Project Rationale, Design Principles And Strategic Considerations
The project has been designed to address the two main barriers that are preventing sustainable land management, that is, an insufficient governance framework to promote SLM in Sergipe and the capacity and finance issues that are limiting the uptake of sustainable practices in the state. It will do so by strengthening the state environmental governance framework to better address the main drivers of land degradation and desertification, focusing primarily on the escalating conflict between land uses of smallholders that adopt best practices and unsustainable agriculture practices in degraded agro-ecological landscapes where LD is already high causing soil erosion, soil nutrient depletion, damaging hydrological system integrity and undermining ecosystem services.
This requires initiatives at the various levels of government, involving different sectors, international cooperation, the private sector and civil society. To some extent, the solutions in Sergipe depend on changes in the broader regional, national and international context. The pioneer work undertaken in Sergipe in the project can also contribute to such changes far beyond the borders of Sergipe, in 10 other states. The global and national concerns with sustainability, climate and poverty provide many opportunities for scaling up and mainstreaming. In order for the various stakeholders to buy into this approach, concrete details are needed on what to do and how to do it. The economic and social benefits must be made clear and the costs must be affordable. The solutions must also be legally and politically feasible in the existing situation and clarification that SLM decreases costs in the short-, medium- and long-term is needed.
Specifically, the project will address governance issues regarding licensing and oversight, multi-sectoral approaches, strengthening the capacity and integration of institutions working with desertification, improving access to credit for SLM and developing capacities of civil society, including women. These will have long-lasting effects in Sergipe and provide examples for replication across the NE region . Likewise, the introduction, testing and dissemination of SLM technology in the target area of Sergipe’s Alto Sertao (SAS) will have multiplier effects over time and space, reaching the entire state and the rest of the region.
Key elements that will be strengthened are land use planning, environmental licensing and oversight and improvement of land use to avoid, reduce and mitigate LD in areas susceptible to desertification (ASD). Through strengthened institutional and farmer capacities and facilitation of access to existing funding sources, uptake of SLM practices will be increased principally in the area of highest risk of LD in the state – the Alto Sertão. This has been identified as a state priority and constitutes a Citizenship Territory, an area targeted in national programs to reduce hunger and poverty. By reducing LD and maintaining vital ecosystem services, the project will improve the livelihoods in an area subject to high poverty and social hardship indices, particularly among smallholder farmers in agrarian reform settlements. This will lay the basis for scaling up to an intermediate geographical scope including the rest of the ASD in Sergipe.
Strategic action at the national level through the Ministry of Environment, Secretary of Extraction and Sustainable Rural Development, Department to Combat Desertification and Land Degradation (MMA/SEDR/DCD) and the National Commission for Combating Desertification (NCCD) will enable this state's SLM governance model to be disseminated to other states of the NE, thereby facilitating replication across the entire Brazilian semiarid region and evoking further Global Environmental Benefits (GEB) in the long term. While uptake of SLM practices under the project (Outcome 2) is local, many of the governance issues dealt with under Outcome 1 will generate change in government policy at the regional and national scales, such as criteria for licensing and oversight.
A number of decisions were made in the design including amongst others:
