亚马逊农民缺水求打井建蓄水池，帕拉州定居点面临气候困境

Daniel Nogueira Silva Rodrigo Vargas/Divulgação Farming families in the Amazon are asking for wells, irrigation systems, and cisterns—in a region that is home to some of the world’s largest rivers. It is one effect of the climate crisis, which is placing additional strain on vulnerable areas with longstanding economic and social challenges. “Being close to water is different from having access to it,” says economist Daniel Nogueira Silva, an associate professor of economics at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará (Unifesspa). Born in Feira de Santana, Bahia, Silva, 37, earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in Rio Grande do Sul and at the University of Massachusetts. He coordinates the university’s Observatory of Public Policies for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation. The observatory was established in 2026 through a project approved by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and developed by a network of researchers from Pará interested in studying the effects of the climate crisis in the region with Brazil’s largest number of agrarian-reform settlers. “The project has an end date. But this issue will remain with us and requires continuity. That is why we created the observatory, so that we could work permanently in these areas,” he explains. Silva spoke with Valor two weeks ago about family farmers’ climate-adaptation initiatives, the limited progress of public policy and the main problem they report: a lack of water. The temperature was 42°C. Below are the main excerpts from his interview with Valor: Valor: How did you connect economics, climate, and the Amazon? Daniel Nogueira Silva: In 2017, after returning from my doctorate in the United States, I passed a public examination for a teaching position at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará (Unifesspa) in the Amazon. That was when I began engaging with the region’s issues and seeing firsthand a reality I had previously known only through reading and hearsay. But it was a different Amazon from the one I had imagined. It was not the forested Amazon. I encountered a deforested Amazon with great economic potential and significant social challenges. Valor: What kind of setting did you find? Silva: I arrived during the boom in large mining projects that are now operating. Although I continued studying macroeconomic issues, I gradually realized that I also needed to understand what directly affected people’s lives. I needed a deeper understanding of this Amazon. Valor: What Amazon is that? Silva: We work in the deforested Amazon, in the Arc of Deforestation. This is no longer the Amazon under pressure, where the remaining forest is still being contested. This area has already been deforested. The process took place 30 years ago. Valor: What is the profile of this deforested Amazon? Silva: It is also highly urbanized. Some of Pará’s largest cities are here: Marabá, Parauapebas, Canaã dos Carajás, Redenção and Xinguara. These municipalities are populous and have two main economic activities: mining, which makes this part of Pará one of Brazil’s most important regions, and a clear expansion of agribusiness, especially cattle ranching. Cattle ranching is robust. Family farming has a smaller presence. Many agrarian-reform families play an important role in food production. Valor: Is this the region with the largest number of agrarian-reform settlements in Brazil? Silva: Pará has the greatest concentration of agrarian-reform settlements in Brazil. According to Incra, it has 1,183 settlements with more than 270,000 families—nearly 30% of all families living in settlements nationwide. This region has the highest concentration of settlements in Pará, and Marabá has more settlers than any other municipality in the state and, therefore, in Brazil. Valor: The settlements play an ambivalent role in relation to forests: they contain important remnants but have also experienced substantial deforestation. Silva: We need to view this historically. Some of these settlements were formerly pastures—degraded areas where the forest recovered to some extent after the cattle were removed. These families settled the land and faced the challenge of producing on it. When we asked whether they had been able to plant when they arrived, the answer was no. The soil was highly acidic and depleted. In the oldest settlements, the government encouraged them to produce without much concern for the forest. Those who have been here for 40 years say they were told they had to clear the forest to plant. Now, 40 years later, we are telling them they need to plant trees again. The way this region is understood has changed. They cannot be blamed for something they were also victims of and for which no public policies existed. Valor: How did the climate crisis become part of your research? Silva: Climate entered the picture when understanding the region’s economy required understanding the lives of farming families facing a range of challenges: obtaining credit, securing technical assistance, and creating cooperatives. Drought and other climate-related problems were added to those economic and social challenges. It was no longer enough to discuss financing without considering climate issues. Valor: When did that happen? Silva: For me, it was in 2023, but these issues had been part of the local reality long before then. It was essential to design economic policies that accounted for climate change during implementation. There was no point in having a policy that distributed seedlings to families so they could produce through agroforestry systems that mimic the forest if all the seedlings would die during the next drought, as they did in 2023. The strategy had to be aligned with an increasingly difficult scenario. It was impossible to discuss the region’s economy without considering mining activity, agribusiness expansion, and climate change. The climate crisis added another layer to the challenge of understanding such a complex region. Valor: Was the drought severe in 2023? Silva: It was. We visited some families, and I could see the despair in the farmers’ eyes as they faced a situation they did not know how to handle. They had the strength, skills, and potential to produce, but they could not cope with the drought and destructive heat. Many lost everything. The climate became a new challenge for these communities. For families already living in vulnerable conditions, that is devastating. Many give up their land. It is difficult to stay when every initiative fails, and the absence of public policy is clear. That became evident in 2023: determination, knowing when to plant, growing the sweetest pineapple, and having good buyers at the market were not enough without public policies to help them through difficult and often unpredictable conditions. Valor: What came out of that? Silva: I posed the following question: Given such an intense situation, how could public policy respond? Not federal policy, but local policy with the capacity to reach these families. As I listened to farmers, what they described sounded like a tragedy, but I also saw hope. So I wanted to understand public policy on one side and the initiatives farmers were adopting on the other. We brought together colleagues from the university who are agronomists, social scientists, and economists. In 2024, a network of researchers from the Federal University of Pará, the Federal University of Western Pará, and the Federal Institute of Pará submitted a project to CNPq to study public climate-adaptation policies in the Amazon, focusing on state government and communities. We wanted to answer two questions: What have these families been facing and how have they dealt with climate issues, and how have local public policies responded? We also wanted to know whether the bioeconomy can offer a viable strategy as the climate continues to worsen. We visited 10 municipalities and 14 agrarian-reform settlements—including conventional settlement projects, sustainable-development projects, and agro-extractive projects. We interviewed 350 families. The research is still underway. Our goal is to work in four more municipalities and interview another 100 families. Valor: What have you found so far? Silva: The families face very concrete challenges that differ from place to place. It is also very clear to us that municipal governments are largely unprepared to deal with climate-related conditions. Valor: What are the main difficulties? Silva: The issue that comes up most often is water management. Water is central. Valor: But these families are in the Amazon, in a region of major rivers. Marabá lies at the confluence of the Tocantins and Itacaiúnas rivers. Silva: And a little farther upstream is the confluence of the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers. Yet these families cannot secure water for periods of drought. There is a difference between water being available and people having access to it. There are two factors. Both the volume and timing of rainfall have changed. Rain is now concentrated in fewer months, while the dry season lasts longer. And yes, we are in Pará, home to some of the largest river basins, with an abundance of rivers. But water availability is different from water access. A river may pass within meters of a community, but if residents lack the means to obtain and manage that water, it might as well not exist. Access depends on financing, technical assistance, technology, irrigation systems, and pumps. Water is the challenge before us. Valor: How do the outcomes differ? Silva: When we visit these settlements, we see the tangible effects of climate-related challenges. But the same climate event that devastated one place had far milder effects elsewhere. Both endured the same six months of drought, but one had access to a particular public policy, and the other did not. In São Félix do Xingu, for example, public policies that let communities preserve more forest also protected production from the drought’s worst effects. In more heavily deforested areas, crops were much more exposed, and the drought killed everything. Within the same settlement, we hear families living only meters apart describe completely different outcomes: one says everything it planted died, while neighbors with irrigation say their production increased. One family gained access to public policy, and the other did not. Valor: What strategies are farmers adopting? Silva: The first is diversifying production. They have realized that monoculture is far more vulnerable to climate change than diversified production. Another is gaining access to water systems such as irrigation and cisterns. Only 25% of those interviewed have access to them. Valor: Cisterns in the Amazon? Silva: Cisterns appear increasingly necessary in the Amazon, especially if rainfall becomes concentrated in only a few months. They are not yet widely used, but demand for them is emerging. Valor: Is the region already feeling the effects of El Niño? Silva: It is a more cyclical phenomenon, but when it occurs amid intensifying climate change, the combination makes conditions in the region more critical. This area already faces adverse conditions. When we examine local government budgets and municipal climate-adaptation plans, they are either nonexistent or fragmented. The initiatives lack focus. Yet conversations with municipal officials make clear that communities are already pressing public authorities strongly on this issue. They are saying: “We have no water. We need wells, irrigation systems, and cisterns.” We have frequently been asked to help municipalities discuss these issues and assist public officials with contingency plans. This is not an isolated situation. The region is deteriorating. We have heard that communities initially struggled to gain access to land, but now they are fighting to remain on it as climate conditions grow increasingly severe. The journalist’s travel was facilitated by an invitation from Novas Vozes Econômicas (Nove). Translation: Todd Harkin