IPÊ was one of the organizations involved in the creation of the Mosaic of Protected Areas in the lower Negro River. It is necessary to integrate the management of the areas that are already physically connected, as well as to bring together their social actors, decreasing the situation of isolation and difficulty of managing each area individually.

According to article 26 of the SNUC (National System of Conservation Units), when there are Protected Areas (PAs) of different categories or not (parks, ecological stations, extractive reserves and indigenous lands) in close proximity, juxtaposed or overlapping, it is interesting to create a mosaic of these areas, with integrated and participatory management, to conserve biodiversity and enhance socio-cultural diversity and sustainable local development.

This connection is made through participatory and shared management, with a single body of social actors, which facilitates processes of communication, interaction and management of territorial development and environmental conservation projects.

In addition, the Mosaic delimits a territorial contour with local socio-biodiversity references that generate potential for development in this region. IPÊ’s project sought precisely to link the consolidation of these democratic spaces with the promotion of sustainable local development, including the perspectives of the product and service chains of the region’s traditional peoples.

Local people’s knowledge and ways of managing ecosystems (“know-how”) are socially and ecologically efficient and should be taken into account in public management programs. It is therefore important to create an “ethnodevelopment” proposal for which the PAs in the Rio Negro basin are the key differentiator. This ends up attracting resources, strengthening territorial identity, acting as a potential source of income for the population and acting as the main means of guaranteeing their food security.

The process of creating and strengthening the Mosaic began in 2006, with the support of the National Environment Fund (FNMA), through actions to create the Management Council for all the region’s Protected Areas and to promote territorial development. As the work progressed, new potential and proposals for strengthening and developing the territory were identified:

• Preparation of the territorial development plan and its implementation;
• Training and definition of a common territorial identity among social actors;
• Mechanisms for valuing services and products (processes for creating a seal/certification for the Mosaic’s socio-biodiversity products);
• Communication and information.