Participatory GIS in a sustainable use reserve in Brazilian Amazonia: Implications for management and conservation Enrico Bernard a, b, * , Luis Barbosa a , Raquel Carvalho a, c a Conservação Internacional - Rua Antonio Barreto, 130 sala 406 - Belém PA 66055-050, Brazil b Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua Nelson Chaves s/n, Cidade Universitária, Recife PE 50670-420, Brazil c Greenpeace Amazônia, Av. Joaquim Nabuco, 2367, Centro - Manaus AM 69020-031, Brazil Keywords: Amazonas Conservation units Maués State forest Participatory management PGIS Protected areas abstract Brazil has 109 million hectares of sustainable use reserves (SURs), most of them in Amazonia. In practical terms, SURs are being created to meet several objectives, but this process can and should be improved. The absence of a clear goal and the lack of basic social and biological information for such areas can compromise the goals, frustrate the people demanding the SURs and complicate the selection of the most adequate size, shape and category to be adopted. The data collection process used in the creation and management of protected areas is often compromised by under-funded environmental agencies, a lack of qualified human resources or the unawareness of accessible, quick, simple and inexpensive geographical methodologies able to facilitate such processes. The dissemination of tools and methods oriented to improve the management of and the decision-making process for protected areas in such adverse scenarios is necessary. Here we describe the execution of a participatory geographic information system (PGIS) to gain information on how human populations are living and using natural resources in the Maués State Forest, an SUR in Brazilian Amazonia. The PGIS allowed data acquisition for 415 families, 444 houses, 597 agricultural and animal-raising areas, 138 fishing sites, 106 hunting sites and 225 extraction sites within a short period of time (<than 20 days) and with accessible costs (<US$ 10,000). We classified and located the activities and points being used, the areas under stronger pressure and the hotspots for conservation, estimating that nearly 30% of the reserve was under direct use by its residents. We discuss the conservation implications of our findings and strongly recommend that the collection and mapping of socio-economic information should be prerequisite before the creation of any SURs in Brazilian Amazonia. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Currently, Brazil has 51 million hectares (ha) of strictly protected areas (hereafter SPAs) and 109 million hectares of sustainable use reserves (hereafter SURs), allowing for varying forms of use or extraction, with biodiversity protection as a secondary objective (ISA, 2009). Most of these areas are located in Amazonia (Jenkins & Joppa, 2009), which represents the largest block of tropical forests in the world, has a crucial role in the maintenance of significant stocks of carbon and may influence the climate of the planet (e.g., Fearnside & Laurance, 2004; Fearnside, 2008). In Brazil, until the end of the 1980s, SPAs were created in larger numbers compared with SURs. However, in the 1990s, with the strength- ening of the social movements in the country and its close affinity with national environmental sectors, the number of SURs increased (Rylands & Brandon, 2005). In numbers, and especially in area, the Brazilian Amazonia currently holds the largest portion of SURs in the country (Rylands & Brandon, 2005; ISA, 2009). There is no consensus in Brazilian legislation on the definition of traditional communities, but some tentative regulations consider as traditional those communities whose existence and way-of-life have historically depended on the extraction of natural resources (SNUC, 2000). Such a definition includes, among others, all Indig- enous people in the country, plus rubber-tappers (seringueiros) who depend on the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis, brazil-nut collectors (castanheiros) who depend on the tree Bertholletia excelsa, babassu nut and oil extractors (babaçueiros) who depend on the palm Orbignya phalerata, açaí fruit collectors (açaizeiros) who depend on the palm Euterpe oleracea and local fishermen and river- dwellers living in Amazonia (SNUC, 2000). The first extractive * Corresponding author. Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua Nelson Chaves s/n, Cidade Universitária, Recife PE 50670-420, Brazil. Tel./fax: þ55 81 2126 8353. E-mail address: enricob2@gmail.com (E. Bernard). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog 0143-6228/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.11.014 Applied Geography 31 (2011) 564e572