ECO-POLIS - INTERNATIONAL MASTER IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND REGIONAL POLICIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

Master Eco-Polis | Workshop | Alagoas | Brazil | 2010

Japaratinga

Maragogi

Porto de Pedras

São Miguel dos Milagres

Barra de Santo Antônio

Paripueira

Porto Calvo

Passo de Camaragibe

UM TERRITÓRIO DESEJÁVELCompromisso integrado para a Costa dos CoraisA Desirable Territory; An Integrated Commitment for the Coral Coast

International Masteron environmental and regionalpolicies for sustainabilityin loca l deve lopment

Secretaria de Estadodo Planejamentoe do Orçamento

ESTADO DE ALAGOASBRASIL

università di ferraraD A S E I C E N T O A N N I G UA R D I A M O AVA N T I

Facolta di Economia e Scienza MM.FF.NNFacolta di Economia e Scienza MM.FF.NN

Júlio Sérgio de Maya Pedrosa Moreira (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Gianfranco Franz (Università di Ferrara)Antônio Carlos Sampaio Quintiliano (SEPLAN_Alagoas)

Alyne Vieira (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Daniel Sardo (Università di Ferrara)Emanuela De Menna (Università di Ferrara)Gregory Delaune (Università di Ferrara)Massimo Zupi (Università della Calabria)

Barbara Dovarch (Università di Sassari)Camilla Sabattini (Università di Ferrara)Corinne Corbau (Università di Ferrara)Pierluca Gaglioppa (Lands Network)

Liliani Tiepolo (UFPR)Michele Mistri (Università di Ferrara)Umberto Simeoni (Università di Ferrara)

Directors

Coordinators

Tutors

Specialists

Support TeamJuan Manuel Priegues Castro (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Maria de Fatima Santos Pires (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Nicole Pistelli (IFPR)Polianna Kristine Alves Bugarin (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Humberto Barbosa Ferreira Júnior (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Adeilto Ferreira de Lima (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Paulo Gustavo Alves Calado (SEPLAN_Alagoas)Cristiane Souza (SEPLAN_Alagoas)

Lessons, Lectures, Contributors and CollaboratorsAnna Cláudia Marques (APL Costa dos Corais)Arnaldo Cecchini (Università di Sassari)Fábio Leão (AFAL)Hebert Freire (Secretaria de Turismo de Maragogi)João Lessa (SEMARH_Alagoas)Lindemberg Medeiros de Araujo (UFAL)Lucilla Previati (Parco del Delta del Po)Márcia Túlia (Projetur)Marcos Rocha (OCB-AL)Monica Dorigo (UFAL)Rachel Rocha (UFAL)Rochana Campos (UFAL)

Participation

International Masteron environmental and regionalpolicies for sustainabilityand local development

Consorzio Universitario per la RicercaSocioeconomica e per l'Ambiente

CURSA

BANCO INTERAMERICANODE DESARROLLO

Eco-Polis Students

Visiting Student

Ana Paula Tomas (BRA)Débora Ramos Costa (BRA)Débora Rocha (BRA)Eva Merloni (ITA)Flaviana Rosa (BRA)Francesca Bettedi (ITA)Giuseppe Lippo (BRA)Gloria Velasquez Oliveira (BOL)Laura Travaglia (ITA)Leandro Panigo (ARG)Leticia Camargo (BRA)Lorenzo Mormiro (ITA)Maria Florencia Guidobono (ARG)Maria Stella Spinelli (ITA)Mauro Cossu (ITA)Michael Chinelato Soares (BRA)Samuel Silva (BRA)Sandra Días (BRA)Silvanise Marquez (BRA)Sofia Burioli (ITA)

Kizzi Utizi (Università di Ferrara)

Secretaria de Estadodo Planejamentoe do Orçamento

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università di ferraraD A S E I C E N T O A N N I G UA R D I A M O AVA N T I

Facolta di Economia e Scienza MM.FF.NN

FONDO MULTIRATERALDE INVERSIONES

The Master

Round Table 1: Environment, Natural disaster management and regional safety.Round Table 2: Tourism, the region and marketing policies.

3: Local development and business networks.4: Technological innovation and research.5: Agriculture, fishing and quality branding.6: Education, training, capacity building, empowerment and communication.7: Urban quality, planning and infrastructure.8: Cultural capital, heritage and society.9: Policies, institutions and governance.

Round TableRound TableRound TableRound TableRound TableRound TableRound Table

Introduction | Methodology

The Region: Context | Our First Impressions

From the International Seminar to the Analysis

Vision

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Network of ObservatoriesGeodatabase (GIS)Coral Coast regional coordination plan (PTC)Environmental vulnerability studyLaboratory for creative ideasUrban open space identityDesirable tourismQuality certified fruit production

A COMMITMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT

Glossary | Bibliographical references | Annex: Diary of meetings with local stakeholders

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Conclusions

International Seminar

Proposals and Projects

Critical analysis of the regionEnvironmental analysisAnalysis of urban and regional dynamicsEconomic analysisSocietal analysisList of local actors (stakeholders)List of programs and projects

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The Master

Eco-Polis, through the integration of a wide range of specializedfields, is designed to teach the most innovative knowledge andtechniques related to the themes of sustainability and localdevelopment.

As Edgar Morin wrote, "important problems are always complexand are often full of contradictions. As a result, one needs toaddress them globally, with various types of knowledge that shouldbe well integrated" (Edgar Morin, Towards a Study of Humankind,Meltemi, Rome, 2000, first French edition, 1965).

The name of the Master program, Eco-Polis, itself synthesizes thecultural, scientific and training objectives of merging economic andecological factors ("eco") with urban and regional policies ("polis"),the environment and landscape. The strategic vision of Eco-Polis isoriented towards supplying the tools to pursue economic, physical,and social development that is ecologically oriented andincorporates democratic participation in the articulation of theprocesses, the definition of the planning tools, and theimplementation of final policies.

The objective of the International Master Eco-Polis, therefore, is todevelop graduates in a variety of disciplines, already equipped withpractical experience, technical skills and cultural know-how, toformulate a systematic vision of the problems and their possiblesolutions, at the variety of scales and of the various dimensions ofgovernment, development and the region:

- From policy analysis to the planning dimension- From the programming dimension to the project scale- From concepts and techniques of evaluation to management

issues

Eco-Polis, encourages a poly-disciplinary training model foundedon integrated competencies and comparisons between the varietyof approaches inherent to various disciplines (law, economics,ecology, planning) and their application. The instructors of theMaster Eco-Polis are specialists from the academics world, publicadministrations, NGOs, relevant professions and corporations,both in Italy as well in the countries in which the master is active.They organize their coursework content into theoretical-methodological topics and practical-applied topics, with examplesand discussions of concrete case studies from real-world projects.To complement the coursework, the skills of the students are put tothe test through various workshops (in Italy and South America),during which the techniques of working as a group are emphasizedwith the instructors and professionals.

A unique characteristic of the International Master Eco-Polis is thatit is travel-based, taking place at various institutions in variousnations, with the contribution of instructors from variousuniversities and countries. This approach is held to be fundamentalto overcoming the localized point-of-view that often plagues thepractical application of sustainability and local development. Thestudents, therefore, are put in the position of knowing realitiesfundamentally different from those they have previously known,and challenging their capacity to develop responses appropriate tothe context in which they are operating. It is the objective of Eco-Polis to widen the cultural and technical reference horizons of thestudents, encouraging the building of trans-national networks andopportunities for work and study experiences in other countries.

This book documents the results of the third workshop of the 2010

edition of the Eco-Polis Master, held in Maceio and the Coral Coast

of Alagoas, from September 15 to October 15, together with the

State Planning Secretariat (SEPLAN) and other partner institutions.

The impetus for the workshop arose out the importance of

maintaining the continuity of the initiatives launched during the

previous months, including an International Seminar held in

Maragogi in September of 2009 and other activities to promote the

partnership between UNIFE, SEPLAN, UFAL and UNEAL. An

integrated part of the Workshop was the International Seminar

"Desirable Tourisms", held in Maragogi from the 22nd to the 24th of

September, jointly organized by the Eco-Polis Master and SEPLAN.

The group of 21 Eco-Polis master students included nine students

from Alagoas, all civil servants, who were awarded a scholarship

from the state of Alagoas in order to receive high-level training on

specific issues related to local development.

Arising out of the International Seminar "Desirable Tourisms" the

goal of the workshop was to develop a strategic agenda, together

with proposals for projects and policies for sustainable planning

related to the regional integrated management of the Coral Coast

APL (Local Production Initiative).

Maps, graphics and imagesAll of the maps, graphics and images not credited are products ofthe Eco-Polis Master work group.

The Master

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Introduction

The name "The Coral Coast" accurately reflects the character of thisterritory: Like that coral reefs, which are a "treasure" hidden beneaththe sea, so are the effects of the ceaseless tides whose effects areonly sometimes evident on the surface, and so is entirety of theterritory of the APL Coral Coast, rich in many resources, values,knowledge, but largely concealed, delicate, and subtle, onlyoccasionally, and sometimes unexpectedly, rising to the surface.But the analogy ends there: the coral reefs are an extremely fragileecosystem that takes centuries to form and can be destroyed in avery short time. Similarly, many of the features of this territory arethe result of a lengthy and complex process of evolution, and havethe potential to be destroyed suddenly by inappropriate actions.

It is because these resources are not so readily apparent, that othermore recognizable aspects of the area have typically been morevalued (e.g. "sun and sea" are practically the only recognizedtourism attractions).

At the same time, it is important to highlight the fact that tourism asan economic sector with unique characteristics. In the words of theBritish anthropologist Robin Fox, "it is like a fire, that can cook yourfood but can also burn your house down". In many cases tourismcan be the stimulus for a brief period of intense development, butwith impacts and compromises over a long period (consumption ofnatural resources and environmental quality) and is extremelysensible to market variations (changing preferences, fluxuatingmarket trends and variations in the purchasing power ofconsumers) .

As a result, a region that relies solely on tourism is destined to havea weak and less resilient economy. In addition, one cannot create atourism product of quality if it is not built on a solid quality of life for

INTRODUCTION

all of the inhabitants, and it does not share the benefits from tourismacross the entire strata of the population.

The "Coral Coast" APL for tourism is a guide for common andshared policies in eight local communities, promoting unity,cooperation and integration. It is a sector-based program that hasalready achieved many of the projected goals outlined in itsmission. However, there is still an apparent need to betterincorporates an industry-like approach for a joint vision that isbased on the integrated management of potential and presentproblems, and gives a face to a number of important questions:

How to reveal the underlying delicate and understated values of theterritory? What kind of development or region is wanted? What isthe vision for its future? How can one effectively resolve thediversity of values between the various actors and interests?

These are key questions that begin to demonstrate the fundamentalapproach that characterizes the work presented in the followingpages: the need to assert the regional nature of development ingeneral, and in particular that of tourism-related development. Thearguments forwarded by the workshop are aimed at defining whatkind of territory we really want, before we ask kind of tourism wewant.

Not all areas are suitable for all kinds of tourism. Some tourismtypes are mutually beneficial to one another, while others may beinherently incompatible. The policies that guide tourism shouldnecessarily be the same policies that guide the region as a whole.

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Methodology

The work of the master program began in mid-September andincluded participation in and coordination of the InternationalSeminar "Desirable Tourism Types ", organized together with theSEPLAN. Participants in the event included administrators, politicalofficials, business operators, representatives from the public andprivate sectors, and Brazilian and international experts.The first week focused on preparation of this important event. Themaster students coordinated the nine thematic discussionroundtables that addressed the main themes of development in theregion. The opportunity to interact with important local actorsoperating in the territory, and the chance to have a full day todiscuss the possibilities for development of the "Coral Coast"presented a crucial strategic moment for development of theworkshop content as well as for this territory.With this in mind and in preparation for the seminar, the first week ofthe Masters included meetings for gathering information, andlectures with the aim of generating the team's first impressions ofthe territory. These views were organized and evaluated using aSWOT analysis, without a pretense of entering in to great detail, thisexercise was useful for identifying the main issues to be discussedin the context of the roundtables. Each of the roundtables also madeuse of three key issues, as a starting point from which theparticipants developed their arguments to arrive at operationproposals.As an added goal, each table was tasked to generate a minimumnumber of operative proposals as a final result of this first phase ofwork. In all, about thirty proposals were collected from local actors.The second phase of work focused on re-elaboration of thecollected information, beginning with the objective of expanding onthe first impressions made during the seminar. In this way, theproposals from the nine roundtables were synthesized into fourthematic categories of analysis (environment, economy, society,and urban and regional dynamics) to better understand thereference context in which to insert the proposals and verify thefeasibility of their application. Another part of the analysis wasdedicated to building a map of local stakeholders and programs, a

critical mechanism for understanding the feasibility ofimplementation of the proposals, understanding who could initiateand guide them, and which programs already exist, both aspotential starting points and in order to reinforce and complementthem.From a methodological point of view, this analysis phase wasconducted using lectures focused on specific aspects, analysis ofsecondary data and, above all, field surveys of qualitative datacollected through interviews and meetings with institutional actorsand local stakeholders. Interacting with local stakeholders is a keycomponent of the Master, and in fact, all of the proposals grew outof direct input from the various stakeholders, administrators andresidents of the territory.The analysis phase was concluded with a summary of theopportunities and constraints of the territory. From this, the teambuilt a unified vision of the territory, articulated as five strategicpriorities to support the operational proposals and projects.The five strategic priorities are the key to integrate, coordinate andconnect the project proposals that emerged from thematicroundtables. The thirty initial proposals were reorganized into 8 +1interrelated and integrated proposals. The ninth proposalconstitutes the individualization of a process of territorialgovernance capable of managing and coordinating the activities ofthe other eight proposals.For each of the proposals, particular attention was focused onparticipants and potential partners who can ensure the successfulimplementation of a concrete proposals, on possible fundingsources, and on the need for short term actions that candemonstrate immediate results.In conclusion, it is clear that all of this work is representative of onlya preliminary step in a process that has just begun, and that toachieve the hoped for results will require a commitment on the partof all of the public and private actors operating in the region atvarious levels (political, technical, entrepreneurial and residential).

international seminar;

first impressions of the region

analysis / synthesis

shared vision:from the roundtable proposals

to an integrated coast

articulation of the proposals

integrated implementation strategies

elaboration of the thematic roundtables

METHODOLOGY

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The RegionFonte: divulgação web

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North Region

Northeast Region

Westcentral Region

Southeast Region

South Region

Global context

The Coral Coast

BRAZIL Argentina

Chile

Bolivia

Paraguay Alagoas

Uruguay

Peru

Venezuela

Ecuador

Japaratinga

Maragogi

Porto de Pedras

São Miguel dos Milagres

Porto Calvo

MACEIÓ

FLEXEIRAS

JOAQUIM GOMES

SÃO LUÍS DO QUITUNDE

JACUÍPE

PERNAMBUCO

JUNDIÁNOVO LINO

MATRIZ DE CAMARAGIBE

State of AlagoasPasso de Camaragibe

Barra de Santo Antônio

Paripueira

Total area Km : 1.428.7042

Population: 90.9733

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BRAZIL

Colombia

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