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A Feat of Great Significance

Congratulations to the bachelor’s program in ecological economics of the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil

Last June 26, Adrianne Keyser de Sousa Maia, presented the first final monograph to be submitted in the bachelor’s program in ecological economics at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil. The undergraduate course where she obtained her degree is located within the Center for Agricultural Sciences of the UFC. Under the orientation of Prof. Aécio Alves de Oliveira, the work, entitled “The Relations Between Nature, Society and the Economy in the Quilombola Community fo Cumbe”, shows a pioneering landmark in the consolidation of Ecological Economics as a discipline of professional training in Brazil, and constitutes a distinction worth informing with the applause of ISEE. It is effectively the first bachelor’s degree in ecological economics given in Brazil, perhaps even worldwide. And, as a crowning, to a woman!

The research that led to the monograph was aimed at studying the impacts caused by the implantation of shrimp farming and a wind energy park in the Cumbe’s quilombola territory, located in the costal municipality of Aracati (state of Ceará). It shows clearly that these activities, guided by a “traditional economic development model”, ignore the degradation of the mangrove ecosystem as well as of the lives of the people who live there, a population with roots back in the eighteenth century. The overall conclusion is that the occupation process with these investment projects was marked by conflicts and disruption of the productive and cultural activities of the community and by loss of biodiversity.