The limited existing governance framework and structures to promote, disseminate and implement sustainable land management practices restrict the ability to implement existing and new measures to reduce multiple pressures on land. Knowledge is not consolidated and incorporated in practice. While there has been remarkable progress, the federal, state and municipal responsibilities overlap, sectoral approaches lack sufficient integration and the roles of the private sector and civil society are undergoing change as consultation and participation continue to be strengthened.
Planning and Policy: The PAE-SE provides an adequate description of existing programs and state-level priorities to reduce LD, but is lacking in detail regarding comprehensive baseline measurements, a full delineation of institutional roles and responsibilities and procedures for sector interventions or coordination among sectors and funding needs. While it is multi-sectoral, participatory and legitimate, it does not specifically use a multi-sectoral lens to analyze LD causes, impacts and solutions. This limits its utility as a planning tool to guide decision making for these purposes.
While the Sergipe State Forest Program has considerable convergence with other state-level programs and plans, the various programs do not consistently promote SLM practices. The other sectoral programs include irrigation, rainwater catchment and storage, credit, insurance and social programs, among others. Some programs intended for social protection can have adverse and unexpected environmental effects, such as the existence of insurance to cover harvest losses, which has led to increased high-input corn cultivation that does not adhere to SLM principles. Inappropriate use of water for irrigation has contributed to salinization. On the other hand, government stipends, water, electricity, housing, furnishings, rural pensions and various kinds of government services (school lunches, cisterns, health, social security etc.) reduce the pressure on the land to produce food or generate monetary income to meet needs through the market.
The Standing Group to Combat Desertification (GPCD) can be a key actor at the level of Sergipe if it increases its capacity to involve and influence state government agencies outside the environmental area as well as federal and municipal agencies. Its responsibilities also overlap with the State Environment Council (CEMA) and State Water Resources Council (CONERH) and a new state forest council.The National Commission for Combating Desertification and Mitigation of Effects of Drought (NCCD), created in April of 2007, could help promote multi-sectoral approaches at a higher level.
Land use planning would help control land use, particularly in areas at risk of desertification, but such planning has not been undertaken at the scale required to control land degradation in Sergipe. A federal level Ecological-Economic Zoning (EEZ) Plan exists. Some work is also being carried out on the São Francisco River Basin, which includes most of the SAS, by the National Water Agency (ANA). SEMARH and the World Bank will be carrying out an EEZ for Sergipe. There is need for specific recommendations and guidance to include the INRM and SLM lens. There are no plans to produce a specific detailed EEZ of the SAS, which has been identified as the LD priority in Sergipe. Such EEZ is costly and not easy, but it would be useful to better plan and oversee the licensing processes effectively. So far, productive activities have proceeded without due regard to soil type, land degradation status and future risk, or social and economic criteria. Furthermore, coordinated inter-sectoral landscape level action has not been carried out at the state level with the key stakeholders. Since such detailed zoning takes years to complete and is very costly, work must begin as soon as possible based on existing knowledge, which has advanced significantly in recent years. Planning to prepare for the 306 km Xingó Canal through five of the seven municipalities is an urgent need.
The Secretariat of Planning (SEPLAN), which is responsible for the formulation and management of the state's participatory planning, including the four-year Pluri-Year Plans (PPA) and annual budgets of approximately US$3.4 billion per year, makes budgetary decisions on a sector-by-sector basis with little consideration of environmental impacts. There is insufficient integration to guarantee due incorporation of concerns with desertification in the new PPA for 2016-2019.
Institutional limitations within SEMARH translate into a situation in which licensing and oversight of land use changes and vegetation suppression is not based on consideration of LD hotpots or SLM criteria or broad understanding of the multiple pressures on the land and available alternatives. The 2013 National Environmental Council (CONAMA) Resolution (458) simplifying licensing procedures for land reform settlements allows state governments to establish specific conditions for licensing, consistent with national norms. The planning of Areas of Permanent Preservation (APP) and of Legal Reserves (LR) must be undertaken in accordance with the recently approved Forest Law, which does not contemplate LD criteria. It is not clear yet what uses can be made of such areas; new regulations are pending and will certainly require revision as new knowledge and experience are acquired. There are no clear directives to speed up approval of sustainable practices in different ecosystems of the Caatinga, with various types of plant cover. Knowledge of how to prepare management plans is scarce and consultants are expensive. Procedures and suitable SLM practices to link with the different types of licenses are often unclear to those involved, so that appropriate submissions are difficult to make and thus to be approved.
Oversight of land use regulations is also limited by insufficient capacity within SEMARH, IBAMA and municipalities and insufficient understanding on the part of all concerned about alternative practices and existing instruments for control, oversight and extension. The applications are often incomplete or inconsistent and the licensing agencies have insufficient personnel to meet the burgeoning demands from new settlements and new regulations. Under the new Forest Law, which replaced the former Forest Code in 2012, the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), identifying geo-referenced Legal Reserves (LR) and Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs), is still in the early stages of implementation and will stretch state resources for land use regulation even further. It requires constant updating of registered data whenever there is change on the ground. Implementation is delayed because of serious legal issues about confidentiality of information at the individual property level and technical issues about scale, remote sensing, design of polygons, uploading etc. There is an urgent need to set up and strengthen state capacities so that the Registry can be effective and incorporate SLM principles, thereby optimizing the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) foreseen in the new Forest Law as a tool for combating land degradation. The general principles need to be translated into concrete criteria.
At the national level, the procedures for the issuance of licenses under the federal domain require tailoring to take into account SLM criteria and practices. Some initiatives can be taken regarding oversight of land use at the state level in Sergipe. At the municipal level, despite Brazil’s policy of decentralization, which promotes the increased assumption of environmental responsibilities by municipalities, the latter are ill-equipped to take on these new functions, including licensing and oversight of activities within their boundaries, especially the small municipalities in the interior which lack sufficient scale and the necessary financial and human resources. There is no mechanism as yet for cooperation among such municipalities. The government land settlement projects do not receive sufficient support from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) or the state agency. The situation is even worse with regard to post-licensing inspections.
Finally, replication, up-scaling and mainstreaming of positive small-scale experiences of civil society organizations and others in the promotion of SLM at the project level is limited due to insufficient information dissemination, contributing to incomplete knowledge base on appropriate practices for Sergipe. The information dissemination that occurs is mostly in literature with a much broader geographical scope, even for the tropics and subtropics around the world, but this information needs to be made more readily available in the SAS in appropriate formats and language.
