ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we analyse the experience of community forest management developed in the Verde para Sempre Extractive Reserve, located in the municipality of Porto de Moz, State of Pará. The development of management plans by community organisations is recent in the Brazilian Amazon. Communities have taken on the challenges of managing a vast territory of 1.3 million hectares in unfavourable situations, lack of public policies, and pressure exerted by actors not committed to the conservation of natural resources. Forest management initiatives by local users help consolidate the territory, reinforcing the premises of conservation of Protected Areas in the Amazon. We present here a reflection on the process for the execution of management plans, as well as the result of processes for training community leaders, both in the technical aspects of forest management and in their commercial enterprises. Community leadership together with external support for their organisations has strengthened local governance and promoted a qualitative debate on sustainability with the bodies responsible for managing the Extractive Reserve. The lessons of this process are analysed from a broader perspective of sustainability in a difficult political-administrative situation in Brazil for the conservation of the Amazon.
