Trade Deals Between Corporations and Amazonian Forest Communities Under Common Property Regimes: Opportunities, Problems and Challenges

Abstract

"This article aims to review the opportunities and problems caused to communities, corporations, forests and the society as a whole, by establishing corporate-community partnerships for the commercialisation of non-timber forest products. Based on literature review and preliminary data of an ongoing project, the study particularly focuses the context of indigenous and extractive communities in Brazilian Amazonia. The evaluation suggests that partnerships can both provide benefits and cause damages to communities, companies, the environment and the society as a whole. Problems are, in general, stronger at the community level, although they can also affect companies, forests and the society as a whole. Despite that, there are evidences that partnerships may provide better results than commercialisation in their absence. In addition, government and civil society organisations have a key role on partnerships success, through their promotion, brokering and assessment. I conclude that the main challenge to the success of corporate-community partnerships in Amazonia is to disentangle which are the factors locally implicated in success or damages. Remoteness, cultural and forest diversity pose special problems and imply specific results from corporate-community agreements in the region."