio-economic metabolism, and the tools of material flow analysis, could prove to
be particularly useful for understanding the potentials of sustainability for developing
countries: within one approach, they provide a perspective both on the economy
(namely its physical dimension), and on the pressures upon the environment
resulting from economic activity. While both European partners and partners from
PAC shared their hopes in the power of this approach, it was, internationally
speaking, the first attempt to apply it to developing countries. At the beginning, it was
fairly unclear whether, for those countries, sufficient and sufficiently reliable statistical
data existed that could be used for this approach, nor was it clear whether the
scientific capacity in PAC countries could be mobilized to handle it properly. On a
substantial level, no specific hypotheses had yet been formulated as to what a more
or a less sustainable metabolic profile of a developing country would look like. Thus,
the attempt to apply MFA to PAC countries was a pioneer task world wide, and the
goal explicitly set for our project was to test the applicability of MFA. As can be seen
below, this test was in some countries more successful than we had dared to expect,
and so we can come up with some substantial results on the particular metabolic
profile, and developmental trends, of PACs.
2.1 Conceptual and methodological framework

With the notion of sustainability gaining influence in the environmental discourse, the
features of this discourse have remarkably changed. No longer was it the toxicity of
particular substances that was seen as the main problem of society's pressure upon
the environment. The focus moved from the output side of the production system to a
comprehensive understanding of the physical dimension of the economy.
Increasingly, the economy was conceptualized as a set of activities extracting
materials from nature, transforming them, keeping them as society's stock for a
certain amount of time and, at the end of the production-consumption chain,
disposing of them again in the natural environment. It has been recognised that
environmental problems can arise at every step in this process. Furthermore, it has
been understood that it may be not only problematic substances but also problematic
amounts of matter set in motion by society's activies that result in global
environmental problems (Schandl / Weisz 2000).
2.1.1 Socio-economic metabolism and material flow accounting

(MFA)
How much energy and matter, and which materials socio-economic systems draw
from their environments, and how they transform these materials, largely depends on
their historical mode of subsistence, and this, in turn, is closely related to technology.
One can describe a „characteristic metabolic profile“ for each mode of subsistence,
and overall historical changes are associated with substantive changes in socio-
economic metabolism (Fischer-Kowalski / Haberl 1997). This implies substantive
Page 34
changes in resource utilization on the input side, and substantive changes in pollution
problems on the output side. In interaction with specific natural environments,
sustainability problems therefore also change.
Figure 1: Characteristic metabolic profiles
Metabolism per capita and year

for different modes of subsistence
hunter and agrarian society industrial society

gatherer society
energy input in GJ / capita . year
10-20
ca. 65
250
biomass biomass various energy carriers
(food, 3 veget. food 170 fossil energy
wood ...) 50 fodder 5 hydropower
12 wood 14 nuclear energy
61 biomass
material input in t / capita . year
ca. 1 ca. 4
19.5
biomass biomass various materials
(food, 0.5 veget. food 4.7 biomass
wood ...) 2.7 fodder 5.1 oil, coal, gas
0.8 wood 9.7 minerals, metals,
others
Sources:
hunter and gatherers: own estimates based on Harris (1991), agrarian society:
Törbel 1875 (Netting 1981), industrial society: average of Austria, Japan,
Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA.
Socio-economic metabolism refers to the sum total of the material and energetic
flows into, within and out of a socio-economic system. Socio-economic metabolism
serves (a) to produce and reproduce the material elements of the socio-economic
system (i.e. its physical compartments: humans, animal livestock, and durable
goods) and (b) eventually to produce deliverables to other socio-economic systems
(exported materials). Each socio-economic system has a territorially defined
boundary towards other socio-economic systems, and a functionally defined
boundary towards its natural environment.
Material flow accounting (MFA) can be regarded as a set of methods for describing
and analyzing socio-economic metabolism. This presupposes a collective
organization on the part of humans to maintain ways of life within a natural (and
social) environment. Thus we are interested in examining socio-economic systems
(such as national economies) as systems that reproduce themselves not only socially
Page 35
and culturally but also physically through a continuous exchange of energy and
matter with their natural environments and with other socio-economic systems.
It should be understood that this methodology has been developed within the last
decade, and that it is still „in development“ although major steps were taken in
harmonizing methodology (Adriaanse et al. 1997, Matthews et al. 2000, EUROSTAT
2001). This holds true for MFA on the level of national economies (NMFA), and even
more so for local community MFA-studies (LMFA).
With LMFAs, the body of experiences extends from industrial towns (see Bacchini in
Switzerland or Boyden in Hong Kong) to villages living from subsistence-agriculture
in India or Thailand. Still, each local mode of subsistence, and each local community
culture, provides new methodological challenges.
Since the early 1990s, the MFA approach has been picked up by many countries and
often has been even introduced into their official statistics. Gradually, MFA was
methodologically refined so as to eliminate inconsistencies that had hampered
international comparability.
In the course of this refinement, it was specified that material flow analysis should
comply to the following basic assumptions and conventions:
(1) The law of „conservation of mass“:

Any MFA is based upon the idea of balancing, which originates from the law of
conservation of mass:
Input = Output + stock increases - stock decreases
In words: The sum of material/energetic inputs into a system equals the sum of
outputs plus stock increases minus stock decreases.
(2) The metabolism of the socio-economic system is composed of the metabolisms of

its compartments, namely the biophysical structures it contains:
For each compartment, the law of conservation of mass also applies.
This equation follows from a systems approach, looking at an economy or society as
an integrated whole much in the way biology that sees an organism, examining its
„metabolism“ as a highly interdependent self-organizing process rather than as just
an assembly of „material flows“. Following this analogy, just as the metabolism of an
organism is composed of the metabolism of each of its cells, so is the metabolism of
a socio-economic system composed of the metabolism of each of its compartments.
(3) Bio-physical compartments of socio-economic systems:

This notion requires the explicit specification of what is considered to constitute the
compartments of the socio-economic system. For socio-economic systems on a
national level, the most common convention is to consider human bodies, animal
livestock, and artifacts (durable goods) as bio-physical compartments maintained by
socio-economic metabolism as well as by collectively organized human labour.
To be consistent, the complete metabolisms of the humans and of the animal
livestock must be included. This comprises nutrition, intake of oxygen and water,
output of carbon dioxide and water, faeces, and the deposition of dead bodies. If
Page 36
livestock is included as a compartment of the social system, then meat and milk, etc.
may of course not be treated as inputs from the environment but must be looked
upon as transfers within the system.3
Finally, long-lived artifacts – i.e., human-made and human-maintained technical

structures such as buildings, machines, vehicles and the like, but also roads, dams,
or sewers − must be looked upon as physical compartments of socio-economic
systems. This implies, according to equation (2), that all the materials used for
making and maintaining these structures belong to the social system’s metabolism,
as do the energy and the materials (such as water, air and various raw materials)
used to make them function and to produce those goods and services for which the
social system has constructed them.
(4) Stocks and flows:

A reliable distinction between stocks and flows is a prerequisite for empirically
determining whether a socio-economic system is still „growing“ (in physical terms), is
in a steady state, or is shrinking. Stocks refer to the size of the population, the size of
animal livestock, and the weight of the infrastructure. Accordingly, an operational
distinction between „size“ and „metabolic rate“, as well as between the „growth rate“
and the energetic and material „turnover“ of the social system can be defined, and
the indicator „net addition to stocks“ can be calculated.
(5) Water, air and „other materials“:

Typically, three groups of input materials are distinguished: water, air, and the
remaining input materials (consisting of biomass, fossil fuels, minerals, and
manufactured products). Most MFA indicators are based on the „other materials“
only. This has to do with the common-sense idea of not literally „drowning“
economically valued raw materials and commodities in water and air.4
(6) Direct materials input and indirect flows, „rucksacks“, or „hidden flows“:
According to the conventions established so far, „direct materials input“ refers to the
non-water-non-air fraction of materials that actually cross the boundary of a socio-
economic system (see figure 2). Beyond the boundaries of the socio-economic
system, there occur material flows that may be seen as prerequisite to the materials
input of the socio-economic system in question, even if these former material flows
remain beyond its boundaries. In the Schmidt-Bleek (Wuppertal) tradition, these
3
Some approaches also consider plants as a compartment of the social system (Stahmer et al. 1997). If
agricultural plants are considered to be part of the socio-economic system, the boundary between this system and
its environment is „pushed outward“, to the mineral level, except for fishing, hunting and gathering. This does not
correspond to any existing economic statistics, and besides it is difficult to distinguish between „social system
plants“ and „natural plants“ (Fischer-Kowalski / Weisz 1999). So while the inclusion of plants may be warranted
for some theoretical reasons – for example because agricultural plants are maintained by human labour just as
livestock are – it is usually not considered practical.
4
In modern industrial economies, „other materials” amount to only about 5% of the overall material input, the rest
is water and air (Fischer-Kowalski et al. 1997). However, the distinction becomes fuzzy upon closer examination,
as the „non-water-non-air” fraction is not free of water and air. Moreover, the content of water and air of the
various materials changes due to natural processes such as evaporation and oxidation, and also due to technical
processes within the socio-economic system. For the calculation of a mass balance, these processes have to be
taken into account. So far, the methods applied have proved to be not completely consistent (see for example the
country reports in Matthews et al. 2000)
Page 37
indirect material flows are termed „rucksacks“. One can distinguish between the
rucksacks of imports and the rucksacks of domestic materials extraction. (Another
expression used is 'hidden flows', see for example Adriaanse et al. 1997).5
(7) Domestic processed output:

Domestic processed output (DPO) refers to the total of all materials used in the
domestic economy (i.e., which result from direct material input) at the point where
they flow back into the natural environment as wastes, emissions, or deliberate
disposals (such as fertilizer). These outflows can also be distinguished according to
the environmental media they enter (air, water, soil). When hidden flows within the
domestic environment are also included, one refers to Total Domestic Output (TDO).
Figure 2: The metabolism of a socio-economic system: The basic MFA model

Air, Water
Water Vapour
FHF
Imports Exports
Immigrants Economic Emigrants

Processing
DMI
TMR DE DPO
TDO
Stocks
DHF DHF
Domestic Environment
DE: Domestic extraction DMI: Direct material input = DE + Imports

DHF: Domestic hidden flows FHF: Foreign hidden flows
DPO: Domestic processed output TDO: Total domestic output = DPO + DHF
TMR: Total material requirement = DMI + DHF + FHF
Source: Matthews et al. 2000, slightly modified
From this interrelated set of variables, several indicators can be drawn to represent a
socio-economic system’s impact upon the environment. On the one hand, these
indicators may refer to the input side, following the argument that the more resources
a system consumes, the more it is a burden to the environment (and the
environment’s future usability for other systems). Among these indicators, domestic
extraction and „Direct Material Input“ (DMI, equal to domestic extraction plus imports)
will figure most prominently. Still another input-related indicator is „Domestic Material
Consumption“, DMC, which subtracts exports from DMI and so represents the
amount of materials consumed by the system internally.
5
Usually, these rucksacks comprise the non-water-non-air wastes and emissions that occurred during the
production process of an imported good in the country of origin, and particularly large material flows that occur as
side effects of domestic extraction (such as overburden in mining or eroded soil in agriculture). The sum of Direct
Material Input and hidden flows has been termed „Total Material Requirement“ (TMR). Be aware it is not „total“ in
the sense of including water and air! So far, there exists no term to signify the „grand total“ of all material flows
including water and air crossing a system’s boundary. Among others, this terminological problem must still be
resolved. When summing up or averaging TMR across countries, one must be aware that this involves double
counting (namely, the hidden flows of imports).
Page 38
On the other hand, indicators may be chosen so as to refer not to the input but to the
output (or rather, outflow) side, examples of the latter being DPO (Domestic
Processed Output) and TDO (Total Domestic Output). If a socio-economic system
(i.e., a national economy) has an even trade balance with imports equaling exports in
terms of weight, and if it does not increase or decrease its stocks, then input should
equal output over a certain time period. Practically, this is not the case for
contemporary affluent industrial countries. So at the time being, DPO is much smaller
than DMI, and resources (i.e., future wastes) are being accumulated within the socio-
economic system (e. g., Matthews et al. 2000).
However, regardless of whether the input of resources or the output of wastes and
emissions is at issue, we must ask whether the total weight of materials processed
by a socioeconomic system is a viable indicator for „environmental impact“ at all. All
of the indicators mentioned are created by summing up the weights of many different
materials. A few very large flows, such as those of construction minerals and fossil
energy carriers on the input side or carbon dioxide on the outflow side, dominate
these indicators, while smaller flows considered much more hazardous by
environmental chemists are hardly evident. „Big flows are not automatically bad, and
small flows are not automatically better“ (Matthews et al. 2000, 2). Despite this
consideration, one can say that all resource use involves environmental impact of
some kind at every stage of the material cycle, from extraction or harvesting to final
disposal. This means that unless technologies change, increases in resource input
imply increases in environmental impacts. One should also consider that expert
opinions since the beginning of the environmental debate have undergone quite
extreme variations in answering the question of exactly which substances or
processes should be seen as particularly environmentally harmful, while studies of
the sum total of processed materials consistently tell their story in a reliable and
uncontested way, even if it is only part of the whole story. A measure of processed
materials represents a reasonable „headline indicator“ (Jesinghaus & Montgomery
1999) for the overall scale (Daly 1987) of anthropogenic systems vis a vis the natural
environment, on the same level of generality as overall energy consumption or
population numbers.
2.1.2 Methodological Approaches used to Provide MFA’s for PAC

In task 2 of the Amazonia21 project we planned for two approaches of material flow
accounting, based on the same conceptual framework, but working with different
data collection technologies, namely Local Material Flow Accounting (LMFA) and
National Material Flow Accounting (NMFA). Originally, it was planned to assess the
applicability of material flow accounting within all four PACs participating (Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela), encompassing three national MFA’s, one regional
MFA and one experimental local MFA. In the course of the experiences made, this
original plan was modified. One major modification was to abandon the idea of
„regional MFA’s“: As became clear, the data availability on sub-national levels was
not sufficient. More countries were willing to engage in local MFA-studies, instead.
Finally, the following case studies were agreed upon and carried through (see table
5):
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Table 5: MFA Case studies: overview

Country Region Type Time period Authors Institution
Bolivia NMFA 1995 – 1999 A. Pierront CIMAR
ASPACH/El LMFA I. Lizarazú CIMAR
Chore
Brazil NMFA 1975 – 1995 J. Machado NAEA
Caixuanã LMFA K. Ninni, A. Mathis NAEA
Colombia Puerto Nariño LMFA G. Ochoa, A. IMANI
Wood
Venezuela NMFA 1988 – 1997 H. Castellano CENAMB
The basic idea of complementing MFA on a national level with local MFA data, which
is not common when doing MFA for industrial countries, was the consideration that
national accounting, in developing countries, does not give a full picture of the
economy. People may earn a substancial fraction of their livelihood outside of
(monetary) market economy. This fraction could be well represented with local MFA
data, as can be seen from the case studies presented in chapter 2.3.
It would require an elaborate data processing and modeling beyond the scope of this
project, though, to quantitatively integrate the estimates from the local case studies
on subsistence economy into the biophysical picture (MFA picture) generated from
data reflecting the monetary economy as in national accounts.
2.2 Applying National Material Flow Analysis in PAC6

2.2.1 Core questions and the research process
There were two types of questions that task 2 in Amazonia21 was supposed to
answer. The first type of questions referred to procedural and technical aspects of
MFA. Was material flow analysis, a tool that had proven so influential in re-orienting
the discussion on environmental impacts and sustainability, applicable to countries in
Amazonia? Relevant aspects for answering this question are: Is there a sufficient
data base (usually derived from economic statistics) to generate material flow data
with a reasonable amount of effort, and with a reasonable degree of reliability? Is it
possible to establish sufficiently qualified and motivated research teams in PACs to
undertake this task? Will they find sufficient institutional support? And finally: is it
possible to bridge the cultural, institutional and language differences between
European and Pac scientists, and can Pac scientists be convinced of and
empowered to apply, and in some respects re-invent, the MFA paradigm as
originating from European sustainability science? Chapter 2.2 seeks to give answers
to some of these questions.
The second type of questions refers to substantive aspects: Does, in quest for
sustainability, MFA provide perspectives, and approaches to problem-solving,
relevant for PACs? Does it help to structure insights into the combination of
economic, social and environmental challenges these countries try to meet? Can it
6
This chapter was written by Christof Amann of IFF – Social Ecology
Page 40
help to orient standards of sustainability, to assess environmental policy measures?

Is it an adequate framework for making the specific complex situation of developing
countries, in a particular environmental situation, better to be understood? In this
report, we will tackle some of these questions, at best. If this project indeed was able
to trigger the processes it should, we will see Latin America to become home to a
rich tradition of MFA outside of Europe – but this will take some time.
At the start, we were quite unsure how the co-operation of scientists from Europe and
from PACs would work. Would there be sufficient research capacity and would
available data fulfil the methodological requirements for MFA, as developed for
industrial economies? Would the approach itself be convincing enough to motivate
researchers from PACs to invest enough time and energy to generate reliable data?
And, despite common knowledge of the literature, would cultural differences and
differences in scientific working conditions hamper communication between
researchers from Europe and partners in PACs? The whole research process was
designed so as not to have researchers from Europe investigate PACs, but to guide
researchers from those countries and enable them to make use of European
experiences and apply them to their own conditions. But how was this to be
achieved? As we found out during the process, the original design did not suffice.
Differences in language, qualification, formal standing and research experience
among our PAC partners required a more intensive and practical face-to-face-
interaction between all partners to our task than we originally had expected. Thanks
to the correct diagnosis of the situation by the co-ordinator of the PAC teams, who
was willing and energetic enough to change pre-fabricated plans according to needs,
and thanks to the flexibility on the part of the overall co-ordinator and the other
European partners to follow his advice, several face-to-face interactions beyond the
originally planned workshops could be organised.
A major step forward was the improvised „train the trainer“ workshop in Austria in
June 1999 that helped to clarify conceptual and methodological problems.
Furthermore, it supported the generation of a base of mutual understanding and
personal trust.7 During this workshop, the scientists from Europe were thoroughly
challenged by their PAC counterparts to explain the purpose of MFA, the possible
interpretation of its results in terms of environmental and developmental
consequences, and give good reasons for each methodological convention. This was
key to establishing a good working relation.
Partners from PAC were asked to use the information they got at the „train the
trainer“ workshop to constitute an MFA team in their country and to work on MFA
data by their own, seeking support from European partners via e-mail whenever
needed. While in the consecutive months, e-mail was frequently used for sending
data sheets and reports, comments on preliminary data sheets, on calculations, or on
draft reports, we made the experience that it was not a sufficient substitute for direct
personal communication, particularly in the case of institutional, collaboration or
motivation problems. Reactions on sent e-mails were not always clear, responses
came very late sometimes and it was not clear if comments had been helpful for our
7
Beyond that, it stimulated the production of a methodology guide to assist in following the same procedures
across all case studies (see: http://www.univie.ac.at/iffsocec/amazonia21/)
Page 41
partners in PAC. This gave rise to some unexpected delays, with the European
partners starting to feel a little worried and helpless about how to further promote the
process.
This situation was resolved by another spontaneous decision, supported by the

coordinators and the PAC partners. It was decided that Christof Amann (IFF-Social
Ecology) would pay an extended visit to each PAC team that had until then
progressed to produce a preliminary NMFA report. This resulted in a most fruitful and
productive part of the cooperation in March 2001, when he worked together side by
side with Hercílio Castellano in Caracas/Venezuela and with José Alberto Machado
in Manaus/Brazil. At that time preliminary NMFA data already existed, but it in the
case of Venezuela there was a lack of clarity on the way how they had been
collected, what sources had been used and how indicators had been calculated. In
the case of Brazil, data seemed perfectly complete but system boundaries underlying
the aggregations differed from international conventions. At the time that decision
was made, no data from Bolivia had been delivered yet, so the Bolivian case could
not be made part of this procedure. The collaborative effort resulted in NMFA data
sets for Brazil (covering two decades) and Venezuela (covering one decade), the first
data on developing countries worldwide that should perfectly meet international
standards, and it confirmed a solid base for scientific co-operation in the future.
Using these data, M. Fischer-Kowalski and Ch. Amann did a preliminary analysis,
comparing them with data from other countries, and made an attempt to understand
the specific metabolic features of Brazil and Venezuela.8 The results of this analysis
were then, again in a spontaneous modification of procedures, thoroughly discussed
and modified during a week of direct cooperation between M. Fischer-Kowalski as
coordinator of task 2, Norbert Fenzl (as PAC-coordinator) and José Machado in
Manaus, and finally presented by the three authors to the international IHDP Open
Science Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in October 2001.
2.2.3 Results: Metabolic profiles of PACs

NMFA Brazil
Originally, data for Brazil were collected by José Alberto Machado for his PhD thesis
(Machado 1999), containing extensive documents on all data used and every step of
data transformation. This data set had to be adapted (Machado had used different
system boundaries) to international standard conventions. Now NMFA data for Brazil
can be classified as being international state of the art of material flow accounting.
The latest revision was done using the EUROSTAT guide and therefore indicators as
well as system boundaries and conventions comply to that source. The work of José
Alberto Machado can be seen as an exemplary model of organizing data and – what
is even more important – of a complete documentation of sources, contents of data
etc. It is impressive how an individual scientist can achieve so much despite lacking
necessary literature on material flow accounting in Brazil and the lack of a
methodological guide that could be used. This is even more impressive as MFA had
been developed for and used in industrial countries only, and in Latin America there
8
see Fischer-Kowalski and Amann 2001
Page 42
had existed hardly any scientific capacity to build upon. The Amazonia21 project
demonstrated perfectly the benefits of international scientific co-operation for
supporting existing scientific capacity in developing countries. Further discussion and
research is still needed for non-market economy materials, data for grazing and for
hidden flows which were calculated only for a few material categories only, due to
missing factors.
NMFA Venezuela
Data worked out in Caracas in March 2001 can be classified as comparable to
EUROSTAT guide data (concerning DMI and DMC), except for natural gas which
includes re-injection.9 For comparison of data in this report we excluded the amounts
re-injected, and arrive at numbers of net production (marketed production), as
international statistics normally report on. Generally, data have a very high level of
completeness. Non-market economy was partly estimated using factors from expert
opinion. Domestic hidden flows were partly calculated in Caracas in March 2001,
import and export hidden flows were then provided by Hercílio Castellano but not
having been checked by us.
NMFA Bolivia
The Bolivian project team provided a NMFA in time series from 1995 to 1999
(preliminary data for 1999), encompassing DMI, DMC, Population, and GNP. There
is also a case study report available that documents used sources and calculations.
Data are organized in a way that fits more or less to international conventions and
the underlying system boundaries of the Bolivian MFA can be considered as more or
less correct with the major exception of water and air uptake that should not be part
of the derived indicators. Although the latest version of data show a remarkable
increase in the quality of data and tables, the Bolivian data can not be used for
comparison yet. DMI seems to be far too low due to missing data on minerals and
due to data of several materials where we have reason to question their quality.
Hidden flows were not calculated at all. Problems mentioned by the project team
were the lack of specific data and the conversion of units (coefficients).
NMFA Indicators
Table 6: NMFA indicators provided in the case studies
Indicators Bolivia Brazil Venezuela
Domestic extraction DE preliminary available available
Direct material input DMI preliminary available available
Imports preliminary available available
Exports preliminary available available
Domestic material consumption DMC preliminary available available
Hidden flows of DE not available partly available available
Hidden flows of Imports not available not available available/not checked
Hidden flows of Exports not available not available available/not checked
Total material requirement TMR not available not available available/not checked
The following table gives an overview on the data. As mentioned above, data for
Bolivia still have to be considered as preliminary. They will not be used for
international comparison.
9
The data presented in the case study report, therefore, reflect the gross production of natural gas.
Page 43
Table 7: Data comparison 1995

Brazil Venezuela Bolivia* Unit
Domestic Extraction 2,383,073 304,886 49,631 1,000 metric tons
Imports 93,794 19,550 999 1,000 metric tons
Exports 207,628 155,055 4,403 1,000 metric tons
Direct Material Input 2,476,867 324,436 50,630 1,000 metric tons
Domestic Consumption 2,269,240 169,381 46,227 1,000 metric tons
Population 163,113 21,844 8,137 1,000

GDP (PPP)** 874,583 176,936 19,870 1,000.000 US$
GDP (PPP) per capita 5,500 8,100 2,680 US$
DMI per capita 15.2 14.9 6.2 metric tons
DMC per capita 13.9 7.8 5.7 metric tons
MI (DMI per unit GDP) 2.83 1.83 2.55 metric tons per 1,000 US$
MI (DMC per unit GDP) 2.59 0.96 2.33 metric tons per 1,000 US$
* Data do not meet international standards required for comparison
** Data for GDP are different from those in the case studies where local currency units were used
The following results refer to the data from Venezuela and Brazil only, both
complying to the international state of the art. Data from Bolivia have to be
considered preliminary with the need of further clarification and re-calculations and
therefore are not used for the conclusions.
2.2.4 The Metabolic Profile of Brazil and Venezuela, compared

internationally
For the first time there is the chance to compare MFA data from developing countries
with data from industrial countries.10 The most interesting questions here are to find
out if and where there are similarities in material flows and where there are
differences. We do this using macro indicators like Direct Material Input (DMI) or
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). An analysis of the data on the level of single
material flows lies beyond the scope of this project but would nevertheless be an
interesting field for further research. In a second step of data analysis we can ask for
the reasons behind these similarities and differences and if there are
interconnections between material flows in industrial and developing countries.11
It comes as quite a surprise that material input (DMI) per capita in Brazil and
Venezuela is much the same as it is in industrial countries (Figure 3). Since in Figure
1 we had been able to demonstrate that (historical) agrarian societies displayed a
significantly lower material input than contemporary industrial societies, one would
expect societies in transition from an agrarian to an industrial mode to lie somewhere
in-between. This seems not to be the case for Brazil and Venezuela. If we subtract
10
There are still some uncertainties that hamper full comparison. As some data for industrial countries were
calculated before the EUROSTAT guide was published, they do partly not meet these standards. For developing
countries, data for the subsistence economy had to be estimated rather roughly due to a lack of proper data
sources. However, we would expect the overall picture as reasonably correct.
11
The following analysis is discussed more extensively in: Fischer-Kowalski and Amann 2001.
Page 44
exports from DMI we get Direct Material Consumption (DMC). DMC in Brazil is quite
the same as it is in industrial countries, but it is much lower in Venezuela. Therefore,
DMC seems to have little power to reflect the particular situation of these two
developing countries: one experiencing rapid change, the other having begun to
export oil, and both being in the same situation of poverty for the mass of their
inhabitants.
Figure 3: Direct Material Input (DMI) and Domestic Material Consumption (DMC)
of industrial countries, Brazil and Venezuela (1995)
35
DMI per capita
DMC per captia
30
25
[metric tons per capita]
20
15
10
0
Japan
Austria
Germany
Venezuela
United Kingdom
Brazil
The Netherlands
Sources: Adriaanse et al. 1997, Matthews et al. 2000, Schandl and Schulz 2001, Authors of Matthews et al. 2000
(pers. comm.), Amazonia21 (case studies)
And what about material intensity (MI = DMI/GDP)? Compared to industrial countries,
GDP per capita calculated with purchasing power parities (PPP) in Brazil and
Venezuela is very low (Figure 4). Both cases display a material intensity quite above
that of the industrial core (Figure 5). Both Brazil and Venezuela have a large primary
(and secondary) sector, producing raw materials and first stage products (such as pig
iron)12, selling them on the world market at a comparatively low price. Therefore, their
material intensity is high. At the same time, their populations have a comparatively
low standard of material comfort and therefore require a low material input serving
domestic consumption (at a low price).
12
see Fenzl & Machado 2000
Page 45
Figure 4: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of industrial countries, compared to

Brazil and Venezuela (1995)
25
GDP per capita
20
[1,000 Int$ (PPP) per capita]
15
10
0
Austria
Germany
Japan
Venezuela
Brazil
United Kingdom
The Netherlands
Sources: World Resources Institute 1999 (data from World Bank)
Figure 5: Material Intensity (DMI per unit GDP, DMC per unit GDP) of industrial
countries, compared to Brazil and Venezuela (1995)
3.000
DMI per unit GDP
DMC per unit GDP
2.500
[metric tons per 1.000 Int$ (PPP)]
2.000
1.500
1.000
500
0
Austria
Japan
Venezuela
Brazil
United Kingdom
Germany
The Netherlands
(pers. comm.), Amazonia21 (case studies), World Resources Institute 1999
If we now look at the time series of GDP, DMI, and MI (figure 6), we can see that
Brazil and Venezuela present a picture completely different from that in industrial
countries. DMI grows more quickly than GDP, and material intensity is even rising –
quite in contrast to the industrial core, where we have found GDP to be the fastest
growing variable with a resultant decline in material intensity.
Page 46
Figure 6: Trends of Direct Material Input (DMI), Gross Domestic Production (GDP),
and Material Intensity (MI) in industrial countries, Brazil and Venezuela (index, base
year = 100).
Brazil Austria The Netherlands

200 200
200
150 150
150
100 100
100
50 50 50
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
Venezuela Japan United Kingdom

200 200 200
150 150 150
100 100 100
50 50 50
1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
GDP DMI MI (DMI/GDP)

Sources: Adriaanse et al. 1997, Matthews et al. 2000, Schandl and Schulz 2001, Authors of Matthews et al. 2000 (pers.
comm.), Amazonia21 (case studies), OECD
We suppose that one of the reasons for this „relative“ de-linking of resource use and
economic performance in industrial countries, while material intensity in developing
countries seems to rise, is a result of the international division of labor. The most
materially intensive processes of raw material extraction and industrial production are
“externalized” to developing countries. These countries bear the main burden of the
exploitation of their natural resources, as well as the burden of increasing domestic
wastes and emissions for commodities largely consumed in industrial countries. At
the same time, of course, the less affluent countries do gain in terms of income and
domestic material consumption – but, it may be suspected, at a much lower rate.
Unfortunately, there is too little data to test this hypothesis systematically. We can
gain some indications from a comparison of the material dimension of imports and
exports of industrial countries with data on Brazil and Venezuela. If we look at the
development of imports and exports in affluent industrial countries during the last two
decades, we see them rise in proportion to the material input (DMI), as is to be
expected from ordinary economic statistics. In terms of weight, all affluent industrial
countries documented in the statistics import at least twice as much as they export
(much of these imports being raw materials), and those exports rose steadily relative
to the materials that were extracted domestically (Figure 6). Quite an opposite picture
arises from the data on Brazil and Venezuela displayed in Figure 7. In these
countries, exports exceed imports by a factor of 2 – 4 in terms of weight, and they are
also growing steadily. Imports, on the other hand, are stagnating or even temporarily
Page 47
declining. So, as far as can be suspected on the basis of this very limited database,
developing countries seem to be have been increasingly playing the role of suppliers
of materially intensive processes and products for affluent countries throughout the
last two decades. Such a scenario must automatically result in the reduction of
domestic material intensity of industrial countries, since imported commodities
contribute to Direct Material Input (DMI) by their weight at crossing the borders,
leaving behind in developing countries all the material loads involved in producing
them.
Figure 7: Trends of Imports and Exports (share of DMI) in industrial countries,

compared to Brazil and Venezuela.
Brazil Austria Japan
60 60 60
50 50 50
40 40 40
30 30 30
20 20 20
10 10 10
0 0 0
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
Venezuela The Netherlands United Kingdom

60 60 60
50 50 50
40 40 40
30 30 30
20 20 20
10 10 10
0 0 0
1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
Exports Imports
(pers. comm.), Amazonia21 (case studies)
This is also documented by the Physical Trade Balance (PTB, Figure 7),
representing the difference of imports and exports of a country in physical terms.
Both Brazil and Venezuela export more materials than they import, while the opposite
is true for industrial countries.
Looking at the material intensity of imports and exports we find another reference for
our hypothesis. Material intensity of imports is high compared to material intensity of
exports in industrial countries. On the other side, in Brazil and Venezuela, the
material intensity of exports is very high (Figure 8). That means, not surprisingly, that
industrial countries buy heavy weight and cheap raw materials and other goods at an
early stage of manufacturing, while developing countries export these products at a
low price while they have to deal with the environmental impacts associated with their
extraction and primary production.
Page 48
Figure 8: Physical Trade Balance (PTB = imports - exports) of industrial

countries, Brazil and Venezuela (1995)
8
PTB (Imports - Exports) per capita
4
[metric tons per capita]
0
Austria
Venezuela
The Netherlands
Japan
Brazil
United Kingdom
-2
-4
-6
-8
Sources: Matthews et al. 2000, Schandl and Schulz 2001, Authors of Matthews et al. 2000 (pers. comm.),
Amazonia21 (case studies)
Figure 9: Material Intensity of imports and exports in industrial countries, Brazil

and Venezuela (1995)
4
Material Intensity of Imports
Material Intensity of Exports
[metric tons per 1,000 Int$ (PPP)]
0
Austria Japan The United Brazil Venezuela
Netherlands Kingdom
Sources: Matthews et al. 2000, Schandl and Schulz 2001, Authors of Matthews et al. 2000 (pers. comm.),
Amazonia21 (case studies), World Bank
Page 49
2.3 Applying Local Material Flow Analysis in three Amazonian

Communities13
2.3.1 Overview
During implementation of Amazonia21, especially during the project workshops in

July 1999 (Minihof-Liebau) and January 2000 (Letícia), it was agreed to carry out
Local Material Flow Analysis (LMFA) studies in 3 of the 4 countries surveyed by the
project. According to specific interests and foci, locations and characteristics of the
groups under consideration varied. CIMAR of Bolivia selected a district of pioneer
settlements (Santa Rosa) in the forests of Bolivian Amazonia; NAEA of Brazil
selected 3 communities located in a national park on Marajo island in the Amazon
delta; and IMANI of Colombia focused on the municipality of Puerto Nariño located
by one of the tributaries to the Amazon.
The LMFA concept and methodology was presented at the »Train the Trainers«
workshop in Minihof-Liebau. It was then agreed that the researchers would locate the
researched society and gather preliminary information up until the workshop in
Letícia. After further discussion there, the locations were finalized and the data-
gathering phase stretched over most of 2000, with an additional opportunity for
discussions (mainly with Simron J. Singh of IFF) at the September 2000 workshop in
Vienna. During the entire study phase, there was the possibility of contacting IFF
advisors via e-mail; the partners, however, made only intermittent use of this
channel. The current report is based on these discussions and on material received
during June/July 2001 in preparation for the final project report. An additional source
of material included here is the presentation by Armin Mathis on »Socio-Ecological
Transition in the Amazon: a case study in the communities of Pedreira, Caxiuanã e
Laranjal« at the 4S/ISSR Conference »World in Transition« held in Vienna, Austria
(Sept. 2000). The paper was presented during a session entitled »Society and
Nature in Transition. Cultural and physical dimensions of societal change«, which
was organised by IFF and brought together the case study in Amazonia with another
case study in India, together with a conceptual presentation prepared by IFF.
Researchers in three countries collected data, the amount and type of which exceeds
the necessity of performing a LMFA. Apart from relevant material flows, which all
studies illustrate, researchers investigated land use information, cultural descriptions,
socio-economic data, and environmental issues. However, none of this was done in a
standardized way, so that the information amassed might be interesting in itself but
does not allow for in-depth comparison.
2.3.2 Results
This section attempts to give a generic overview of the data available in the reports of
partner institutions engaged in LMFA studies. In addition, remarks on the data quality
are made and missing components identified. The next section then takes up certain
13
This chapter was written by Clemens M. Grünbühel of IFF – Social Ecology
Page 50
parts of the data and compares them as far as possible. General conclusions are
drawn for these comparisons and themes for further research suggested.
Rather than calculating full LMFA balances for the respective communities observed,
the studies mostly focused on important input and stocks categories. This is partly
due to availability of data but also due to importance, since input data gives a first
idea on the material consumption of a society and portrays the status and level of
economic integration with national or world markets. All three studies present data on
food consumption; there are reliable figures for agricultural production; fossil fuels
consumed in the households have been accounted for; and there is fair data for the
amount of biomass extracted from the domestic environment. In accounting for
material stocks in the societies considered, the studies give much detail on materials
used in the homes of the inhabitants, and imported consumer goods are listed, at
least by the item if not in terms of weight. As for output flows, some data is given on
the discharge of solid waste and most important export flows, particularly biomass
exports originating from agricultural production and domestic extraction (fish and
timber).
Shortcomings, in order to arrive at a LMFA balance, can be identified on the input

side in the lack of import data on finished products (material compounds); likewise,
feed for livestock has not been estimated realistically; and – depending on where the
economic gravity of the studied economy was located – either agricultural production
or domestic extraction from hunting and gathering seem underrepresented.
Regarding stocks, despite accounting for private buildings, communal material stocks
were omitted14 and livestock and human weight not included15. Outputs were partly
accounted for as exported material as well as waste (to land), however emissions to
air16 and to water have not been considered (and thus, no balancing is possible).
Also, deliberate disposals (dissipative losses, which are rather important in, e.g.,
farming communities) have not been regarded17.
Although kept separately in MFA balances, water consumption can be an important

indicator on the economic structure of the society. All studies attempted to measure
household consumption of water, however, water expenditure in agriculture
(irrigation) is not given. A full accounting of water use would, however, be interesting,
especially in comparison between the three cases, being geographically and
culturally diverse.
Overall, although they do not present full LMFAs, the studies nevertheless can be
considered as relevant case studies on biophysical and economic developments in
the globally important region of Amazonia. With relatively little additional effort, the
studies could be organised and presented in such a way that they are suitable for
international publication and international comparison with other studies past or on-
going in the MFA community.
14
Although the Colombian study accounts for concrete pathways.
15
Population sizes, however, are given.
16
It would have been interesting to determine CO2 outputs.
17
The Brazilian study is an exception here.
Page 51
LMFA Bolivia
The researchers of CIMAR carried out a study in the Municipality of Santa Rosa de
Sara and with the co-operation of the Association of Small-scale Farmers in El
Chore. 8 farming families from 4 communities in El Chore canton were selected and
data generation took place among these. For the study, these 8 families (58 persons)
were treated as one community. According to the author of the study (Irma Lizarazú
Palacios of CIMAR) this is possible, because the settlers in the area are socially and
culturally homogenous, most persons being occupied in subsistence agriculture. The
area has been described as being under cultivation since relatively recent times (mid
1960s). The pioneer settlers originally arrived from the Bolivian highlands and now
practice short-fallow shifting cultivation, together with some livestock herding and
maintenance of permanent orchards. The society is mostly self-subsistent, only very
little surplus is produced and exported.
The study comprises many interesting material and economic aspects of the ‘society’
(i.e., the 8 families investigated). It provides detailed information on agricultural and
livestock production and gives an idea on the characteristics of local consumption
and interactions with external markets (see CIMARs LMFA report for Amazonia21).
In order to achieve a full MFA balance, several sets of data need completion or
rearrangement. On the input side, while agricultural production (harvest) shows
complete data, imports have not been completely covered and food intake by
humans shows figures in kcal, but not in kg oxygen for respiration and used in
combustion processes should also be taken into the account.
The societies stocks have largely been covered by calculating for materials contained
in buildings and structures. However, tools and machines, which are given as
account of items, could be converted into mass units and added to the account of
stocks. In addition, total weight of humans and livestock form part of the stocks.
For outputs, we find data on exports and scattered information on several forms of
waste. Waste and emissions are left out of the output account as categories. Also,
there must be a clear distinction of what is considered as waste and what is unused
extraction (‘loss’). Waste is usually defined as material that has been processed and
consumed by the society, while unused extraction never enters a processing cycle,
and thus does not form part of the MFA balance. Losses of material during
processing should be considered as waste, and therefore as outputs.
Some data sets cannot be understood if the applied method is not explicated. There
is little indication of the methods used and the uncertainties corresponding to these
methods.
Units and conversion factors are often omitted, but nevertheless necessary in order
to make clear the figures represented in the different tables.
The researchers gathered initial data for establishing an Energy Flow Analysis (EFA).
It is possible to account for energy flows, yet this should be planned in a separate
effort. Necessities for accounting energy flows include converting all energy-laden
Page 52
materials into calorific values, defining the use and agent of energy conversion for all
flows, and considering exports of energy to other societies. A full MFA account
definitely serves as the required basis for such conversions.
Land use and time use data is also presented. Although not part of Task 2, this data
is definitely related to the issues dealt with in the project and serve as important
additional information. Using the material presented, an account for HANPP (Human
Appropriation of Net Primary Production) and further time use analysis could be
achieved if so desired.
LMFA Columbia
Very intensive data research has been carried out under the framework of
Amazonia21 in Puerto Nariño. German Ochoa carried out the research under the
supervision of Allan Wood of IMANI. Apart from a good wealth of MFA data, there
should be enough data to carry out an Energy Flow Analysis and Land Use analysis
of the municipality. Additionally, the analyses of the fishing and timber extraction
sectors in the municipality give a great wealth of background information on the
economic characteristics of the locale (see reports for task 3 of Amazonia21).
Furtherly, if the data is assembled in a structured way, it can easily be related to
current socio-economic transition and cultural change on-going in the area. Also an
interesting attempt to record time-use data has been made, which, if provided with
the methodological framework could give interesting insights on the labor
characteristics of the studies society (e.g. subsistence vs. paid labour; efficiency of
various work tasks and economic efforts, etc.).
Extraction and import of biomass used for human and livestock food consumption
seems to be complete. This data could be counter-checked with agricultural harvest
and fish extraction data. Using the food consumption tables it would be possible to
estimate the biomass extraction relating to hunting and gathering activities in Puerto
Nariño.
There is good data on the extraction of fish and timber (domestic extraction of
biomass). As said in the above paragraph, this could be compared to food
consumption but also with energy consumption related to cooking, which should
equal the amount consumed if subtracted by export figures.
Domestic extraction originating in agriculture seems complete. However, biomass

extraction due to hunting and gathering activities are lacking18. Also, data on
livestock grazing/scavenging/foraging would also be desirable (but can be retrieved
from existing scientific literature).
Except for material used in building construction and agricultural harvest, where all
materials are accounted for in detail, there is no indication of any other extraction of
biomass (e.g., wood for fencing, for tools) or minerals (stones, sand) from the
domestic environment.
18
With the exception of fish extraction.
Page 53
Household consumption data for fossil fuels is complete. What is missing, is

consumption of fossil fuels outside private homes, e.g. for generators, vehicles, etc.
Most long-lived products (i.e. material compounds) in the households are listed,
albeit not mentioning average weights of different products. For the sample
households, there are no estimations on total weight of furniture, household utensils,
and clothes (to be added to stocks). Also, consumable goods (classified as imports,
not as stocks), such as soap, matches, industrially processed food, etc. have not
been accounted for.
Household water has been accounted for. Irrigation water for fields and gardens,
equally constitute a large flow in traditional societies and therefore should also be
assessed.
Although figures for timber exports out of the municipality cannot be found in the
timber study, these export figures are certainly available and should be included in
the account. Also, products leaving Puerto Nariño as exports (e.g. handicrafts)
should be listed.
In order to assess the growth rate of stocks, material inputs that are not immediately
consumed but rather remain in the society (in order to arrive at the NAS indicator)
must be included. Otherwise, the account of society’s stocks seems complete.
LMFA Brazil
The study performed on the island of Marajó surveys the 3 communities Pedreira,
Caxiuanã, and Laranjal. These are relatively recent in origin and are indigenous
communities lying within the limits of a nature conservation area and a nearby
scientific research station. The communities were studied in-depth and over a long
time period by a researcher (Karina Ninni Ramos, with supervision by Armin Mathis
of NAEA), so we conclude that the data is very reliable. The material flow balance is
almost complete with only a few clarifications and minor data additions to be made.
Apart from material flows, there are attempts to assess the status of the monetary
economy and population structure of the three communities.
While the study presents a complete account of materials flowing into the society,
accounting of society’s material stocks and export flows is incomplete. Stock
accounting is lacking, although the values could be easily obtained, since there is
data on housing and building construction as well as possession of durable goods in
the individual households. Equally, net addition to stocks (NAS) should be possible to
account for. As for outputs, until now, there are no figures, although – in light of the
ample knowledge about the communities investigated – exports could easily be
determined (minerals from the stone quarry, agricultural products, and other products
(handicrafts, etc.) exported from the communities). Also, CO2 outputs are obtainable
knowing the population sizes of livestock and humans, as well as the amount of fossil
fuels being combusted.
There has been an attempt by the Brazilian authors to include an account of

»hidden« flows into the LMFA, i.e. an estimate of materials moved by the society,
Page 54
albeit never actually entering the society’s economy, i.e. never given any value.
Especially when confronted with large overburden mass, as found in mining of
minerals, such an attempt is understandable. However, there are several points to
consider here. Firstly, the account of »hidden« materials has to be kept separate
from the LMFA balance, since balancing is not possible with flows that neither
»enter« nor »leave« a social boundary (i.e. the economic system of the society).
Secondly, the material moved is not really extracted from the domestic environment,
since it is merely re-located and remains un-processed. Thirdly, among some more
reasons19, problems of a clear-cut accounting arises, both regarding the methodology
used for determining amounts of »hidden« flows, as well as with the conceptual logic,
since these flows do not enter the socio-economic system and leave it after
processing.
2.3.3 Comparisons
The following comparisons of selected results provide an outline for possible
conclusions to be drawn from the Local Material Flow Analyses (LMFAs) conducted
under task 2 in the Amazonia21 research project on strategies for sustainable
development in the Amazon basin. To be sure, the ideas presented must be seen as
preliminary, since data is not yet fully conclusive, the analysis for each case is
sketchy, and the methods of data acquisition not always comparable. However, some
tendencies can be observed and certain lessons drawn amidst the heterogeneity of
data. The following paragraphs single out certain aspects of material flows and
resource use in the respective cases and try to compare them. I do not attempt to
compare full LMFA balances, since these have not yet been completed in any of the
cases. Interspersed are some observations that provide some additional information
about the sites and their populations, which I relay from reading the reports and
being in contact (in person or through electronic communication) with the researchers
or their supervisors involved in the three LMFAs of Amazonia21.
One measure to assess the degree of subsistence of a particular society is to look at

the origin of its nutrition. Usually, a society is defined self-subsistent when the major
part of its food origins from its own production, i.e. from its fields, forests, waters and
other natural resources, which can be termed as elements of the domestic
environment. Admittedly, this definition is kept vague and qualitative rather than
establishing a fixed threshold because site variation, specific redistribution
arrangements or economic specialization can make it necessary to closer examine
the community. In the present case studies, however, we believe that the above
definition of self-subsistence suffices, as we shall see below.
Agricultural production and food consumption are, hence, a particularly important

issue in this regard. With the data at hand we are able to see, whether or not a
community is able to provide for its nutritional requirements and whether, how much,
and what kinds of foods need to be imported, through commerce or otherwise, in
19
There is a long-standing debate on how to treat »hidden« flows (»unused extraction«) within the MFA
community. For national-level studies this has now resulted in a standard as reflected in the recent EUROSTAT
guide (‘Economy-wide Material Flow Accounts and derived Indicators – A Methodological Guide’, Office for
Official Publication of the European Communities, Luxembourg, March 2001). For local MFAs this is an issue yet
to be resolved.
Page 55
order to satisfy at least its basic metabolic needs. Many sustainability issues already
appear on this level of analysis, since self-sufficiency depends on a variety of factors
ranging from population size, economic options, natural resource availability, and
culture.
The first of the 3 case studies concerns 4 communities in the district of El Chore,
Municipality of Santa Rosa, Bolivia. The 4 settlements located in Bolivia’s share of
the Amazon basin are the product of pioneer settlement of farmers descending from
the highlands. Beginning in the late 1960s there appear to have been several
migration waves and corresponding influx of people. They mainly practice swidden
farming together with some livestock breeding. Their main agricultural products are
rice, maize and yucca and meat of sheep, cattle and pigs.
Having been established only recently, it would not come as a surprise if the
settlements did not show full adaptation to the local ecosystem and did not self-
consciously rely on traditional forms of subsistence agriculture. In fact, it seems as
though the communities are struggling to make ends meet and to produce enough for
their livelihood. Certainly not ideal conditions for formerly highland dwellers, the
tropical fauna and flora seems to hamper the economic aspirations of the settlers.
15% of the potential agricultural harvest is therefore lost in the production process.
Unfortunately, it is not known what the exact causes of these losses are but the loss
rate seems to be in agreement with many tropical swidden farming societies that
have been reverting to this practice only relatively recently20. Non-traditional
swiddening, especially if coupled with a high population density and, therefore, land
area constraints, are prone to weed and pest problems (Kellman and Tackaberry
1997).
In observing the purpose of crops planted in the area, results show that 72% of the
agricultural production is sold on the markets in the municipality. Although the type of
crops produced do not necessarily indicate cash crop agriculture, this figure suggests
a high level of integration into the wider economy of rural Amazonian Bolivia. Only
13% of the agricultural production is self-consumed. When looking at the ratio
between imported and self-produced food consumed in El Chore, 41% of food is
imported versus 59% domestically extracted. The latter includes not only agricultural
production, but also meat from livestock and wild catch, while imports refer to food
purchased on local markets21.
A similar case appears to be presented in Puerto Nariño, Columbia, an administrative

settlement with a considerable fishing and logging industry and inhabited primarily by
indigenous Ticuna. Here also, the community seems to be fairly well integrated into
20
In response to changing socio-ecological and economic conditions, many societies revert to swidden farming in
case of need for new land, at least for the initial period, and after several years revert back to permanent
agriculture. This occurs even with farmers with a long-lasting tradition of permanent farming and a high level of,
e.g., irrigation systems or agricultural technology. Reverting to swiddens often seems to be a coping mechanism
in extreme or crisis situations, a practice with which – though to the expense of high human labor input – food can
be brought to the table without additional inputs and infrastructure. (see Hanks 1972, Kellman and Tackaberry
1997)
21
The domestic consumption data do not include milk and eggs produced locally. Thus, this figure can be
expected to rise slightly though arguably not to the extent indicated in the CIMAR report.
Page 56
the mechanisms of the local markets (with the nearby administrative capital of Letícia
as a focus point). 52% of food consumed is produced by the community’s population,
whereas 48% of foods are purchased and thus imported to the community. The
average of food consumed per inhabitant, however, ranges from approx. 1kg to 3kg
per day, which is an indication of the range of economic integration among the
inhabitants of Puerto Nariño. It seems merely a portion of the community’s
inhabitants is economically well-integrated, while a significant part of the indigenous
people continue practicing traditional modes of production, such as small-scale
agriculture and hunting and gathering (incl. fishing). They have, however, the
opportunity to sell their surpluses, if available, to the local markets, which are
demand-driven by relatively isolated Letícia. When looking at the economically and
environmentally particularly sensitive sector of fish extraction, we find that more than
one fifth of the fish extracted from the waters surrounding Puerto Nariño is exported,
while the rest is self-consumed22.
An entirely different picture is presented by the Brazilian case. Located on the Island
of Marajó in the delta of the Amazon river, the three settlements studied are very
much isolated communities without a distinct administrative or economic designation.
The three communities, Pedreira, Caxiuanã and Laranjal, are located within an area
marked as a natural reserve and are thus relatively unattached to modern economic
systems. The local economy is characterized by hunting and gathering (mainly fish)
and small-scale agriculture (mainly manioc) for self-consumption. Only recently has
there been some handicraft production for trade with tourists and production of rocks
from a local quarry, which are sold to foreign merchants. 208,5 kg/cap.a of food are
produced for self-consumption compared to 72 kg/cap.a which are imported through
local merchants. Domestic extraction includes fish catch (107,3 kg/cap.a), manioc
(67,4) and produce from hunting and gathering activities on land (33,8). Compared
with the other cases, the three Brazilian communities’ diet consists of 74% domestic
production and 26% imported foodstuffs.
Table 8: Degree of subsistence and exported produce from agriculture and

hunting and gathering in three Amazonian communities.
Relation imported Percentage of Exported produce
food to self- produce destined
produced food for export
El Chore 1 : 1,4 72% agricultural products
Puerto Nariño 1 : 1,08 19% wild fish catch
Marajo 1 : 2,8 - not yet available
The degree of attachment to the modern economy is also visible when observing the
consumption of material resources for housing and infrastructure (society’s stocks).
Traditionally the most important building material in the entire Amazon basin has
been wood. This is still the case in the Brazilian communities studied, who dwell in
22
Fish exported: 22t/a, fish self-consumed: 94,5t/a; according to the authors of the Amazonia21 report „The
Fishing Sector in the Trapecio Amazonico and in Puerto Narino (Colombia)”, the export figures for fish are likely to
be higher since not all fish extracted from Puerto Narino’s waters bypasses the town before being sent to Leticia,
the areas commercial hub.
Page 57
traditional wooden establishments and use footpaths and waterways for

transportation. 4,06 tons or 0,0203 t/cap of wood is used to provide adequate
housing for its inhabitants. By comparison, the newly established communities in
Amazonian Bolivia cannot rely on such lightweight materials and use a total of 167
tons or 2,9 t/cap of building material resources. The materials include wood as well
as clay and the indigenous tacuara. Probably even more material, although there is
no data at hand, is consumed by the Colombian community of Puerto Nariño. For
buildings and pathways, they use cement, sand, gravel, brick, and wood. The cement
alone lists at 250 tons (0,148 t/cap).
Although we are not yet confronted with complete data, the analysis of consumed
energy carriers in the three case studies confirms what we have suspected after
looking at other crucial sectors of material consumption. The preliminary analysis of
energy consumed in the three sites unveils vast differences, both in kind of energy
carriers applied as well as total amount of energy consumed.
Table 9: Energy sources consumed in three Amazonian communities

[per capita figures] Gasoline Cooking Gas Firewood
El Chore 19,2 l/cap.a 2,9 kg/cap.a 31,5 kg/cap.a
Puerto Nariño 292,3 l/cap.a 3,8 kg/cap.a --
Marajo -- 0,1 kg/cap.a 3 kg/cap.a
While in El Chore a certain amount of gasoline is needed to transport agricultural

produce to the nearest markets and possibly in order to power selected agricultural
machinery, gasoline consumption rises highly in Puerto Nariño due to motorized boat
transport and generators supplying electricity for the entire town. Bottled gas, used
for preparing meals at home, seems to be widespread in the Amazon basin,
however, amounts consumed vary widely among the three sites. To a certain extent,
gas has replaced firewood for cooking in all locations. Unfortunately, we do not have
data for the Colombian case, but the Bolivian and Brazilian studies suggest that there
are different requirements for cooking energy. When observed in added amounts of
energy units, we are confronted with a Brazilian indigenous community (Marajó) that
consumes 25 times less energy for cooking and transportation than the young
pioneer settlers of El Chore, Bolivia and 197 times less energy than the much larger
administrative town of Puerto Nariño in Colombian Amazonia.
Table 10: Energy conversions of fuels used in three Amazonian communities

[MJ] Gasoline Cooking Gas Firewood Total Total/cap
El Chore 36998 8089 28288 73375 1265
Puerto 16326697 309267 -- 16635964 9873
Nariño
Marajo -- 674 9254 9928 50
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2.3.4 Conclusions
The three studies describe the material basis of – albeit culturally very different –
non-industrial communities in Amazonia. These are undergoing transition due to
outside influences and a willingness to link up to their outside worlds. All three
communities show different obstacles in their search for economic development.
While the inhabitants of Puerto Nariño unwillingly deplete their own natural resources
(e.g. fish stocks), the people of Santa Rosa must exert pressure on their land
resources. This seems due to the necessity of producing for the market and, at the
same time, relying on domestic resources to maintain subsistence. We are
confronted here with typical extractive economies, exporting natural resources out of
the society virtually unprocessed, while there is an increasing pressure, through both
economic and social channels, that forces consumers to obtain industrial products
from traders and merchants. In Marajó, we are confronted with a different set of
factors of transition. The structure of the national park and the scientific base, puts
the inhabitants of the three investigated communities under externally conceived
development schemes, which, on one hand, brings commodities like solar lighting,
but on the other hand, forces the people to abide by the rules laid out for the national
park. Here also, the impact of economic development leads to social transition and
there is no prospect of the inhabitants remaining »traditional«, whether they want it or
not.
As for balancing the Local Material Flow Analysis, we suggest to generate the
standard MFA indicators, which is roughly possible if above mentioned data gaps are
filled (see Results, above).
• Domestic Extraction (DE): Resources extracted from the Domestic Environment

• Domestic Material Input (DMI): DE + Imports
• Domestic Material Consumption (DMC): DE + Imports – Exports
• Total Society’s Stocks (TSS): Absolute amount of permanently stocked material
• Net Addition to Stocks (NAS): Increase of permanently stocked material per year
• Domestic Processed Output (DPO): Exports and waste
This will allow for standard comparisons among the three case studies and an
assessment as to where the society lies on the gradient of economic integration with
the national economy. We can then assess the material requirements for such
transitive communities in the Amazon region and correlate these with the results of
the national MFAs available. The results are definitely of a quality23 that deserves an
international publication comparing the studies and drawing conclusions for
Amazonia, however some effort should go into completing the balances. With the
additional material available on social and cultural characteristics (Puerto Nariño),
economics (Puerto Nariño, Marajo), and history (Santa Rosa), the LMFA data could
serve as an point of departure for further analysis with the prospect of developing
individual studies and publications.
23
Though not all three studies to the same degree.
Page 59
Several themes are worth expanding on and should be subject of further research. In
brief, I attempt to point out a few issues deriving from the comparative data
presented above:
- The degree of integration into the modern world economy varies enormously within
the Amazon basin. The specific location, the distance to commercial hubs, the
politico-administrative function of the settlement, and its respective economic and
political history seem to determine the degree of integration to a much wider extent
than the fact that the communities share the same wider ecotope.
- As could be expected, traditional communities can be termed as more

environmentally sustainable, since they consume less resources and materials.
However, this must be weighed against factors, such as whether basic needs are
met and the status of the quality of life in these settlements. We also must look at the
term »traditional« and whether it means more than lack of access to resources. The
Brazilian case presents a community that is, by the legislation of a natural reserve,
prevented from expanding economic integration and development. Here we need
clear-cut definitions for sustainable development and strategies on how it can be
achieved.
- All communities, though culturally, historically and geographically unrelated, share

common economic strategies for establishing their livelihoods in precarious
ecological conditions. They engage in multiple activities of resource extraction,
thereby distributing risk and securing the subsistence minimum. Swidden and small-
scale permanent agriculture as well as hunting and gathering and fishing are evident.
In addition we find small-scale production of handicrafts and extraction of primary
resources, such as wood and rock.
Page 60
3 The Environmental Dimension of Economic Key

Activities (task 3)
In Task 3 of Amazonia 21, six case studies upon economic sectors were carried out.
The concepts and research questions have been developed by the task co-ordinator
(FFU) based on research in and about basic industrial sectors, large and medium
sized companies and environmental politics in highly industrialized countries. Since
the problems as well as the capacities for solving them differ tremendously in the
Amazonian region from those in most of the OECD countries, the partners had to
adapt these approaches to the actual situation in the cases analyzed, the experience
and the needs of the local researchers and actors. While the research in industrial
countries has focused on the production of metals, non-metallic minerals, chemicals,
paper, the transformation of energy and the mining sector, for time-periods between
fifteen and fifty years, all the partners – except the Venezuelans - decided to focus
rather on the actual situation of small-scale producers dealing with primary industries
like forestry, agriculture and fishing. The cases were:
1. Gas supply in Venezuela

2. Charcoal and pig-iron production in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon
3. Timber production in the Brazilian Amazon
4. Timber production in Puerto Nariño (Colombia)
5. Fishery in Puerto Nariño (Colombia)
6. Natural renewable resources in Bolivia
3.1 Analysing Economic Sectors

Focusing on economic sectors, we take a polluter oriented perspective: We choose
to analyse decisions which cause severe environmental problems – the actors, their
power, their interests, their ideologies, belief-systems and opinions, their
communication and networks, their options and opportunities, their actions and the
consequences of these actions. In doing this, we are not trying to design perfect
economic and environmental policies from scratch, based only on the ecological
necessities and social needs of sustainable development. We are starting from the
social world as it is in order to find ways for improvement.
But why choose economic sectors as the basic category of our research, instead of
e.g. firms, individuals, organizations, regions? Economic sectors are first and
foremost merely statistical units: They are defined by the similarity of their output.
Whoever produces goods of some kind is part of the same sector. But this relative
homogeneity of the products usually corresponds with other similarities of the
persons or enterprises which produce them: Similar products are often produced with
similar technologies which have similar impacts on the environment and on social
systems. Thus, the decision-makers of an economic sector face similar challenges,
problems, opportunities. Even if they answer these challenges in different ways, they
compete with each other, and this competition is one way society chooses among
alternatives and our research tries to analyze and comment on such choices. For
Page 61
example, nuclear power plants and water power plants have very different
environmental and social impacts, but in producing the same output – electricity –
they are serving similar needs and society has to choose.
On the other hand, actors from different industries usually differ heavily in the
environmental impact of their decisions. In industrial countries, very few industrial
sectors cause the bulk of environmental problems. In most of the OECD countries,
the production of metals and other mineral products (e.g. cement), paper and
chemicals have a combined share in GDP of 5-10% but use 40-70% of final energy
consumed by agriculture, industry and services combined. In these countries, all
manufacturing industries produce some 15-25% of GDP with 70-85% of final energy
consumption of all economic sectors (for details see Binder 2001: 14). More or less,
the same holds true for most of the environmental problems: They are caused to a
large extent by a rather small group of “dirty” industries which deal with resource
extraction like mining and forestry and the first stages of resource processing, i.e. the
production of electricity and basic materials like steel, aluminium, cement, paper,
chlorine or petroleum products. In developing countries as well as in less developed
parts of newly industrialised countries, sectors which deal with resources extraction
still cause the main environmental problems.
3.2 A Comprehensive Analytical Framework for Environmental

Impacts of Economic Activity and Environmental Strategies
3.2.1 A simple model
Environmental models like emission or energy models have usually the same basic
design: First, we split up total environmental damage of some kind (D) into
appropriately chosen sectors of society according to their share in the damage. Then,
we interpret each sector’s pollution, i.e. its contribution to the environmental damage
(di) as a product of the sector’s activity (ai) and its pollution intensity, i.e. pollution per
unit of activity (di/ai). If the sectors are branches of industry, their activity might be
measured as value added. For pollution caused by private traffic traveled person-
kilometres may serve as a good activity indicator etc.
d
Equation 1 D = ∑ *a i
a j i
i
Major paradigms in the public environmental debate can be expressed with this
simple logic:
1. The basic “Limits–to–Growth” hypothesis (Meadows et al. 1972) envisaged
constant damage intensities with exponential growing sector activities, resulting in
exponentially growing damages.
2. The modified Meadows models allowed for one-time reductions of pollution
intensities due to political decisions but which were more than outgrown by
activities (population and production). This phenomenon is sometimes called
“rebound-effect”, but mostly only when the reduction in damage intensity caused
the growth in activity.
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3. The idea that growth induced damages will be more than compensated for by
growth-induced innovation and therefore constantly declining damage intensities
is sometimes called “eco-optimism”.
Since we deal only with producing sectors, whose activity indicators can be
calculated as value added (vi), we can decompose Equation 1 to Equation 2:
d v *
Equation 2 D =∑ * GDP i i
v GDPi i
Thus, an industrial sector’s pollution is the product of (1) its pollution intensity (di/vi),
(2) its share in the economy’s gross domestic product (vi/GDP), and (3) the size of
the gross domestic product (GDP).
Equation 2 cannot be wrong, because it is a tautology; but it can be misleading, if

these factors are taken to be independent from each other. In fact, each of the six
possible directions of causal relationships between these three factors can be
justified by plausible arguments (Figure 10). It is up to empirical research to assess
the validity and – much more important – the relevance of these arguments.
Figure 10: Possible directions of causal relationships of components of

industrial pollution
(based on the equation d = d/v * v/GDP * GDP (d = damage induced by an industry, v = value added in this
industry, GDP = gross domestic product)
vi/GDP
e.g. de-materialisation
causes the decline of
materials producers e.g. IOU-thesis
e.g. strategic sectors

e.g. powerful industries
prevent regulation
e.g. costs / benefits

of environmental
di/vi protection
GDP
e.g. “environmental
Kuznets curve”
Page 63
1. Pollution intensities (d/v) ⇒ economic structure (v/GDP): To change an industry’s

pollution intensity usually implies a change in the composition of its inputs and
thus the composition of the sector’s demand for other sectors’ output. Energy
saving means a loss of markets to energy industries, dematerialisation causes
less sales to materials producing industries. On the other hand, add-on
environmental facilities enlarge the share of the “environment industry” in GDP.
2. Pollution intensities (d/v) ⇒ GDP: Environmental protection changes costs and
sometimes the quality of products and thus has impacts on the cells of industries
and the nature of productivity growth (e.g. by supporting resources productivity
instead of labor productivity).
3. Economic structure (v/GDP) ⇒ pollution intensities (d/v): If an industry holds a big
share in GDP or total employment, its power may prevent strict environmental
regulations. On the other hand, a regional concentration of an industry may
promote innovations by economies of scale.
4. Economic structure (v/GDP) ⇒ GDP: Industries differ in their growth in value
added or productivity and in their spill-over to other industries. Namely, industrial
policies are often justified by the assumed “strategic” nature of the supported
industry for other sectors.
5. GDP ⇒ Economic structure (v/GDP): Modernisation theories claim typical
structural changes in the course of economic development, e.g. the emergence of
a service-oriented economy in mature industrial societies. Another modernisation
theory, the “IOU hypothesis” (Malenbaum 1973, 1978), suspects that in the early
stages of economic development “intensities of use” (IOUs, measured as
materials use per unit of GDP) of most materials usually rise, until a turning point
is reached, after that IOUs fall which might even result in an absolute decline of
use, despite or even because of further economic growth. A graph of such an
IOU-curve would resemble an inverted U. This kind of development of rich
economies was also formulated as a trend “beyond the era of materials” (Larson
et al. 1986, Williams et al. 1987, Larson 1991).
6. GDP ⇒ pollution intensities (d/v): Another argument suggests that with rising
wealth people become more aware of environmental problems and the society’s
capacity to deal with environmental problems increases. As a result, pollution
intensities decrease with economic growth and might even lead to an
improvement of the environmental situation despite further growth
(“environmental Kuznets curve”). But not only the level of GDP, but also its growth
rate can affect the pollution intensities, because a fast growing economy has a
more modern and thus more innovative capital stock than a slowly growing one
(for a more elaborate discussion see Binder 1999).
3.2.2 A more elaborate model

This is, of course, a very simple way to differentiate driving forces of pollution and
environmental policy options. By inserting additional terms in this equation, we might
get any level of differentiation.
Let us consider the damage of soil acidification which is caused by the emission of
sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants. Each of these pollutants results
from several industrial processes: the production of electricity, the smelting of non-
Page 64
ferrous metal ores etc. Each of these products is produced in one or more industrial
sectors: electricity for example is not only produced by energy supply companies but
also by big electricity users in other industrial sectors. That is, a certain
environmental damage D is caused by the emission E of k pollutants P, which are
produced as by-products during the production of j products of output O in i industrial
sectors, whose value added V sum up to gross domestic product GDP, which can be
split in per capita GDP and the size of the population cap. Then we get Equation 3:
d e p o * v * GDP *
=∑ cap
ijk ijk ijk ij
Equation 3 D * * * i
ijk e
ijk p ijk
o
ij v GDP cap
i
dijk is the damage caused by pollutant k, which came into being with the production of
output j in industry i. eijk is the uncontrolled emission of pollutant k, which came into
being with the production of output j in industry i. pijk is the production of pollutant k in
the course of the production of output j in industry i. oij is the output of product j in
industry i. vi is the value added in industry i, GDP is GDP, and cap is the population.
Thus, each sector-product-industry-specific damage is the product of

1. the harmfulness of the emission (damage d per unit of emission e),
2. the inefficiency of end-of-the-pipe technologies (emission e per unit of pollutant
production p),
3. the pollutant intensity of the process (pollutant production p per unit of output o),
4. the importance of the process for the industrial sector (output o per unit of value
added v),
5. the importance of the sector for the whole economy (the share of value added v in
GDP),
6. income per capita (GDP per cap), and
7. the size of the population (cap).
Each of these factors (under each sector-product-industry-specific circumstances)

might change, and each of these factors might be influenced in order to reduce the
damage (
Figure 11; cf. Jänicke 1990, Prittwitz 1990). You may
1. reduce the damage – without reducing the emission of pollutants – by cleaning up
contaminated soil, cure pollution induced diseases, etc. [= repair or after-the-pipe
treatment],
2. reduce the emission of pollutants – without reducing their production – by the use
of end-of-the-pipe measures (filter, waste water treatment plants,...) and by the
emission into a more robust environment or by further processing of potentially
polluting by-products in order to make them less harmful or even economically
valuable [= end-of-the pipe treatment including re-cycling and down-cycling],
3. reduce the production of pollutants – without changing the size and the structure
of the economic output – by energy and resources saving, clean technologies etc.
[= ecological modernization],
4. reduce the amount of pollution-intensively produced output – without changing the
economic importance of the industrial sector – e.g. by increasing the value of
Page 65
products and services with higher quality (incl. tailor-made solutions, higher
longevity of products) instead of higher materials content [ecological intra-sectoral
structural change],
5. reduce the share of dirty industries in GDP [ecological inter-sectoral structural
change],
6. reduce GDP/cap (or at least its growth),
7. reduce the population (or at least its growth).
Figure 11: Analytical Components of Pollution Causation and Intervening

Environmental Policy Strategies
damage to health and environment
repair
after-the-pipe treatment
state of the environment
end-of-the-pipe
treatment
dirty by-products
ecological modernization
clean technologies
dirty products
intra-sectoralstructural change
dirty industries
inter-sectoralstructural change
scope of the economy (GDP)
development / growth policies
population
population / migration policies
This analytical model could also be useful for damages which are not caused by
pollutants (e.g. noise, depletion of resources), but we would need a more abstract
terminology: We could say harm instead of damage, disturbances instead of
emissions, damage potentials instead of pollutants. In order to prevent the harm of a
nervous breakdown as a result of noisy truck traffic, we might use tranquilizers (lower
d/e), reduce the disturbances by using sound barriers (lower e/p), reduce the
damage potential by using quieter trucks (lower e/o), or simply reduce traffic (lower
o). The risk of depleting some natural resources can be reduced by using less of
these resources (lower p), by exploiting new sources of these resources (lower e/p)
or by finding substitutes for them (d/e).
Page 66
It has often been argued that repair and end-of-the-pipe treatment are the most
widely used, but also the least effective and efficient ways to deal with environmental
problems, because
1. they often simply transfer problems to another place or another time without really
solving them,
2. they are almost useless for many problems for technical reasons (e.g. climate
change),
3. they are expensive, while there are often alternatives that save money by
preventing the emergence of the problem in the first place (e.g. energy saving),
4. they produce bureaucratic-industrial complexes which have both the power and
the interest in marketing instead of avoiding the problem.
Indeed, additive measures have often been taken even when integrated measures
have been technically feasible and economically more efficient, less because of
technical or logical but because of social reasons: The more you go to the right side
of Equation 3, the more decisions are affected, the more actors are involved, the
more interests have to be taken into account – resulting in higher organisational
costs as well as higher uncertainties – than with additive environmental policies. It is
one of the major tasks for environmental policies and environmental management to
lower these hidden costs e.g. by capacity-building and conflict management.
3.3 Understanding Economic Restructuring

The analysis of economic sectors should not only deal with the different options but
also with the persons and institutions which choose among them and the restrictions
to the actual choice: Not only the technological restrictions, but also the economic,
ideological, political, institutional, etc. ones. Structural change and its management
cannot be properly understood without an analysis of (a) technological conditions, (b)
market forces, (c) economic and political institutions and (d) discretionary decisions
both in private business and governmental agencies (Figure 12). Technological
conditions include the available machinery to transform inputs to outputs, the
capacities to improve them, the available inputs, the by-products and environmental
impacts, the know-how of the labour force. Market forces are basically all monetary
values which cannot be changed at will by the respective decision-makers like prices,
wages or exchange-rates. Institutions comprise all reliable rules or systems of rules
(including organizations) which define the way decisions are made (like property
rights, markets, planning, trade regulation or co-ordination), which cannot be
changed frequently and are impossible to change for most of the actors involved.
Discretionary decisions include all action which is not simply determined by technical,
economical or institutional necessities, i.e. all action when there is a choice which
could make a difference.
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Figure 12: Categories of Factors to Be Considered in Structural Change

Analysis
Discretionary
Decisions (Politics)
Market Forces
Institutions
(Economics)
Technologies
These four categories of factors are closely inter-related and their effects often hard
to distinguish. Therefore, it is very often possible to tell different “stories” about the
same evidence by stressing different driving forces as the crucial ones and
interpreting the other ones as mere effects, as merely driven by the really driving
one. If we want to stress the significance or even the dominance of one category of
driving forces, we can fit lots of evidence with such a foregone conclusion. But it is
more interesting to use these different ways of story-telling and try to fit the evidence
of the case with any one of these single-factor hypotheses in order to find their
respective limits in the case analysed and design more complex interpretations, if
necessary. Sometimes, the evidence will not be conclusive in deciding between
these interpretations – which is good to know! But in any case, such a competitive
approach is useful in the search for new evidence.
Thus, understanding decision-making processes takes more than measuring

important indicators. We have to interpret data, using common sense as well as
scientifically tested theories about human and organisational behaviour, in order to
identify causalities, motives, beliefs and opportunities of major actors. Sometimes, it
may be possible to test general theories with data collected during case study
research, but seldom so. Mostly, we choose among different theories to find the ones
which fit the case best: We can call this approach “competitive case studies” with
theories competing to explain as much data as possible (and contradict not too much
of the data). Thus, all information about the case is used to eliminate the significance
of, at first sight, possible causal relationships in the case analyzed without being able
to tell about the significance in other cases with the help of this case study’s evidence
alone.
Interpretative case studies like the ones discussed here have to be very open in the
use of their methods since they are dealing with topics from different scientific fields:
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economics as well as political science, organizational as well as psychological

theories (including common sense arguments), cultural as well as technical and
ecological knowledge. Most of these scientific fields do hardly use ready-made
methods leading to clear results by the simple use of a textbook, a measuring rod
and a calculator. And, by the way, no-one can be an expert in all of those fields.
But why call our studies “case studies”? To treat the object of research as a case,
means to be aware that there are (or at least could be) other cases which are similar
in one way or other and that the similarities and differences of these cases might be
interesting. Many scholars believe that the comparison of individual cases can be
used to test or even to detect general theories which hold true for all cases (e.g.
Lijphart 1971, Smelser 1976). But these approaches are criticized on statistical
grounds, arguing that only large-n research can deal with the necessarily non-
deterministic, probabilistic statements in social sciences (Lieberson 1992). Since the
coordinator of the case studies in Task 3 of Amazonia 21 happens to prefer the last
point of view (Binder 1993), no general conclusions based on the comparison of the
cases analyzed will be reported in this chapter.
But even if these critics are right, comparisons of small numbers of cases do make
sense. First of all, the comparison with other cases can show the relevance of the
case in question. When analyzing an economic sector, we should be aware of how
important this sector is compared to other sectors of the economy e.g. for the
production of regional or national GDP, for employment, for foreign trade etc. The
comparison with similar sectors in other economies, on the other hand, can help to
identify shortcomings in our interpretation of the case in question. E.g. the very strict
environmental policies in Japan in the 1970s might be explained at first sight by the
environmental disasters Japan was facing at the time. But the comparison with other
countries makes you aware that similar disasters in other countries have not led to
the same results and that there is still a lot left to be explained. Sure, it would be
stupid to conclude that environmental disasters have no impact whatsoever. The
comparison of cases cannot test theories but identify interesting riddles to be solved
by clever interpretation.
“To be aware” of other cases does not simply mean to keep an open mind or to bear
in mind the research of others on other cases, but to do research about other cases
in order to improve the understanding of your own. For example, it might prove useful
to collect basic data about all sectors of the economy or about all similar sectors in
the world or the part of the world you are especially interested in, before or while you
go into the details of your own special case. And in analyzing your special case, it is
often useful to analyze special events, features or sub-groups of the case in further
detail, to do sub-case studies, to analyze a case in a case in a case... (nested
comparative case studies).
As a lead-in to the case study analysis in the project Amazonia 21, the researchers
were asked to answer the following questionnaire – and then to elaborate their
inquiry in whatever direction they were interested. Basically, this approach was
similar to the one used for the analysis of declining sectors in industrial countries in
Binder / Jänicke / Petschow 2001.
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Task 3 Questionnaire
Part 1: Driving Forces of Economic Restructuring
Description of the Selected Cases (Answer each question not only for the actual situation but also for
the development in the last two decades and – if possible – for the companies’ and public authorities’
plans for the future!)
What are the main features of the market of the selected industry, such as
• number and size of enterprises
• concentration, competition or co-operation of producers
• physical output
• economic value (value added of the sector, alternatively other economic indicators like production
value...)
• number of employees
• etc. ?
How important is the industry in question for regional and national economies?
What relationship has this industry with supplying and consuming industries, for example: anonymous
markets, long-term partnership of independent enterprises, common ownership, integrated enterprise,
domestic vs. international trade?
Inasmuch has this sector been regulated by state authorities?
What are the main ecological effects of this industry?
Explanation of Structural Change
Has the development been a typical or an atypical development compared with similar industries in
other countries?
What supply side reasons for the development can be identified (such as technological innovation,
changes in factor prices (incl. energy, resources), management decisions, foreign competitors,
changes in regulation and/or firm strategies)?
What demand side reasons for the development can be identified (such as saturation of markets,
substitution by other materials, decline in production in materials consuming industries)?
Part 2: Political Processes and Possibilities for Intervention
Social Management of Structural Change
Who have been the most important (groups of) actors (private enterprises, business associations,
unions, public authorities on the local, regional, national or international level)? Have they been
internally fragmented?
What has each of these actors wanted (interests, opinions, strategies, plans)?
What has each of these actors done? (Has their behaviour added up to a coherent strategy?) Have
they succeeded?
How have these actors interacted (through markets, hierarchies, networks)?
Influence of Environmental Policy
Have environmental actors (authorities, green parties, environmental pressure groups) had any
importance? (Is there even some kind of “eco-corporatism” emerging?)
Have environmental arguments been used by any actors and have they been influential?
Perspectives
What is expected for the future (by actors, by observers, by you)?
Are there any lessons to be learned for the social management of structural change in other cases?
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3.4 The Case Studies: An Overview

3.4.1 Natural Gas in Venezuela
Energy demand in Venezuela has been growing tremendously in the last decades
and natural gas has become the most important energy source with a share of about
50% in domestic consumption, still rising. Natural gas is mostly produced as a by-
product of petroleum extraction. In the 1960s, the petroleum industry was the only
consumer of natural gas worth mentioning and therefore most of the natural gas was
wasted. But the building-up of infrastructure for the distribution of gas as well as
several technical innovations allowed ever rising amounts of natural gas to be used
in domestic markets and might even give the opportunity for exports in the future.
Natural gas is a comparatively clean energy source and the waste of natural gas in
the form of methane emissions is especially harmful to the world climate. Therefore,
this structural change in the Venezuelan energy market has enormous benefits for
the environment. Nevertheless, the gas industry remains one of the most dirty
economic sectors. It is run mostly by PDVSA Gas, an affiliate of Petróleos de
Venezuela which is controlled by the Venezuelan government. There have been
several efforts to curb environmental damages, both by PDVSA (green “Eco-value”
strategy) and the national government (Gas Law), but the successes have been
limited due to the low priority of environmental issues for major actors and the low
capacities of regulating institutions. But new actors – most prominently, private
enterprises and the neighborhood movement – have become more influential and
might contribute to a more sustainable development of the Venezuelan energy
sector.
3.4.2 Charcoal and Pig-Iron Production in the Eastern Brazilian

Amazon
Several pig-iron industries have been installed in the eastern Brazilian Amazon since
1989, as a result of governmental policies. Despite the constant increase of pig-iron
production, the effects of this development has been very different than the official
forecasts which justified the pig-iron production: Due to the low prices of pig iron, the
low taxes paid by metallurgy companies, and the low salaries generated by these
companies, the changes in the region have been mainly linked to the charcoal
demand pig-iron production has generated. This resulted in a wide dissemination of
charcoal production in the region, increasing the exploitation of the natural resources
of the eastern Brazilian Amazon, the chaos in several urban spaces, the conflicts in
the hinterland and land conflicts, intensifying unhealthy working conditions. Public
capacity to control the socio-economic conditions was not possible in the southeast
of Brazil and there are no indications that it will be possible in the eastern Brazilian
Amazon.
Instead, charcoal should be replaced by natural gas from the basins of the Jurúa and
Urucú rivers, in the State of Amazonas. The result of primary iron production with
natural gas is foam iron, which could be processed by small electrical steel factories.
But the mere substitution of charcoal by natural gas would not be sufficient to
achieve sustainability. Besides, it is necessary to establish a new vision of the
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relationship between material and energy flows, their conversion into values of use
and the intervention of social institutions in a framework of indicator systems which
include at least four main dimensions: social, ecological, economic and institutional.
3.4.3 Timber Production in Pará (Brazilian Amazon)

The timber activity is extremely important for the social and economic development of
the State of Para, as shown by the official data appointing it as the second most
important economic activity, responsible for 13% of the State GNP. Besides that, it
generates 300 thousand direct and indirect jobs and contributes to 26% of the State
taxes. This activity is responsible for changes in the landscape, for the creation of
infrastructure, for population relocations, urbanization, road construction, etc. There
is an increasing trend for log exploitation indicating a rush for Amazonia and the
State of Para in the 21st century. By now, the industry settled in Amazonia solely
according to the market rules, while the State lacked the administrative infrastructure
to control the timber exploitation process.
The timber industry must be redirected toward economic and environmental

sustainable development through economic and political structural changes. The
State must stimulate and reinforce the use of rational practices in the timber
extraction, such as management techniques and the zoning of areas where timber
activities may be carried out without causing serious environmental damage; or it can
help companies modernizing their industrial equipment. The companies must
produce goods with more aggregate value, invest in training for their labour force,
and develop strategies to diminish the damages caused by the inefficiency of their
machinery or by the lack of knowledge of their employees.
3.4.4 Timber Production in Puerto Nariño (Colombia)

Puerto Nariño is a small town near Letícia on the Colombian border to Brazil and
Peru. The principal extractive activity of its inhabitants, besides subsistence fishing,
is that of wood and forest products. Most of the product of wood extraction is used
locally as building material for houses and structures or for fuel (firewood). With
respect to construction, wood is the most commonly used building material. As with
other extractive activities, informality predominates, there are no complicated
processes for adding value to the product, there is no control of the resource’s
exploitation, and permanent quantitative and qualitative information on volumes,
prices, sources and destinations is lacking. Nowadays the general procedure of
timber extraction is as small-scale and rudimentary as it was 50 years ago, in spite of
the technical change from the handsaw to the chainsaw during the drug-trafficking
boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The principal impacts of timber extraction are related to selective deforestation and
the consequent exhaustion of species. The unsustainable character of timber
extraction and not reforesting the species removed seriously affect the stability and
quality of the municipality’s forest ecosystems, as well as the present and future
quality of life of its inhabitants. Reforestation projects have not been successful, not
only due to problems related to managing financial resources, planning, and politics
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and policies, but also because of the absence of technological packets adequate to
the environmental conditions of this part of the Amazon and the lack of knowledge,
acceptance and participation on the part of local inhabitants.
The design of an adequate environmental and territorial policy based on the social,
cultural, and environmental conditions of the region should begin with an institutional
re-organization that would allow the agencies dealing with the environment to act in
co-ordination and with clear jurisdictional competencies. Technological innovation
should be accompanied by innovation in efficiency, since it is impossible to think
about the sustainable management of a resource, in this case timber, when more
than 50% of the raw material lies rotting on the jungle floor. The controversial
“efficiency” of the chainsaw should be accompanied by semi-industrial alternatives to
process parts of the trees that are not used, such as branches and the thin parts of
the trunks, as well as byproducts and waste such as sawdust.
3.4.5 Fishery in Puerto Nariño (Colombia)

Most of the small-scale fishing catch around the municipality of Puerto Nariño is
consumed either directly by the fishing families or sold in the town of Puerto Nariño to
other households; a small proportion is for marketing in Letícia. Approximately 20
families (6.5%) are almost exclusively dedicated to fishing and make their living from
it, normally fishing two or three times per week. 50% of the town’s families fish
occasionally.
The growth of extractive food-fishing, both commercial and subsistence, as well as

that of ornamental fishes, has greatly increased the pressure on the fish populations
of Amazonian rivers, creeks, and lakes. The increase in pressure on the fishing
resources has occurred not only in the area of Letícia but in the entire Colombian
Amazon Basin. The greatest impact on fish populations comes from commercial
fishing and from the capture of ornamental fish, and to lesser degree from
subsistence fishing.
In recent years fish farming has been considered a promising activity to implement in
the Amazonian region. From 1992 this activity was promoted in the indigenous
communities of the Trapecio Amazónico, including Puerto Nariño, which implied
opening or modifying more than a hundred fish-farming ponds in the entire Trapecio.
In spite of the institutional efforts providing funding and technical assistance, which
were always fragmented and improvised, fish farming in ponds has been a general
failure, notwithstanding some exceptional and momentary successes. The demand
for this fish-farm product was always small, especially in the Letícia marketplaces,
due to the great supply of large fish extracted from the river and available at much
lower prices. Due to the difficulty of producing regionally the basic inputs for feeding
the fish, the costs for fish farming were too high. Besides, the dietary preferences of
the indigenous people were never taken into account.
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3.4.6 Natural Renewable Resources in Bolivia

Bolivia depends mostly on its natural renewable resources for its economic and
social development. More than 50% of its population is occupied with agricultural
farming and forestry, 27% of the exportations come from this sector which
participates with 15% of the Gross Domestic Product. The very dynamic enterprise
sector is mainly based on the cultivation for exportation (soy and sunflower; cotton
and sugar cane) and cattle breeding on a great scale, while the great number of
extremely poor small landowners produce food products (mainly potatoes, wheat,
corn and rice) for self consumption and the domestic market.
These sectors have diminished the productive capacity of the soil due to inadequate
management and inappropriate technology, hydric and eolian erosion, compactness
of the ground due to heavy machinery, over-pasture, removal of the natural
vegetation cover in order to break fresh ground for agriculture and cattle breeding,
burning to open up lands and to suppress the weeds, over-exploitation of certain
species of woods like mahogany, morado or cedar, and illegal hunting.
It is necessary to start a well planned process of change, in which the authorities of

the government, the civil society, and international partners co-operate.
3.5 Conclusions from a synthetic view upon the case studies

The sectoral case studies of Amazonia 21 allow new insights on the analysis and
conclusions for the management of economic sectors:
- There tend to be interesting alternatives which have been ignored by major actors.
Very often, actors take too much for granted: The environmental impact necessary to
use a certain technology, the technologies necessary to produce a certain product,
the products necessary to fulfil a certain need, the needs to be fulfilled in order to
achieve sustainable development. It is worthwhile to check systematically for
alternatives on very different levels of analysis addressing very different groups of
actors: Supplementary environmental measures as well as integrated ecological
modernisation, intra- and inter-sectoral structural change, or general economic,
regional or population policies. Besides, the knowledge of other cases - especially
successful ones - as well as the inclusion of new actors might also help to identify
previously overlooked options. E.g. in the Brazilian case study on pig iron, we
observe that the alternative of using gas as a surrogate for charcoal has not been
sufficiently considered. The Bolivian and Colombian case studies seem to confirm
that the lack of sectoral coordination at the macroeconomic level leaves small
communities somewhat in a vacuum which they fill with self-organised improvisation,
using the means they have at hand and not the means that would be the most
appropriate ones. Inversely, the failure of implementing aqua-farming at the bottom
end of a scientific-technological programme shows us that the local communities as
the final beneficiaries have not been sufficiently heard and involved into what was
originally designed to improve their living conditions. Finally, the Brazilian case study
on timber shows us a conspicuous institutional weakness leading to a lack of
enforcement capacity for environmental regulations. The apparent anarchic situation
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in the wood sector is the primary reason for deforestation, still more destructive than
mineral extraction, hydroelectric plants and slash and burn farming.
- Different kinds of actors always have to be emphatically involved. Whenever one or

two of the relevant stakeholders are able or even obliged to decide alone, things are
bound to go wrong: Local communities alone might lack the know-how and the
resources, while both big private enterprises and public authorities might try to
organise each and everything according to their own organisational needs and
purposes. This mostly leads to conflicts or disasters, even if it is done with the best
intentions (which seldom is) because social development is too complex to be
centrally planned. Participation combined with reciprocal networks of as many and as
different kinds as possible (economic, political, cultural, religious, scientific) are pre-
requisites for sustainable development.
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4 Patterns of Sustainability in Regional Development

Initiatives (task 4)
4.1 Research themes and partners
For the implementation of task 4, the institutes in the Amazonian universities co-
operated with either private organisations or public institutions active in local or
regional development. The interaction between researchers and practitioners was
conceived as an exchange. While academic researchers learned from the
experiences of local actors, the latter got access to knowledge relevant to them. To a
certain extent, especially in Brazil and Bolivia, the boundaries between the roles of
researchers and technical assistants were blurred, and this by purpose. Task 4
showed clear signs of a transdisciplinary approach.
First, each research institute chose a geographical focus, or (in the case of
Venezuela) a thematic focus in a selected area:
• CIMAR (Bolivia) focused on rural development at the agricultural frontier of the

dwindling Amazonian forest. Since several years, CIMAR puts strong emphasis
on the development of appropriate agroforestry schemes, for which it undertakes
field research with farmers.
• NAEA (Brazil) focused on local development of a rivershore community on the
island of Marajó.
• IMANI (Colombia) focused on local development of the mainly indigenous
communities in the trapecio amazónico near to the Peruvian border.
• CENAMB (Venezuela) focused on the development of the fishery sector and the
fishing communities in the State of Apure, stretching along the Orinoco-Apure
river axis in the sparsely populated Llanos area, south of the Caribbean coast
mountain ridge.
Each research institute chose a local or regional partner to carry out the task. The
duration of the partner search varied from several days (Brazil) up to one year
(Colombia). The partnership was either based on a longer history of collaboration
(Bolivia, Brazil), or gradually built up during the project itself (Colombia, Venezuela).
The university institutes chose the following co-operation partners:
• CIMAR (Bolivia), located in Santa Cruz, closely collaborated with ASPACH, an

association of four farmers unions in the El Chore colony, a rather young
settlement mainly inhabited by migrants having come down from the highlands in
search for land.
• NAEA (Brazil), located in Belém, carried out the study in close partnership with
the non-governmental development organization POEMA (“pobreza e meio
ambiente”). POEMA is an initiative linked to the NAEA and the NUMA24 through
the participation of a number of teachers and students. POEMA have their own
premises on the campus of the Federal University of Belém. It is supported by
24
Núcleo Meio Ambiente, an institute of the UFPA with strong relationships to the NAEA.
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various development funds, e.g. the German Development Co-operation (GTZ),

the World Bank or the European Commissions’ GD Development. POEMA’s main
interest lies in the diversification and sustainable development of small
communities in Pará and other Amazonian areas, in developing new products
from Amazonias biodiversity, in building up new commercial links and in training
of academic people and local actors.
• IMANI (Colombia) needed some time to find an adequate interlocutor at the local
level at Puerto Nariño, but finally established good relationships with the
representative body (cabildo) of the indigenous reserve, which covers most of the
municipal territory. After the local elections in fall 1999 they could also build up
fairly good relationships with the municipal council and the mayor of Puerto
Nariño. The contacts with local stakeholders (fishermen, tradesmen, lumberjacks)
kept being very close at least during the presence of the researcher, because all
empirical tasks25 were carried out in the same area.
• CENAMB (Venezuela) co-operated with another institute of the central university
in Caracas (CENDES), and with the private university (UNELLEZ)26 in the capital
of the study region, San Fernando de Apure, in tutoring the researcher, who held
close contacts with important stakeholders in the fishery sector on the national,
regional and local levels (e.g. the national fishery support institution SARPA). In
this case the partnership was less explicit, as the actors are connected rather by
the logic of the value added chain of fishery than by organisational links.
Table 11: Thematic choice and research partners

Research Field partner Type of partner Type of Continuity
institute relationship
CIMAR ASPACH Non-governmental Strategic alliance Medium to long
(BOL) (association of organization as a for improving term
farmers self-organized people’s living
unions in El movement of conditions while
Chore) farmers. preserving the
environment
NAEA POEMA Non-governmental Strong Medium to long
(BRZ) (NGO active organization organisational term
in delivering technical links
development assistance in
cooperation) development
projects.
IMANI Indigenous Local public Building up trust Uncertain; depends
(COL) cabildo and authorities (and expectations) on funding.
municipality during the project.
CENAMB Stakeholders Local and regional Building up trust Communication
(VEN) in the fishery actors of the fishery during the project. process will
sector sector, only loosely intensify, as the
related to each other researcher takes an
active role in this
process
25
Task 2: Local material flow analysis; task 3: Eco-restructuring of the fishery and forestry sectors.
26
CENDES: Centro de Estudios Economicos y Sociales. UNELLEZ : Universidad Nacional
Experimental de los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora
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4.2 Research process and methodology

4.2.1 The sequence
At the first milestone meeting at Naiguatá/Venezuela (April 1999) the task 4 co-
ordinator presented the aims and purposes the task. Task 4 research group,
involving the four Latin American partners, the ÖAR Regionalberatung GmbH and
the Scottish Lews Castle College was formed.
During the Integrated Training Program in Minihof-Liebau/Austria (July 1999) the co-
ordinator, together with other teachers, provided theoretical and empirical
background information upon local and regional development issues with respect to
sustainability. During the two days, the task group designed the research process.
Until early 2000, the geographic areas and partners have been selected and
contacted. The PAC institutes chose researchers among their staff and students to
carry out the studies.
By the first half of 2001 all the empirical studies already existed at least in a draft
format. By the international conference in Manaus, all the five studies (2 in Bolivia,
one in each of the other countries) were finalised and discussed in public there.
Leaving apart the special case of the agroforestry study for El Chore (BOL), the four
territorial studies followed a similar process of creation:
• After the first contacts, the study area, and the partner initiative were described.
• Through numerous personal contacts, interviews etc., a thorough analysis of the
conditions, limits and potentialities, the past efforts and future prospects has been
carried out.
• In the case of Puerto Nariño (COL), a local material flow analysis (LMFA, carried
out in task 2) helped to deepen the understanding of the local conditions. Three
LMFAs were also carried out on the island of Marajó, although not in exactly the
same place as Ponta de Pedras (see chapter 2).
• In BOL, BRZ, COL, the interlocutors were concentrated in a small location. The
researchers organized final meetings, in which they discussed the results and
possible solutions to important problems with local stakeholders.
• In all the cases, the researchers made comments upon the usefulness of the
applied assessment tools.
• Moreover, they formulated concrete recommendations for the local and regional
actors or the partner initiative.
4.2.2 The tools

The research team put strong emphasis on the provision of tools which fit to
integrative approaches. Two examples have been presented during the Integrated
Training Programme:
• The innovation compass, a tool for strategic area assessment, by which not only
different aspects of a territory can be integrated, but also diagnosis and strategy
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building, the first two stages of a programming cycle. The innovation compass is
one of a number of similar tools which originated in the concepts elaborated by a
work group of the European Rural Observatory for the LEADER II programme
period 1995 – 1999. LEADER27 is a European Community Initiative endowed with
a relatively small percentage of the Structural Funds devoted to regional
development, allows to foster public-private development partnerships in over
1000 micro-regions (ranging from around 5.000 to 100.000 inhabitants) in lagging
rural areas.28 The innovation compass has been revised during this research
project. The Brazilian partner translated it into Portuguese, while the Bolivian
partner wrote the Spanish version. The innovation compass was used extensively
by these partners, and, to a limited extent, in Colombia. The revised innovation
compass is attached to this task 4 synthesis report.
• Secondly, the INSURED29 framework for sustainable regional development, which

the co-ordinator introduced in a slightly revised format. It allows to support
planning, management and monitoring sustainable development by applying a
multi-dimensional matrix. The Venezuelan partner translated it into Spanish. It
was used in the Apure fishery study. However, this was not a typical application,
as the study had a strong sectoral focus. In the course of the project, the
coordinator made a thorough revision of the framework, which is now presented
as a “generative tool for instruments for sustainable development” in chapter 5
(p.48 ff.) of the “Background Paper: Towards a Meta-Model of Instruments for
Sustainable Development”, attached to the final report of Amazonia 21.
Furthermore, the Brazilian research team used another instrument for the
assessment of past development initiatives, the Grassroots Development Framework
originating from the Interamerican Foundation.This evaluation framework applies
both tangible and intangible indicators to aid in understanding the impacts of projects
undertaken at the community level.
Frank Rennie from the Scottish Lews Castle College presented a basic measurement
tool for sustainable development in local communities during a workshop at the
international conference in Manaus. The tool includes a rating procedure similar to
the innovation compass, but using only 40 indicators distributed on four axes: Social,
economic, environmental conditions and equity. The indicators are established by the
community itself in a previous dialogue process, in the course of which the
participants create a common picture of what is really meaningful to their future.
Finally, the Bolivian partners conducted experimental and comparative on-farm

research in order to assess different agroforestry systems for economic long-term
viability.
27
The acronym for “Liaison Entre Actions du Développement Économique Rural ».
28
See more under www.rural-europe.aeidl.be.
29
named after INstruments for SUstainable REgional Development, the title of a EC-GD Research
funded study (1996-1998).
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4.2.3 The case study areas

The territories
The Bolivian El Chore colony does not follow administrative borderlines, in contrast
to the other three study areas. The El Chore colony (BOL) is structured by 19 unions
of farmers living next to the Forest Reserve of El Chore (created 1966). The members
of these unions are spread over four communities. The study area corresponds to the
territory of the Association of agricultural producers El Chore (ASPACH). The
ASPACH comprises four unions, straddling over three of the four communities.
The Brazilian partner chose the municipality of Ponta de Pedras on the Marajó
island. However, a big part of the empirical work was carried out in Praia Grande,
one of the municipality’s 14 rural communities. POEMA had started to work there in
1991 with the help of UNICEF in order to provide solutions to problems identified by
the community related to basic needs. As the program became more consolidated,
and production and processing activities developed, POEMA has expanded its
programs. In collaboration with Daimler-Chrysler and the Federal State a community
enterprise processing coconut fibre into headrests for cars was built in Ponta de
Pedras. Meanwhile this activity expanded further and a plant processing coconut
fibre for upholstery in trucks, but also for other consumer goods, has been built in the
industrial zone of Belém, thus helping local communities to get more revenues on
local resources. The study carried out in Ponta de Pedras contributed to a strategic
reflection of POEMA’s interventions in around 20 municipalities of Pará.
The Colombian partner chose the municipality of Puerto Nariño, mainly inhabited by
indigenous people, living together with other settlers in the trapecio Amazónico
between Peru and Brazil.
Ponta de Pedras, Puerto Nariño and El Chore are small, rural localities which are a
considerable distance from urban centers, the river ports of Belém and Letícia,
respectively the agro-industrial town of Santa Cruz.
The study region in Venezuela is the Federal State Apure. It covers the Western
part of the so-called Orinoco-Apure development axis. The national planning
authorities consider the axis as a most important pilot area for their strategy of
deconcentrated decentralisation, the aim of which is to balance the blatant economic
and demographic disparities between the Caribbean coast strip and the vast, only
sparsely populated central and southern parts of the country. Apure is about 200
times the size of El Chore and 30 times the size of Ponta de Pedras. About half of
the State’s population concentrate in the State capital, San Fernando de Apure.
The people
In El Choré (BOL) new settlers keep coming down since the sixties from the Andes
highlands in search for land. They mostly practice agriculture and cattle farming,
which is not approriate for Amazonian lowland soils.
This has led to a rapid depletion of the natural forest (even in parts of the protected
forest reserve of El Chore). The family farms have all similar sizes around 50 ha, with
40 – 50% covered with secondary forest (barbecho), and around 25% of production
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land and, likewise, primary forest. The immigrants from the highlands share the land
with other colonists (e.g. Canadian Mennonites, Japanese settlers) and some rich
estate owners. The constant inflow of people and the ineffective production
techniques cause demographic pressure leading to incursions into the forest reserve
and clashes with army forces defending the protected area. An agreement was
reached in 1982, but as the migration went on, the situation became again critical in
the recent past and culminated in new clashes during 2001.
Most of the new settlers are organized in unions which support their agricultural
activities and play an important role in many aspects of rural life and development
(e.g. commercialization, infrastructures, religious and cultural events). The important
role of the unions in collective affairs makes them an interesting partner for the
researchers and advisers of the CIMAR, whose main interests aim at transforming
the inadequate, destructive and inefficient production schemes into more sustainable
forms of land use.
In Ponta de Pedras (BRZ) the population consists of traditional island settlers of

mixed ethnic background. Although there is a distinct tradition and identity of the
island communities, the young generation shows strong tendencies to migrate into
the agglomeration of Belém. Supporting the community’s struggle against
depopulation, external development initiatives have helped to build up a community
based association and company to improve community infrastructure, environment
and schooling. Through the diversification of production and integral use of main
commercial crop – coconut, opportunities to improve food security and incomes have
been possible.
70% of the population in Puerto Nariño (COL) are indigenous, 90% of whom belong
to the Ticuna people. One third lives in the town, the other two thirds are scattered
over fifteen villages. During the last years, they went through a process of identity
revival, growing awareness of their cultural traditions and innate values,
accompanied by a strengthening of their political status and negotiation power. This
revival seems to get thwarted by the younger generation’s propensity for adopting
“modern” lifestyles. Most of the territory outside the town belongs to the indigenous
reserve (resguardo), which is controlled by the self-determined authority (cabildo).
The cabildo is represented by chiefs (curacas), who choose a curaca mayor as their
speaker. In many cases the land and resource claims of the cabildo clash with the
interests of colonists on one side and the National Park authorities on the other side.
The institutional fabric is extremely weak. After the collapse of the former, allegedly
corrupt municipal government, a new mayor and local council started to operate after
new elections in fall 1999. From the beginning of Y2k the research team had good
working relations with the local authorities. Already some time earlier, the project
team could initiate good relationships with the influential curacas. In spite of their
vivid interest in collaborating with the academic partners – whom they regarded as a
source of technical assistance - it turned out to be difficult to bring them all together
in regular meetings.
In Apure (VEN), about half of the population is rural, and half of them live in the
capital San Fernando. 70% of the municipalities are among the poorest ones
Venezuela, and the indices of malnutrition are the highest ones in the country. There
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is a strong tendency towards migration to urban centers on the coast, mainly

because of the mechanization and extensification of the Venezuelan agriculture30.
All study areas can be considered as peripheral, but not as extremely peripheral.
Table 12: The case study areas

BRZ BOL COL VEN
Study area Communidade Colonia El Chore Municipio de Estado Federal de
and territorial Praia Grande Puerto Nariño Apure
unit Municipio de Santa
Municipio de Ponta Rosa Departamiento de
de Pedras Amazonas
Provincia de Sara
Ilha de Marajó
Departamiento de
Estado de Pará Santa Cruz
Size 2.884 km2 303,25 km2 1.704 km2 76.500 km2
Population 17.486 3.093 4.719 449.231
Localisation Near the south 130 km northeast 75 km west from Federal State in
coast of the island from Santa Cruz de Letícia (30.000 the Llanos
of Marajó, 44 km (3 la Sierra (1 mio. inh.), at the (planes) area,
hours by boat) NW inhabitants) southern edge of stretched in W-E
from Belém (1,2 Colombia (trapecio direction along the
mio. inhabitants) amazónico) Apure River
Geographical Island settlement in Recently colonized Settlement on the Sparsely
situation a farming area at area around the Loretoyacu river populated rural
the Paracauari river upper Rio Piray, near its mouth into area with rich
near its mouth into 280 m altitude. the Amazonas; agricultural and
the Amazonas next to the fishery resources
National Park
Amacayacu
Key activities Agro-extractive Agriculture and Fishery, logging Agriculture, fishery
activities, fishery, cattle farming and agriculture
small livestock
The research teams

The Bolivian CIMAR chose an iterative procedure: At first the Bolivian coordinator,
Eduardo Velasco Hinojosa, carried out a socio-economic diagnosis of the
municipality of Santa Rosa. At the same time the agronomist Guido Menacho
Pedraza implemented a feasibility study upon agroforestry systems for the colony of
El Chore in order to select appropriate exploitation systems for the subsequent
experimental phase. Finally, a research team around Antonio Gonzáles Vasquez
(together with Bladimir Teran, Carmen Ribera Guzman and Marguien Fernandez)
visited El Chore and held two meetings with the leaders of the four communities.
During these meetings the local stakeholders and the leaders of the ASPACH
association assessed the situation in El Chore with the innovation compass. The
research team complemented the assessment with the help of their statistical data base.
30
Due to the dependency of the national economy on oil and gaz; a great deal of basic consumer
goods (e.g. rice) is imported from global market suppliers (e.g. Asian countries).
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In Brazil, under the responsibility of Norbert Fenzl, the local development study was
carried out by the Canadian researcher Vicky Schreiber, working both for POEMA
and NUMA. She was supported by POEMA development workers. In the course of
several meetings, she used the innovation compass to assess the situation before
the intervention of POEMA, after the first phase of basic needs orientation and after
the second phase of product and market development projects, thus getting three
subsequent assessment profiles.
Only in Colombia, the LMFA in tasks 2, the sectoral studies on timber production and
fishery in task 3 and the local development study in task 4 all focused on the same
territory: the municipality of Puerto Nariño. This procedure yielded synergy gains
concerning the concentration of the research staff, the connections to local actors
and the quality of the strategic recommendations, because they are not only based
on quantitative data, but also on informal face-to-face communication.
After the first year, Gustavo Martinez and Fernando Franco from the Bogotá campus
handed over the responsible role to the head of the Letícia campus, Carlos Zárate
Botía, who was substantially supported by Allan Wood Schofield and Germán Ochoa
Zuluaga. He spent several months in Puerto Nariño, living with the community,
holding interviews and organising public meetings, thus building up a considerable
capital of trust for future collaboration. In the finishing phase, the research team
organised a meeting with all relevant stakeholders in order to assess the area with
the innovation compass.
The head of the Venezuelan CENAMB and responsible research partner, Antonio de
Lisio, supports the government in its new approach of deconcentrated
decentralisation. Gilberto Buenaño, collaborator of the project in its first year, was
appointed Vice-Minister for Spatial Development and Regional Policies. The
CENAMB focuses on research activities which promise to strengthen the economy
and sustainable development of the underpopulated Orinoco-Apure axis. Fishery and
fish production are very promising activities due to their abundance in rivers and
lakes and a rich professional tradition in Apure, but they have never been strongly
promoted as a regional key activity. Luisa Mireya Guevara, teacher at the UNELLEZ
in San Fernando de Apure, took the opportunity of her masters thesis to outline the
potentials for sustainable development of the fishery sector in this state. The study
was carried out during a masters course at the CENDES.
The Venezuelan research team decided to adopt the INSURED framework for
sustainable regional development for designing, implementing and interpreting the
empirical survey among fishery families. In a first step Luisa Guevara selected and
operationalised the relevant variables with respect to the framework. She formulated
56 questions to 50 fishermen respectively their families, who were visited by
students. Then she exploited and interpreted the answers. Always keeping close
contact to relevant stakeholders (e.g. institutions providing technical support or the
incipient fishermen associations), she finally elaborated recommendations for the
development of the fishery sector.
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4.3 Results
4.3.1 Results in the study areas
El Chore (Bolivia)
The Bolivian researchers produced two types of results.
• The agroforestry study provides an integrative comparison between various types

of farming schemes on the basis of long rotation cycles (20 years), the
introduction of alternative crops (e.g. citrus fruits) and a selective use of the
regeneration fallow (collection of herbs, fruits etc.). The calculations show a
positive appreciation of at least four different schemes which would ensure
sufficient returns for a family having10 ha under production.
• The local development study starts with an assessment of the environmental,

social and economic situation of El Chore. The researchers observed that
migration and illegal colonisation still go on. Since 1992, the loss of forest since
1992 amounts to 16,5%, while the surface of agricultural land and pastures for
livestock grew remarkably.
The innovation compass profile allowed interesting insights concerning a number of

aspects. One of the most astounding results is the ratings concerning the local
identities in the ASPACH area. Even if the majority of the people does not originate
from there and have different ethnic and religious background, they show strong
common identities as “countrymen settlers” on the way to improve and to modernize
their lives. They show a considerable capacity of self-organization, which contrasts to
the lack of public support (technology transfer, development policies). ASPACH has
gained organizational power so that more communities want to be incorporated.
Financial resources and market relations for the rural households and enterprises
remain feeble.
The research team made the following general recommendations:

• To implement secondary level education and to generalise literacy among adults.
The researchers argue that local graduates from secondary schools have more
chance to successfully finish academic studies with the option to come back to
rural areas and build up some business, instead of breaking off from school and
accepting any low-qualified job in town in order to survive there.
• To organize trainings and update courses for farmers, furthering a better
understanding of natural processes and the importance of nature conservation.
• To facilitate access to modern technologies in collaboration with qualified
organizations.
• To promote alternative products embodying higher value added and to diversify
local and regional markets.
• To restrict slash and burn farming and the clearing of new agricultural land
(chaqueiros) by implementing the agroforestry and silvo-pasture schemes which
have been elaborated by the CIMAR researchers.
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In addition to the recommendations concerning territorial development, the

researchers and involved stakeholders designed a strategic plan for the future
orientation of the association ASPACH, based on three pillars:
• Preserving the environment and the natural resources by

o promoting agro-silvo-pasture production systems,
o preserving forest areas and the wild fauna.
• Improving competencies and technologies by

o diversifying into more marketable products (e.g. eggs, milk, cheese, honey,
coffee, cajú, vanilla, urucú, macadamia and others),
o providing technical training for farmers and playing an intermediary role in
search for knowledge partners.
• Strengthening enterprises and local institutions by

o creating and fostering new enterprises in processing and
commercialization,
o continuing their own institutional development,
o playing an active role in facilitating access to financial resources.
When the researchers confronted the local leaders with their own ideas and
recommendations, they found, as Prof. Antonio Gonzáles wrote, “total coincidence of
statements”. They even responded with immediate action by
• implementing agro-silvo-pastoral farms at an experimental level,

• implementing alternative productions (e.g. citrics, urucú, macadamia and honey),
• taking training courses (e.g. environment, agriculture, accountability etc.),
• purchasing a rice peeler for the community with the help of regional NGOs,
• acquiring technical assistance for organizational development of the unions and
ASPACH.
Praia Grande/ Municipio Ponta de Pedras (Brazil)

POEMA is an experienced NGO and promoter of sustainable development. After
around ten years of interventions in around 20 municipalities of the State of Pará, it
went through a period of strategic revision process. In this phase, the innovation
compass seemed to be an interesting tool to be tested with regard to its capability to
be used as an adequate method of both defining interventions and to monitor and to
evaluate the impacts of local sustainable development initiatives. Therefore the
Brazilian study put more emphasis on the methodological aspect itself than on the
identification of new strategies in community development.
The team applied the innovation compass for the community of Praia Grande and its
municipality Ponta de Pedras in two phases of the investigation:
• At first, from the observers’ (POEMA’s) perspective: The rating was made for
three periods:
o before POEMA started its interventions (before 1991/92)
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o after the first of basic need oriented projects (before 1995/96)

o today, after the second and at the outset of the current third phase, which
focuses at integrated development in close collaboration with the
municipalities and industrial partners.
The evolution of the compass profile shows improvements in human resource
development, external market-oriented entrepreneurial activities and local
governance. Local actors and their external supporters were able to link the
natural endowment of the area to commercial activities, i.e. to turn assets into
economic resources (organic farming, fibre processing).
• Secondly, the team organised a rating session with local stakeholders (two
community members, two representatives of local organisations and one local
politician) after having further adapted the instrument to the local situation. The
result of this rating is shown in the compass profile which we present further
below. It shows clear improvements in competencies, entrepreneurial activities,
finance and environment. Local governance and human resource development
were regarded more positively by the external observers who made the rating
before (see above). As Vicky Schreiber points out, “the most striking outcome of
this test at the level of the community is that even after almost a decade of
interventions, progress has bgeen evaluated as minimal. Even so this is
understandable as while some progress has been made, particularly
improvements ni the environment and local capacities to solve problems, the
community still has a relatively low indice for human development”.
Most probably the long-term collaboration between academic researchers, technical

assistants and the local population, organised in a legal community company, has
facilitated the integration of a mainly self-sufficient community into regional value
added cycles on the ground of people’s own expression of will, emerging from
participatory processes.
As it is always the case after the opening up of such local communities, metropolitan
lifestyles strongly attract the young generation, supported by the ubiquitous media,
especially TV, but also by tempting tales from emigrants. In the near future, the
strengthening of the local capital, still largely intact, seems to be a first order
challenge. This could be done
• by promoting the cultural distinctiveness embodied in local products, services or
festivities;
• by creating selective attractions for the recreation of urban people (from Belém),
even though this economic niche does not seem to become relevant within the
next few years;
• by using school and adult education as a creative element for community
development.
As a conclusion, Vicky Schreiber states that “the cohesiveness of the community

remains its strong point and further investments in productive activities and markets
are required to consolidate the initiatives already put into place… Overall for this
case study, interventions in long term capital – environment – and catalysts such as
identities and productive activities have produced the greatest improvements…
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Efforts to improve governance and finance seem more difficult possibly due to the
fact that many external forces come into play along these axes.”
Puerto Nariño (Colombia)

In 1991 a new constitution postulated a “new Amazonian municipality” within a
framework of a decentralised administration, indigenous rights, social participation,
public control and more autonomy of the local levels. The reality in the politically
unstable, economically marginalized Amazonian communities turns out to be quite
different. The area diagnosis according to the innovation compass profile shows the
fragmentation of the local (natural, cultural, social) potentials and the weakness of
their articulation in the local communities. The coca boom in the seventies and
eighties had left considerable scars in the communities of the trapecio Amazónico,
such as the alienation from traditional ways of life, greed for quick money, an
increase of corruption in the public system and the occurrence of alcoholism and
prostitution among the young generation.
The local decision making system seems to be partially paralysed between four
divergent interest groups:
• The municipality, which lacks own resources except national money transfers,
and even they are not properly managed.
• The National Park authority which depends on a national government agency,
whose representatives are out of reach and not coordinated with other public
bodies.
• The indigenous cabildo represented by the curacas, who enjoy increasing legal
rights of access and ownership of the natural resources.
• The settlers (colonos), who are interested in expanding farming, fishing and wood
cutting activities.
In Puerto Nariño there are only rudimentary business activities. They are dominated
by one single patron, who controls most of the commodity flows of the municipality.
In summary, the researchers express their doubts about “the viability of Puerto
Nariño as an autonomous municipality” and ascertain “the absence…of proposals for
endogenous economic development which would be compatible with the vision of
sustainability” (C. Zárate).
One of the promising aspects of the study area is the incipient eco-tourism, which is
still severely hampered by Colombia’s image as a country of permanent civil war,
even if the trapecio Amazónico turns out to be a remarkably peaceful area, because
drug traffic has been shifted from fluvial to air transport in the last years.
So much of the positive aspects root in the remoteness of the area and not in the
economic strength or a common will of the local communities. This “unconscious”
state makes it specifically vulnerable to possible external political or economic
influences. E.g. the creeping loss of fishery resources could quickly turn into a severe
Page 87
environmental crisis, if new commercial opportunities were opened up and eventually

spurred the extraction of fish.31
Fernando Franco, in his conceptual paper “Municipio Amazónio: Un Modelo Sin

Armar”32 sees the leverage point in the activation of civil rights and citizens
participation in collective decision making. Subsequently he gives the following
recommendations for municipal development in Colombian Amazonia:
• “Broad citizens participation in the design and implementation of the programs of

the elected mayors.
• Deepening and generalization of the legally designated organisations for
implementing participatory democracy.
• Full application of the civic control mechanisms for administrative functions and
the use of public resources.
• Full application of the legal instruments for sanctioning public functionaries,
particularly the revocation of a mandate.
• Universal application of citizens rights with respect to jurisdiction.”
The research team made similar recommendations for Puerto Nariño:
• On local governance:
o Broad involvement of citizens in the design and implementation of the
municipal programmes.
o Acquiring and deepening knowledge about the possibilities and experience
in handling democratic participation.
o Application of the constitutional norms on social and ethnic rights.
o Citizens’ control over the use of public resources.
o Fostering the capacity of self-organizing groups of producers, dwellers and
indigenous people to manage local resources.
o Improvement of the people’s capacities to self-organize themselves in
order to fill the gaps left by ineffective public services, e.g. in social affairs,
schooling, infrastructure etc.
• On economic diversification:
o Improvement of the local entrepreneurial capacity by fostering local and
regional markets.
o Diversification of the local economy, by encouraging the consumption of
local products and their commercialization towards regional and national
markets on the basis of their competitive natural and cultural advantages
(e.g. eco-tourism, handicraft).
Apure (Venezuela)
The study focused on the fishery value-added chain, but considered this sector as a
key activity for restructuring the territorial economy and regional image as a whole.
31
Actually there are already 25 tons of fish per year commercialized to Letícia. The control of illegal
fishing is patchy.
32
„The Amazonian municipality: A model towards integration.“
Page 88
The assumption behind this approach was that, if this sector were developed in a
sustainable way, it would create positive trade-offs in other economic sectors and the
living conditions of the communities in Apure.
Based on secondary data exploitation and 50 in-depth interviews of fishermen’s

families, the researcher made a comprehensive diagnosis of the environmental and
geographical conditions of the fishery value added chain, as well of the social and
economic context.
As a general observation, fishery and aquaculture in Apure are predominantly extensive

and subsistence-oriented. Fishermen are low to medium-skilled, they lack technical
advice, technological or financial support. Environmental knowledge and awareness
are poor. L. Guevara observed the hitherto absence of a public policy or political
purpose to develop this widespread activity into an economic strength of the region.
Collective self-organization among professional fishermen is almost non-existent.
L. Guevara set out the following recommendations for developing fishery in the Apure
State:
• Awareness raising, education and training measures for fishermen to change
attitudes, improve self-esteem, raise environmental awareness and economic
thinking.
• Creation of technical assistance bureaus in the municipalities.
• Re-orientation of academic curricula towards entrepreneurial skills.
• Integration of environmental education into the formal education.
• Environmental education for agricultural producers.
• Promotion of fishing associations by the UNELLEZ through technical assistance.
• Revision of regional and national development programmes for positioning the
fishery sector as a key activity in the regional economy.
• Aquaculture has to become an integral part of the sustainable use of the
environment.
• The support services have to fulfil the role which is ascribed to them.
In a final discussion within the research team, the first, second, third, sixth and
seventh point have been identified as being important and feasible in short or
medium term. L. Guevara will continue her academic career at the UNELLEZ as a
promoter of the fishery sector in Apure, helping to implement the recommendations
she made in her study. She operates in close collaboration with the regional branch
of the SARPA (the national fishery institute) and helps local producers in creating
their own associations.
4.3.2 Lessons upon the appropriateness of the applied

assessment tools
The innovation compass
It was used in three local development studies, namely in El Chore (BOL), Puerto
Nariño (COL) and Praia Grande/ Mun. Ponta de Pedras (BRZ).
Table 13 shows how diversely the compass has been utilised.
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Table 13: Utilisation of the innovation compass in the Amazonia 21 studies on

local development
For which time Who made the rating

El Chore (BOL) Status for the present time and Local stakeholders, with redactional
trends referring to some 10 years changes made by the researcher
ago
Praia Grande 1. Status for three dates (past, 1. Researchers and technical
(BRZ) past, present) over around 10 staff of the NGO POEMA
years
2. Status of today and 10 years 2. Local stakeholders
ago
Puerto Nariño Present status Researcher together with local
(COL) stakeholders
The Bolivian research team concluded that the innovation compass delivers good
insights into the essential factors of social change, and found the local stakeholders
very receptive to this instrument. The process of rating and validating led to an
intensified community dialogue and a higher readiness to innovate.
The Brazilian research team intends to adapt the compass for a general review of the
projects of POEMA. The researchers recommend its use on the regional scale, too,
e.g. in the Program for Integrated Environmental Management of the state
government of Pará. According to V. Schreiber, the Innovation Compass is
“a valid tool, not only to monitor changes brought about by development actions but
to also discuss in a participatory manner strategies which can be used to improve
overall conditions through specific actions … (in) problem areas.”
The Colombian research team worked with the compass in a stakeholders meeting in
the very last phase of the study, on the basis of the translation made by the Bolivian
team. As a conclusion, the Colombian team states that the compass
“turns out to be a useful tool for carrying out an integrated assessment of the
situation in a conventional municipality, but it seems less adapted to reflect several
aspects of municipalities of the Colombian Amazon. The very scarce links of Puerto
Nariño to regional and national markets, the high level of subsistence in its local
economy, the inexistence of financial and statistical accounting systems and, in
summary, the total absence of reliable financial services, make that some
subcomponents of the compass profile remain close to zero. Maybe some of the
interpretations would work better, if a municipality like Puerto Nariño were on the
path to “modernisation” or “integration” into a dynamic and competitive market
economy, and in a perspective of relative self-reliance without the support of the
State, but interpretation hardly works in this Amazonian border area, which keeps
being cut off from the rest of the country in economic and political terms. Maybe it is
possible to introduce questions referring to the process of departmental and
municipal decentralisation, the management of transfer payments and possibilities of
endogenous development which is not focused on market development.”
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It is interesting to see the difference in the validation of the tool between El Chore
and Puerto Nariño, where the same questionnaire was used. Whatever the reason
might be, the remarks made by the Colombian team constitute a valuable hint for
potential users of the tool to thoroughly adapt the questionnaire according to the
specific context, before the discussions with local stakeholders. It is even
recommendable to involve stakeholders’ representatives into this preparatory work.
The following diagrams provide a comparative overview over the compass profiles for
the communities of El Chore, Praia Grande (municipality of Ponta de Pedras)33 and
Puerto Nariño.
As a general observation, the left sides of the three diagrams expose convex profiles
which means that there are considerable environmental and social potentials in all
the communities. They seem to have strong identities regardless of ethnic and
religious homogeneity or diversity. On the other hand, these potentials remain
fragmented and largely undeveloped. Market links, financial resources and
competencies are generally weak.
Figure 13: Compass profile of El Chore (BOL)
Compass profile El Chore

Markets
5
Images 4 Finance
2
Environment Activities
past
1 present
Human Resources Competencies
Identities Governance
33
Representing the second rating done by local stakeholders
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Figure 14: Compass profile of Praia Grande (Ponta de Pedras/BRZ)
Compass profile Ponta de Pedras

Markets
5
Images 4 Finance
2
1 past
present
Figure 15: Compass profile of Puerto Nariño (COL)
Compass profile Puerto Nariño

Markets
5
Images 4 Finance
2
1 past
present
Page 92
Concerning the trends, the potentials of El Chore remain nearly unchanged over
time, whereas the capacity for endogenous economic development and capacity
building even seems to shrink. There are clear signs of stagnation, but the
strengthening of identity is a good seedbed for collective self-organisation and the
capacity to conduct a structured dialogue with external, governmental or market
forces.
In Praia Grande/Ponta de Pedras, the starting situation shows relatively good values
in identities and images. The progress made due to POEMA’s interventions have
improved the environmental situation and awareness, and took effect on the level of
competencies, entrepreneurial activities and the financial situation of the community.
Compared to the other profiles, this one shows the clearest signs of development,
albeit in small steps.
The Puerto Nariño profile seems to be representative for remote, peripheral locations
in the heartland of Amazonia. Highly dependent on subsistence activities, maybe
calm and idyllic at first sight, but fragmented, poor and unprepared for confronting the
global economy.
The revised INSURED framework for a territorial sector study

An earlier version of the revised INSURED framework34 has been used in the fishery
study for Apure (VEN). To be precise, the researcher only used the ten components
for sustainable development35:
• The development dimensions (Environment, Socioculture, Economy)
• The equity principles (Social, interterritorial and intergenerational equity)
• The systemic principles (Competition, Cooperation, Participation, Subsidiarity).
L. Guevara used them as a template to operationalise 22 variables, broken down into

46 indicators, for the design of the questionnaire (56 questions) and for the
exploitation and interpretation of the results. The researcher states that it served as a
helpful guide for applying different perspectives on the research topic, implying a mix
of quantitative (e.g. ecological parameters) and qualitative validations (e.g.
concerning the behaviour of fishermen with respect to co-operation or competition).
Concluding remarks on the proposed tools

The experiences during the empirical studies have brought forth a lot of additional
inputs for a general revision of the tools:
The co-ordinator produced a new version of the innovation compass as a strategic

instrument for the interactive assessment of innovation needs in territorial
development. It is attached to the task 4 synthesis and to the final report of Amazonia
21.
34
Much more similar to the original INSURED framework than the actual “generative tool for
instruments for sustainable development” as exposed in the “Background Paper: Towards a Meta-
Model for Instruments for Sustainable Development”, attached to the final report of “Amazonia 21”.
35
Leaving aside the so-called “social potentials” and “transformation levers
Page 93
In the “Background Paper: Towards a Meta-model of Instruments for sustainable

Development” the co-ordinator introduced a new format of the INSURED framework
as a generative toolbox for instruments for sustainable development, which aims at
helping local actors, researchers, agenda 21 coordinators etc. to develop instruments
for diagnosing, planning, implementing and evaluating sustainable development
according to their needs. The background paper is attached to this final report.
Both tools are subject to a constant process of revision. Hence it is clear that they
represent stages in an ongoing process of improvement. Their core criterion of
quality is usefulness and applicability in most divergent situations.
In summary, the tools introduced in the local development studies have stimulated
reflection among stakeholders and, to various degrees, have resulted in practical
proposals and concrete action. They strengthened the links between the academic
world and the local actors and stakeholders, thus preparing the seedbed for future
collaboration.
4.3.3 Observations on some key issues of sustainable regional

development in Amazonia
Observations on Amazonia’s local economies
The local development studies highlight the importance of distinguishing three types
of economic processes and flows:
• Local subsistence (farming, fishing) is essential for the survival of the local
communities in all study areas. At least, one third of the families more or less live
from subsistence in Ponta de Pedras and the Apure State. In El Chore and Puerto
Nariño this rate lies certainly above 50%.
• Regional market exchanges comprise urban centres in the wider environment,

mostly connected by fluvial transport, more rarely by road. They ensure the
purchase and sale of basic commodities and the commercialisation of extracted
goods, with very little or no processing in the study area itself (fish, wood, rice).
Commodities which do not serve regional markets, are forwarded to the bigger
cities around the Amazonian basin (Bogotá, Caracas), with little value added
remaining in the zone of origin. Regional economic flows cross borders,
especially in Pto. Nariño (with Peru und Brazil), and in Apure (with Colombia), in
some areas they benefit from price gradients on the black market (particularly in
Apure).
• Global flows concern activities for which there is a specific demand on world
markets determining the local price situation (e.g. gold and gems, precious
timber, but also tourism). However, a considerable part of the global flows
relevant for Amazonia do not even reach so far. According to the Brazilian
forestry study, it is the demand of Southern Brazilian metropolitan areas (e.g. São
Paulo) which devours a remarkable share of Amazonian timber.
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In all study areas, the relative weakness of regional market exchanges is

conspicuous. Infrastructure and equipment in river ports do not correspond with the
overall importance of waterways in Amazonia’s interior economy. On the other hand,
whenever global flows directly plug into local subsistence activities without being
buffered and through intermediate, regional economies, they rapidly destabilise local
ecosystems and the social fabric of local communities. Toothless law enforcement
and weak local and regional governance hardly provide shelter from unlawful
practices. E.g. more than 80% of the timber harvest in Brazil stems from illegal
logging activities. A particular case of illicit global flows is the coca economy, which
had a strong impact on the Colombian and Bolivian study areas at least until the
early nineties of the past century. Its imprints in local power structures, production
and consumption patterns and in the attitudes of the influential people are still at
work.
The richness and diversity of the Amazonian environment is mirrored in the

subsistence practices and knowledge of indigenous people and traditional forest
dwellers. In a “passive” modernization process local people take over the
consumption patterns and habits from global influences (e.g. through education in
schools, or by imitating dominant cultural patterns diffused by the omnipresent
television). Traditional practices and the corresponding knowledge dwindle. People
adopt inappropriate agro-extractive production methods, ogle for quick money or
leave to metropolitan areas.
It is thinkable to break this tendency by building up entrepreneurial skills, e.g. in the

process of a gradual and selective transformation of subsistence economies into
local and regional market systems (e.g. açaï36 and coconut processing in Ponta de
Pedras, fishing and aqua-farming in Apure). As a consequence, local economies may
diversify their production methods (see the recommendations of the researchers for
El Chore) and, subsequently, the range of products and services (e.g. citrus fruits
and peeled rice in El Chore, eco-tourism and handicraft in Pto. Nariño, coconut fibre
in Ponta de Pedras).
In this process, priority should be given to products which are consumed in the wider
region. The success of exported goods depends on the local capacity to validate the
product quality, and this capacity is rooted in the tacit knowledge of local
communities. E.g. an attempt to introduce aqua-farming practices near Pto. Nariño
had failed, because the fish which was raised there, was disapproved of by the local
people, as it was not part of the traditional local diet. This error could have been
avoided with the actual knowledge about local habits and customs, which the
research team accumulated during the Amazonia 21 project. And this knowledge
should be exploited for sustainable local development: A similar project on the upper
Rio Negro turned out to be a big success for the project owners, an association of the
Tukuya people:
“In the starting phase of the aquaculture plant in the year 1999 people were
mistrustful because of other projects having failed because of the use of fishes
36
a palm fruit
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imported from other parts of Brazil. But subsequently the team, consisting of
Southern Brazilian fishery experts and local adolescents, geared their attention
towards local species and developed their own techniques for their reproduction in
artificial ponds….Much more important than the technical solution was a cultural
discussion in the communities in integrating this innovation into their whole system –
something which is alien to our modern Western way of thinking.”37
Observations on local resource management and environmental protection

All along the agricultural frontier of Amazonia we witness a typical sequence of
environmental destruction:
• It mostly starts with the selective logging of valuable species by foreign

companies or local sawmills, in some cases with the exploration of new mines or
oil wells.
• Job and land seeking migrants follow the access roads built by the extractive
enterprises, and practice slash and burn agriculture (like in El Chore). Either
immediately, or only after a few years of agricultural use, the land gets converted
into pasture, until it is left exhausted and infertile. People push the agricultural
frontier further and the spiral of destruction restarts.
The example of Ponta de Pedras shows how the collaboration between external
support services providing technology, know how and finance, and local community
initiatives can foster their capacity for autonomous decision making and sustainable
livelihood.
In Ponta de Pedras and El Chore, agroforestry and agro-silvo-pastoral production

methods are considered as crucial factors in changing the exploitation patterns
towards sustainable development.
According to the studies (e.g. Puerto Nariño); self-organisation and self-

determination of both local communities and producers are necessary for sustainable
resource management. However these conditions are not sufficient, either: Capacity
building and equitable access to land and other resources will be of equal
importance. In many cases, private estates and national parks have a similar impact
on local populations: they exclude local people and obstruct their subsistence
activities. Thus environmental protection must go hand in hand with building up local
communities, in order to be respected by the local population and hence sustainable.
Observations on local governance

In many Amazonian municipalities, formal decentralisation of power coincides with
the factual impotence of local authorities:
• Indigenous reserves gain more self-control and access to their natural resources.
• A considerable part of Amazonia is subject to environmental laws and regulations
and the decisions of national park authorities aloof from local municipalities.
37
Journal Klimabündnis 4/2001, page 5. Wien 2001.
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• Local businessmen and private companies pursue their vested interests, in many
cases exploiting the lack of control and enforcement capacity for better profits.
• Public management is plagued by incompetence, fragmentation and corruption.
The inefficiency of public authorities and the absence of spatial development policies
may be partially compensated by the self-organizing capacity of the local society.
This could be for example observed in the remarkable recovery process of the
situation of many indigenous people, specifically in Brazil. Obviously, this must be
seen in connection with the global awareness and support they could rely on during
the last years. However, local communities can only be effectively supported by
external partners, when their level of social competitiveness allows for entering a
structured dialogue which eventually leads to co-operation in projects for sustainable
development. Among the study areas, the communities in Ponta de Pedras show
signs of stark improvements in this direction, whereas we might witness a similar, but
incipient process in El Chore, whereas in Puerto Nariño the basal conditions for
social transformation will still have to be created. The researchers from the Letícia
unversity campus - provided the staff gets the necessary funds - could play the role
of an external facilitator, in a similar way as the CIMAR in Santa Cruz understand
themselves with regard to the farming communities in Santa Rosa.
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5 Integrated Training Programme on Sustainable

Development (task 5)
Amazonia 21- Operational features for Sustainable Development - was conceived as
theoretical and practical project focused on Panamazonian universities, to implement
Sustainable Development post-graduate programs (research and training) at the
partner institutions. Concerning the specific task, the original idea was to proceed
basically in 3 steps:
1. Establish a training program (Integrated Training Programme for Sustainable

Development – ITP) directly related to the tasks of the project
2. Train the trainers (Seminar, Minihof-Liebau, Austria) to create the first ITP
version.
3. Implement post-graduate courses based on the ITP at the partner institutions.
Steps 1 and 2 have been successfully implemented, whereas step 3 has been
implemented only completely in Brazil (NAEA) and partly in Venezuela. At the other
panamazonian partner institutions (IMANI, Colombia and CIMAR, Bolivia) the ITP
program has been approved by the different levels of the university administrations
and has been included in SD post-graduate programs for 2002, but not yet
implemented to date.
5.1 Train the Trainers

The ITP was to provide the theoretical and methodological background and practical
guidelines for sustainable development research at the PAC institutes. So far it was
necessary as a first step to train at least one or two members of the PAC partners to
enhance the local implantation of the ITP. To achieve this first goal, an intensive
training session for the future PAC trainers has been carried out in July 1999 in
Austria.
The training session brought forth a complete structured first version of the ITP,
based on the most recent literature and experiences in general SD issues and task
related subjects. The training sessions were facilitated by the EU partners according
to their specific role in the project. Each PAC partner participated at least with two
future trainers – altogether 12 trainees. As mentioned, the basic idea was to
transform the first version of the ITP step by step into regular courses, according to
the specific reality of each PAC partner institution.
The ITP was delivered in the units described below.
5.1.1 Unit 01 - Concepts of sustainability - parameters and

indicators for sustainable development
This unit was an introduction to the different approaches to sustainable development
concepts and indicator systems. The aim of the unit was to establish the theoretical
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and methodological basis to develop parameters and indicator systems for

sustainable development in Amazonia. Unit 01 was based on the following topics:
• Overview of the different concepts of sustainability and indicator systems in
official documents and programs.
• Basic concepts and theoretical / methodological approaches
• Practical examples of indicator systems for sustainable development
• Indicator systems and their political relevance
Responsible partners: IVM and WIKUE
5.1.2 Unit 02 - Theory and practice of material flow accounting at

the national, regional, local and sectoral level
The unit focused on material flow analyses at different levels and how the results of
MFAs can be used in practice. Unit 02 was based on the following topics:
• Theories and methodologies of MFA
• Different uses of MFA studies
• Practical examples of MFA studies
• Socio-economic, political and environmental relevance of MFA studies.
Responsible partner: IFF
5.1.3 Unit 03 - Structural change and eco-restructuring in

strategic sectors of national economies
This unit focused way how structural changes in important economic sectors have to
be analysed and how the results of such analyses can be used to promote eco-
restructuring processes. Unit 03 was based on the following topics:
• General concepts of structural change
• Theory and methods of structural change analysis
• Examples of structural change analysis
• Social management of structural change
• Influences of environmental policies
Responsible partner: FFU Berlin
5.1.4 Unit 04 - International experiences and evolution of

regional sustainable development initiatives
This unit focused on theoretical, methodological and practical aspects to analyse,

evaluate and assess regional sustainable development initiatives. Unit 04 was based
on the following topics:
• Innovation and sustainability
• Concepts to generate appropriate assessment tools
• Sustainable regional development in Europe
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• Strategic planning for building up innovative activities

• Practical management of sustainable regional development
• Systemic approaches to develop consultancy and evaluation of sustainable
development initiatives
Responsible: ÖAR, LCC.
5.1.5 Unit 05 - Agenda 21

This unit treated the historical roots and political aspects of the whole Agenda
building process.
• History
• International, regional and local experiences
• Methodology of their implementation
• Elaboration and evaluation of sustainable development project
Responsible: ÖAR.
5.2 The Implementation of the ITP at the PAC partner institutions

5.2.1 NAEA - Brazil
At the NAEA the integrated training program (ITP) has been implemented three times
(November 1999, May/June 2000 and May/June2001). The content and the number
of participants has been approximately the same in each case, with the difference
that part of the second and third course has been done partially using e-learning
techniques, putting for example the didactic material on our amazonia21-homepage.
The idea to implement e-learning methods was a result of the practical experience
gained during the implementation of the courses.
We noticed that the real audience interested in the course could hardly be reached
by traditional presentation methods, because most of them are professionals and not
full-time students and have difficulties to be regularly present in all classes.
As a general conclusion, the enormous lack of “trained trainers” – despite the

Minihof-Liebau training course – and the enormous distances between the
universities require new techniques to disseminate the ITP program at the
Amazonian universities. To overcome these difficulties the NAEA is actually working
on the installation of a specific web site for e-learning to offer our course not only to
the partners of the project, but also to all interested Panamazonian universities.
5.2.2 CIMAR – Bolivia

During the first semester of 2000, CIMAR started to elaborate a complete M.Sc. post-
graduate program, based on the original version of ITP. The creation of such
programs depends on different levels of bureaucratic steps. The program has to be
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approved not only by the University hierarchy, but also by the Ministry of Education.
Actually the university planned to offer the course in 2002.
Meanwhile some isolated topics of ITP (like MFA) have been introduced in other,
already established courses.
5.2.3 IMANI – Colombia

IMANI started the first ITP module as optional discipline in the 2nd semester of 2001
in its master curriculum for Amazonian studies at the Letícia Campus.
The ITP program will become an obligatory module in the master course
Environment and Development in 2002.
5.2.4 CENAMB – Venezuela

In June 2000, the CENAMB started to include elements of ITP into a regular course
on environmental management held at the Central University of Venezuela. Because
of good results, a special course on operational instruments for SD will be
implemented in 2002.
A specific course based on the ITP had to be cancelled at the University of Zulia in
the 1st semester of 2001 because of poor dissemination and too little demand. After a
redesign of promotional activities, a new attempt will be made in Zulia in the first
semester of 2002.
5.2.5 FES - University of Amazonas

One of the successes of Amazonia 2” was the fact that the project was joined by a
new partner institution, the faculty for Economic and Social Studies (FES) of the
Federal University of the State of Amazonas (Manaus, Brazil). The faculty created a
whole post-graduate program based on the experiences and input of the project
Amazonia 21 and hosted the International Conference, organized by the project in
October 2001. After the conference, Robert Lukesch and Harald Payer held two days
of lectures for the post-graduate course on regional development.
5.3 Experiences
Besides other effects, the project Amazonia 21 brought a new quality of post-
graduate programs concerning sustainable development to the Panamazonian
universities. The innovative character of the ITP turned out to raise interest and to
create a new thrust for dealing with SD problems at the academic institutions.
Universities like UFAC (State of Acre, Brazil), UFRO (State of Rondônia, Brazil),
UAM (State of Amazonas, Brazil), Universidad de Loja (Ecuador) and the University
of Suriname recently joined the Amazonia 21 partnership for a new project,
specifically focused on SD post-graduate programs based on e-learning techniques.
Thus a self-organized process emerges, enhanced by Amazonia 21.
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The ITP courses planned for 2002 at the PAC partner institutions should from the
outset, at least partially, be supported by e-learning techniques.
However, the real dimension of the challenges to implement SD programs at

Panamazonian universities is only beginning to appear. Several universities
contacted the project team to negotiate future co-operation for implementing specific
courses in the field of operational SD issues. Even if there is a general consensus
upon the high importance to integrate SD programs into post-graduate research and
training, there are several problems to face:
1. The academic structures of the universities are not yet adapted to inter- and
transdisciplinary activities. Actually post-graduate programs and recognized
academic titles are very closely related to traditional academic disciplines. Even in
more innovative institutions, like the NAEA (Federal University of Pará, Brazil) and
Venezuela (CENAMB, UCV), these questions are still being discussed and not yet
completely solved. For example, the NAEA disposes of the first (and only) officially
recognized Ph.D. program called “Sustainable Development in Humid Tropics” of all
Brazilian Amazonian universities. Until recently, the program did not offer operational
SD topics and was mainly based on general theoretical discussions and
environmental, economic and sociological aspects. So far, the ITP modules
developed by Amazonia 21 represent the first effort to focus the program on practical
and operational aspects of SD. The numerous and persevering audience of the ITP
courses at the NAEA showed the enormous interest of the students in practical
approaches.
These structural problems are not only limited to universities. The difficulties to deal
with transdisciplinarity are clearly visible if we look at the governmental academic
policies. During the first years of the NAEA PhD program, the Brazilian Ministry of
Education asked for a clear decision upon how to classify the final grade. It focused
the discussion on the false problem if the future professional should be classified as
sociologist, economist or environmental scientist. Only very recently the concept of
sustainable development and sustainable regional development has been included in
governmental academic programs, thus opening space for recognized
interdisciplinary research.
Thus the first important lesson of task 5 certainly is the fact that, despite the still
existing structural limitations at the universities, the ITP for sustainable development
raised enormous interest not only in the partner institutions of the project, but also
among other universities together by the association of amazonian universities
(UNAMAZ).
2. During the practical implementation of the ITP, the lack of trained teachers
became evident. Despite the advances made in theoretical discussions about SD
topics during the last five years, the Amazonian universities still suffer from a nearly
complete lack of trained human resources capable to deal with operational
instruments for sustainable development. Consequently the “train the trainers”
seminar at Minihof-Liebau (Austria) was still a too small input to guarantee the
implementation of consistent courses in all partner institutions.
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This is the reason why we undertook some modifications in task 5. At the NAEA the
integrated training program has been implemented three times as a 60-hours course.
The content and the number of participants (about 50 students of very different
academic fields) has been approximately the same, with the difference that parts of
the last two courses were supported by e-learning techniques.
As mentioned before, the reasons for trying out e-learning options are based on our
experience with the attempt to implement the ITP at the partner institutions of the
project. The great lack of available trainers and the enormous distances between the
Amazonian universities showed that the interested public hardly could be reached
through conventional announcements. To overcome these difficulties, the task co-
ordinators created an e-learning website to offer our course not only to the project
partners, but also to all interested panamazonian universities. Unfortunately the e-
learning concept has not been introduced in the original project concept and was not
included in the budget, but even so, the planned courses for 2002 should already
count on this device.
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6 Synthesis: Nine strategic recommendations

In chapter 1.2 we represented the main structural problems of Amazonia as a mutual
causation cycle between three main factors:
• Centralist governance paired with crass institutional weaknesses.
• Blatant wealth disparities paired with ailing local economies.
• Lacking entrepreneurial and organization skills.
Our recommendations follow this track, as we think that real changes can only be
initiated if all three edges of the “vicious triangle” are tackled at the same time, and in
a co-ordinated way. Therefore we embed our recommendations into the three
dimensions
• Institutional changes: Decentralised governance and strong public institutions.
• Productiveness and innovation: Thriving, diversified local economies.
• Capacity building: Skilled people and prosperous communities.
They were firstly disseminated at the Manaus conference and served as a common
basis for stimulating the discussions during the workshops on the second day, which
were dedicated to changes in sectoral and territorial policies in Amazonia. The
recommendations
• are mainly based on the empirical findings from the studies carried out in the
course of Amazonia 21;
• have the character of operational hypotheses for strategies and instruments for
sustainable development in Panamazonian countries;
• do not cover each and every aspect, but mainly focus on the realm of governance
on one side and on research and higher education on the other side. We address
political decision makers and leaders of the academic and educational systems;
• do not aim at repairing negative side effects of the exploitation systems in place,
they rather aim at structural change. They anticipate a sustainable cohabitation of
man and nature, a thriving Amazonian society in an area where biodiversity and
natural resources are well preserved;
• are based on the transformed model of a virtuous cycle of positive effects
between good governance, thriving local economies and an acceptable living
standard of people;
• do not insinuate that we regard Amazonia as a homogeneous space. Amazonias
regions are highly diverse, in terms of geography, culture and with respect to its
socio-economic specificities. What remains identical, is the task: To foster
sustainable development in the whole of Amazonia;
• concern different levels of action. Only a concerted, integrated approach will
result in tangible changes: The higher levels (e.g. the nations) would provide the
context for the lower ones (e.g. the regions and, further down, the municipalities).
The will of the national authorities is decisive for lasting change even on local
levels, regardless to the global context, which is more or less out of reach of
governments in PACs.
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Table 14: Main dimensions and strategies towards sustainable transformation

in Amazonia
3 Dimensions 9 Strategies
• Institutional changes: 1. Integrated territorial development in a perspective of

subsidiarity
2. Decentralisation and institutional strengthening
3. Social equity and access to land
• Productiveness and 4. Local ownership
innovation: 5. SME support and new markets
6. Technological change
• Capacity building: 7. Promotion of social skills
8. Empowerment of social actors and participation
9. Transregional and transnational co-operation
6.1 Institutional changes

6.1.1 Integrated territorial development in a perspective of
subsidiarity
Sustainable development in Amazonia has to be based on the endogenous
potentials and corresponding development programmes have mainly to be shaped by
those living in and for that region. These programmes have to integrate
environmental preservation measures under a strategic point of view, i.e. as an
integral part of the sustainable development of the wider area.
Universities are called to provide the corresponding accounting methods and data and to
support local and regional agenda 21 processes through training and, if necessary,
facilitation.
Public authorities have to play a key role in integrated territorial planning and strategic local
and regional development by ensuring the communication between sectors and by vertical
and horizontal co-ordination of activities. Each territorial scale of governance has to set up
development programmes with substantial involvement of social and economic stakeholders,
vertically and horizontally interlinked by corresponding measures on the next higher levels of
governance.
The indicators in use at local levels have to make sense in the daily activities and
interactions of the people. These indicators have to be linked up to those on the next higher
respectively lower scales in a way that allows us to aggregate and to process meaningful
information for decision makers.
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On the national levels, national material flow analyses can be seen as additional means to
monitor the evolution, as they provide reliable – if indirect – indicators for environmental
impact. Local MFAs will provide valuable information about the flows typical to subsistence
activities which still play an eminent role in the economies of Amazonia.
6.1.2 Decentralisation and institutional strengthening

Decentralisation of power structures takes positive effects, if the different levels of
governance communicate with each other in similar ways. The higher level of
governance provides a transparent framework of general goals and sufficient
resources for the lower levels to work out their area-specific development strategies.
Local people and communities are capable to articulate their interests. Local people
and their organisations have sufficient space for participation and public negotiation.
The achievements of negotiations are laid down in reliable contractual agreements.
The consultation processes lead to common decisions, which have to be

energetically enforced on the basis of transparent and generally accepted rules.
These rules can be composed of top down measures, contractual agreements, peer
control and positive incentives for cross-compliance (e.g. compensatory measures).
Universities are called to direct their curricula and the content of their courses towards the
future needs of their area. They shall actively participate in the planning and monitoring of
local and regional development programmes.
Public authorities, endowed with sufficient resources, competencies and appropriate

infrastructures, are called to enforce legislative regulations and democratic agreements. At
the local levels, self-organised stakeholder partnerships and non-governmental organisations
can help in planning, decision making and implementation of collective issues such as
habitat, environment, social welfare and security. The enforcement of environmental laws
and regulations (extraction quota, soil protection) should be under the responsibility of local
governments.
6.1.3 Social equity and access to land

Only people’s just and equitable access to resources, such as land, energy and
income opportunities can lead to a decisive shift away from poverty and exclusion
towards prosperity, sustainable livelihood in a climate of public security.
Land redistribution is an essential measure of relief for poor populations bound for
migration. Putting underutilised land under production, will take pressure from the
forest fringes, where landless populations continue to settle.
Universities are called to support these programmes with action research, e.g. on
agroforestry, water management etc.
Public authorities have to set up long term plans to cope with problems caused by
migration towards the forest areas. Migrants in search of land in the fringe area of the
Amazonian forest have to be received and integrated, offered possibilities for vocational
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training and collective self-organisation. There must be transparent and obligatory

frameworks for sustainable land use schemes and technical assistance for production and
commercialisation. This long-term perspective includes economic development and social
redistribution programmes aiming at an acceptable living standard in the source areas of
migration.
6.2 Productiveness and innovation

6.2.1 Local ownership
Local ownership means a model of responsibility sharing, which involves knowledge
transfer and capacity building and a free flow of information between generations,
sectors and cultures. This requires a common agreement upon the principles and
conditions and a simple language. Priority should be given to supporting community-
based tenure. Community-based tenurial shells are a necessary condition for
ecological sustainability in certain situations. Specifically, tenurial shells offer a way
to protect existing indigenous and other traditional community-based resource
management systems in biologically diverse and ecologically fragile areas.
The local communities should be organized into larger and larger groups within a
nested hierarchy, with the larger groups serving to coordinate the activities of the
component neighboring groups and to resolve disputes. The larger resource
management groups should form appropriate links with political institutions at
corresponding levels.
Universities can take an active role in the mediation process of tradition-based, actualized
agreements on property rights and resource use.
Public authorities should promote sectoral associations (e.g. of fishers, woodcutters) which
would take over direct responsibilities in the use and maintenance of the resources they live
on. Subsidies or any other support for small and medium enterprises and local communities
should be tied to appropriate compliance rules concerning the use of more eco-efficient
technologies and local stewardship.
6.2.2 SME support and new markets

In the search to foster diversified local economies, there are some strategic elements
which should be taken into account by public programmes:
- SME development, enterprise start-ups, innovation transfer and business co-

operation projects.
- Sectoral self-organisation and regional business networks need advisory and
infrastructural support until becoming self-sustaining.
- The establishment of local and regional development funds.
Biodiversity is the major resource for Amazonian people. The great challenge is to
use this asset without depleting or deteriorating it. There are many studies on
alternative activities and new products, but only a few are implemented to date. Local
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entrepreneurs have to become aware of the real opportunities offered by the

Amazonian environment.
The protection of sensitive areas offers major assets for economic development,
provided they enjoy public (international) significance. Eco-tourism, which is
embedded in an integral concept of local development, can play a key role in
stabilising rural economies even in very remote and sensitive areas.
Universities and other institutions of higher education shall provide entrepreneurial skills to
their graduates and stimulate start-ups from their research activities. They shall help SME
and sectoral associations to explore alternative domestic and global markets by identifying
new consumer demands. They should help in providing appropriate certification and labelling
schemes (e.g. organic food) for allowing the producers to compete in international quality
markets. Information about market opportunities and available technologies are
preconditions to unfold the potentials of a value added chain. New technologies of
information and communication will play a supportive role in this respect.
Public authorities should foster the emergence of local and regional value added chains.
They should put special attention to enterprises and business services which are active in
regional key activities (e.g. the agro-alimentary sector or shipbuilding). These key activities
may represent germs of a future industrial cluster.
6.2.3 Technological change

Urgent measures should be taken to replace inefficient technologies by others which
relieve pressure on local resources. This can be done either
- by raising eco-efficiency: e.g. it can even be recommendable to replace firewood
by gas or petroleum stoves),
- by structural measures: e.g. the downscaling of an industry, more service
orientation, infrastructure planning for new settlement areas, urban renewal
measures
- by substitution of products in favour of less resource-consuming ones.
Universities play a clear role in know how transfer and adaptation. Innovation with regard to
eco-efficiency probably requires more external knowledge, whereas for structural measures
a lot of untapped local knowledge can be used. New technologies of information and
communication shall be used to overcome problems caused by distance and remoteness,
e.g. in the health and education sectors.
Public authorities should provide a framework of incentives and restrictions in order to

avoid environmental damage and negative externalities of private activities.
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6.3 Capacity Building

6.3.1 Promotion of social skills
Democratic participation, local resource stewardship and entrepreneurship require
self-esteem and social competitiveness encompassing technical capabilities and
organisational skills.
Universities play a key role in providing support to local communities and sectoral
organisations through training courses (for professionals, development workers and decision
makers). They shall emphasise inter- and transdisciplinary projects together with NGOs,
private enterprises and public authorities.
Public authorities should embed environmental awareness and knowledge building in adult
and primary education through active forms of learning (listening to stories from the elder
generation, accompanying professionals in their daily activities, learning from peers).
Capacity building activities shall in any case build on the existing world views, competencies
and skills prevalent in the respective communities. The knowledge of indigenous people and
local communities has to be fully taken into account in training programmes aiming at
environmental protection and economic activities. Local knowledge has to be legally
protected from being drained towards external monopolies (e.g. represented by
pharmaceutical companies), and at the same time transformed into marketable products and
services fostering local economies.
Local capacity building and empowerment requires open-mindedness for co-operating with
international partners concerning funding, expertise, public information etc. Co-operation
agreements should be embedded in coherent plans involving relevant stakeholders, non-
governmental organisations and universities.
6.3.2 Empowerment of social actors and participation

The participation of local people in decision making processes, which affect their
habitat and the ways they make their livings, is a key element of sustainable
development. This is also true for environmental monitoring, the primary task of those
who live close to or make their livings from the respective resources. Effective
participation on the local level is intrinsically connected with an integrated,
intersectoral local development approach.
Universities should support this process by trainings of local animators and local agenda 21
coordinators in close partnership with NGOs and public bodies.
Public authorities should actively encourage stakeholders’ participation at all territorial

levels in order to reach a broad consensus for decisions concerning resource management,
economic and spatial planning and regional development.
Competent participation needs people who have time (availability), who have something to
contribute (skills) and who want to contribute (motivation). Participation has to be actively
encouraged by the authorities. It needs incentives, upon which the potential participants can
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agree. This incentive can consist in the solution of a burning problem, in a better access to
economic resources or in more autonomy.
The authorities have to support the process of participation by ensuring sufficient space for
communication and personal security of those, who raise their voice even in conflicting
issues. Over the whole process, the authorities are responsible for the free flow of relevant
information.
At the local levels, formal elements of modern governance merge with more informal,
traditional and associative ways of building communities, setting common goals and
managing collective issues. This diversity of democratic expressions eventually leads to
more self-esteem and self-reliance of local communities.
6.3.3 Transregional and transnational co-operation

Panamazonian countries and the world community, in recognition of the global
relevance of the ecological fate of the Amazon river basin, shall join their forces for
an integrated and sustainable development of the Amazonian region, allowing to
make its unique biodiversity its greatest asset not only in conservationist terms, but
also in economic terms.
Public authorities should make use of the framework of the Amazon Treaty to promote
cross-border co-operation projects and agreements between regions
(Estados/Departamientos) and localities (municipalities) in different parts of Amazonia.
Amazonian universities are connected through the network UNAMAZ, a very appropriate
instrument for putting research and higher education into a Panamazonian perspective.
UNAMAZ members shall enhance co-operation in delivering inter- and transdisciplinary
training courses for sustainable development in Amazonia and by carrying out joint research
projects.
European-Amazonian co-operation links shall be strengthened specifically in

the fields of environmental technologies, resource management, regional
development through networking, staff exchange and joint projects between
public and private actors.
Page 110
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Annex (Overview)
A. Case Studies
Vol. 2: National Material Flow Analysis for Brazil

J. Machado, N. Fenzl: The sustainability of development and the material flows of
economy: a comparative study of Brazil and industrialized countries
Vol. 3: National Material Flow Analysis for Venezuela

H. Castellano: Material Flow Analysis in Venezuela
Vol. 4: National Material Flow Analysis for Bolivia

A. Pierront: Material Flow Analysis in Bolivia
Vol. 5: Local Material Flow Analysis in Brazil

K. Ninni: Sustentabilidade incógnita: Análise de fluxos materiais em três
comunidades impactadas pela instituição da Floresta Nacional de Caxiuanã – PA
Vol. 6: Local Material Flow Analysis in Bolivia

I. Lizarazú: Local Material and Energy Flow Analysis
Vol. 7: Local Material Flow Analysis in Colombia

C. Zárate, G. Ochoa, A. Wood: Local Material Flow Analysis in Puerto Nariño
Vol. 8: Sectoral Restructuring in Venezuela

L. Perez: Gas industry in Venezuela
Vol. 9: Sectoral Restructuring in Bolivia

E. Hinojosa: Amazonia 21 - Task 3
Vol. 10: Sectoral Restructuring in Colombia I: Fishing

C. Zárate, G. Ochoa, A. Wood: The Fishing Sector in the Trapecio Amazónico and in
Puerto Nariño
Vol. 11: Sectoral Restructuring in Colombia II: Timber

C. Zárate, G. Ochoa, A. Wood: The Timber Sector in the Colombian Trapecio
Amazónico and in Puerto Nariño
Vol. 12: Sectoral Restructuring Brazil

M. Monteiro, N. Fenzl: Metallurgy in the Brazilien Amazon: Alternatives for activities
with scarce ecological prudence
Vol 13: Sectoral Restructuring in Brazil

N. Sember, G. Cayres, A. Mathis: Forestry in the Brazilian Amazon
Page 114
Vol. 14: Agroforestry in El Chore (Bolivia)

G. Pedrazo: Propuestas agroforestales para la comunidad “El Chore”. Estudio de
Prefactibilidad.
Vol. 15: Fishery in the State of Apure (Venezuela)

L. Guevara : Aplicación del Esquema de Desarollo Sustentable Regional (Schleicher-
Tappeser 1998) en Sistémas de Producción. Caso : Piscicultura. Estado Apure
Vol. 16: Local development in Bolivia

A. González: Territorial Development and Innovation of “El Chore” Colony, Santa
Cruz, Bolivia
Vol. 17: Local development in Brazil

V. Schreiber, F. Martins: The Experience of POEMA in Ponta de Pedras, Marajo
Island, Pará, Brazil
Vol. 18: Local development in Colombia

C.Zárate, G. Ochoa, A. Wood: Puerto Nariño: Municipio Ribereño y Selvatico.
Monografía Ambiental.
B. Concept Papers
Vol. 19: A. De Lisio 2000: Sostentibilidad y ciencia: Elementos para la

profundización y actualización del debate
Vol. 20: F. Franco 2000: Municipio Amazónico: Un modelo sin armar
Vol. 21: C. Zárate 2000: Los condicionantes Sociales, Politicos e Institucionales

del Ordenamiento Ambiental de la Amazonia
Vol. 22: A. Ribeiro 2001: Sistemas e Indicadores de Desenvolvimento

Sustentavel para a Amazônia
Vol 23: R. Lukesch 2001: The Innovation Compass: An Interactive Tool for
Strategic Area Assessment
Vol. 24: R. Lukesch 2001: Patterns of Sustainability: Towards a Meta-Model of

Instruments for Sustainable Development
C. Publications and Presentations
Page 115
Vol. 25: S. de Bruyn / M. van Drunen 1999: Sustainability and indicators in

Amazonia, conceptual framework for use in Amazonia. Report number W-99/37,
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Vol. 26: H. Aiking, S. de Bruyn, M.van Drunen 1999: Indicators for

sustainability, in: M.van Drunen and P. Vellinga (Eds.): The Environment, a
multidisciplinary concern, Report number R-99/08, Institute for Environmental
Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit, p. 231-259.
Vol. 27: R. Lukesch, N. Fenzl, H. Payer 2000: A ten-string polyphonic

experience of transcontinental research and training cooperation. Conference
proceedings of the biannual conference of the European Society of Ecological
Economics (ESEE) in Vienna, May 2000.
Vol. 28: N. Fenzl 2000: Como formular e implementar a Agenda Amazônia 21.
NUMA-UFPA, Belém.
Vol. 29: N. Fenzl, M. Monteiro 2000: Energetic-material losses and regional

impoverishment: Pig iron production case in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon, in:
Gaia 3/2000.
Vol. 30: A. Mathis, K. Ninni 2000: Socio-ecological transition in the Amazon: A

case study in the communities of Pedreira, Caxiuanã and Laranjal. Paper
presented at the 4th S/ISSR Conference “World in Transition” in Vienna,
Austria, September 2000.
Vol. 31: A. Mathis 2000: Agenda Amazônia 21: Por que, para quem e como? In:
Aragon L.E. (ed.): Debates sobre a Agenda Amazônia 21. p.21-30. Belém
(UNAMAZ).
Vol. 32: A. Mathis 2001: Instrumentos para o desenvolvimento regional. VI

Congreso Internacional del CLAD sobre la Reforma del Estado y de la
Administración Pública. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 5-9 de noviembre de 2001.
Vol. 33: A. Mathis 2001: Instrumentos para o desenvolvimento sustentável

regional. Adcontar: Revista do Centro de Estudos Administrativos e Contábeis.
Belém. v.2 n2, p. 19-30.
Vol. 34: R. Lukesch 2001: Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften im Amazonas-Gebiet.

Internationales Forschungsprojekt unter österreichischer Führung, in: impulse!
Newsletter der ÖAR Regionalberatung GesmbH 1/2001, 6.
Vol. 35: M. Fischer-Kowalski, C. Amann 2001: Beyond IPAT and Kuznets

Curves: Globalisation as a Vital Factor in Analysing the Environmental Impact
of Socio-Economic Metabolism. In: Population and Environment, Vol. 23, No. 1,
7-47.
Page 116
Vol. 36: C. Amann 2001: National Material Flow Accounting in Developing

Countries. Methodological Experiences “, presented at “The Science & Culture
of Industrial Ecology” ISIE 2001 Meeting in Leiden, The Netherlands, 12-14,
November 2001.
Vol. 37: M. Fischer-Kowalski, N. Fenzl, J. Machado, H. Bohorquez 2001: Rapid

Metabolic Change as a Chance and a Threat to Sustainability: The Case of
Amazonia. Presented at the Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global
Environmental Change Research Community of IHDP in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
6-8 October 2001
Page 117

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AMAZONIA 21

R. Lukesch, H. Payer (Eds.)

Operational Features for Managing Sustainable

Publication Series Vol. 1

Robert Lukesch, Harald Payer

Christof Amann, Manfred Binder, Willibald

ÖAR Regional Consultants Ltd. (Coordination)

Adress: A-1010 Vienna, Fichtegasse 2/17

Executive Summary ______________________________________10

1.1 The region of Amazonia ...................................................................................................23

2 Material Flow Accounting in Amazonia (task 2) ______________34

2.1 Conceptual and methodological framework .....................................................................34

3 The Environmental Dimension of Economic

3.1 Analysing Economic Sectors.........................................................................................61

3.3 Understanding Economic Restructuring........................................................................67

4 Patterns of Sustainability in Regional Development

4.1 Research themes and partners ........................................................................................76

5 Integrated Training Programme on Sustainable

5.1 Train the Trainers .............................................................................................................98

6 Synthesis: Nine strategic recommendations________________104

6.1 Institutional changes.......................................................................................................105

• ÖAR Regional Consultants Ltd., Vienna, Austria (coordinator)

The “Amazonia 21” outcomes: A fertile seedbed for future co-operation

From 24 to 26 October 2001, an international conference was held at the Parque do

• ÖAR Regionalberatung: Richard Hummelbrunner, Elisabeth Lukesch, Robert

Content and structure of this final report

Chapter 2 sums up the theoretical background of material flow accounting, the

Chapter 4 summarizes the investigations undertaken to explore sustainable

Chapter 5 reports on the implementation of the integrated training programme at the

• Mathis, A. 2001: Instrumentos para o desenvolvimento regional. VI Congreso

We carried out 17 empirical studies:

• 2 studies on forestry/timber extraction (Brazil, Colombia)

We produced materials for a complete university training course on theoretical and

From 24 to 26 October 2001 an international conference was held at the Parque do

On the project website (http://www.amazonia21.org) all kinds of information upon the

Table 1: The structure of Amazonia 21

Objectives Coordi Case studies

RESEARCH & TRAINING

Task 3 Analysis of structural changes in FFU 2 studies on forestry/timber

Task 4 Patterns of sustainability in regional ÖAR 3 local development studies;

Task 6 Synthesis ÖAR,

Indicators for sustainable development in Amazonia

1. Data availability and reliability

Proceeding on the IVM contribution, the NAEA doctorand Adagenor L. Ribeiro

Feasibility of material flow accounting in PAC

Structural changes in selected key sectors of the Amazonian economy

The analysis goes through the four categories:

- There tend to be interesting alternatives which have been ignored by major

Patterns of sustainability in regional development initiatives

(Colombia). The partnership was either based on a longer history of collaboration

• CIMAR (Bolivia) focused on rural development at the agricultural frontier of the

• The “INSURED framework for sustainable regional development”, which allows to

Finally, the local development studies provided the following insights:

Final recommendations: Three dimensions and nine strategies

1. Integrated territorial development in a perspective of subsidiarity

2. Decentralisation and institutional strengthening

3. Social equity and access to land

B. Productiveness and innovation

5. SME support and new markets

7. Promotion of social skills

8. Empowerment of social actors and participation

9. Transregional and transnational co-operation