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September 15, 2009
Sustainable Juruti: innovative development proposal in the Amazon
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Partnership with civil institutions and public authorities creates a new model for introducing large undertakings in the region.
A history of partnership between public authorities, civil institutions and companies in Juruti began to be written in an effective way in September 2007. This was when the 1st Integration Workshop took place, an event that brought together representatives from various organizations that were active in the town to discuss the best route to take for developing the town, taking into account a new scenario: the setting up of the Juruti Mine and the needs arising locally as a result.
This was when articulation work began with the residents, disseminating and improving on the idea by means of meetings and a second workshop. This all consolidated itself later as the Sustainable Juruti Council (CONJUS), which was permanently established in August last year.
Comprising nine civil institutions, three companies and three public authority representatives CONJUS started what is considered by many as a new example to be followed in other towns that are home to large projects, like the bauxite mine that is being set up in Juruti by Alcoa, one of the world’s leading companies in aluminum production and transformation and one of the corporate members of the Council.
Since its inauguration the Council has already played an important part in planning the municipality’s sustainability actions. Currently, in a partnership with the Religious Studies’ Institute (ISER), it is formulating a Violence Prevention Plan for Juruti, work that is relying on the active engagement of teachers, young people, taxi drivers and various other residents. It also supported the Peace in the Traffic Campaign, which focused on making people conscious of safety in the streets, and the Amazon Day, directed at environmental awareness-building, especially with children.
Sustainability tripod – CONJUS is one of the three initiatives that are being introduced in Juruti, in accordance with a model that came out of a partnership between Alcoa, the Sustainability Studies’ Center of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and FunBio (Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity) for promoting the municipality’s orderly and independent development. The Sustainable Juruti tripod, as the initiative is known, also includes the Juruti Sustainability Indicators and the Sustainable Juruti Fund. The indicators are aspects that are being monitored in an attempt to measure and understand the effects of economic growth on the municipality. The Fund will support initiatives in the environmental, social and economic areas, and act as a complement to funding that is already available.
Indicators - “We took a snapshot of what Juruti was before Alcoa arrived, based on official data. From that we prepared a set of dynamic exercises and workshops, in Juruti, as well as in Santarém and Belém, in order to build up these indicators jointly. It was important to ask people what they understood by development and how we could measure it”, explains Mario Monzoni, general coordinator of FGV’s Sustainability Studies’ Center, which was invited by Alcoa to coordinate the definition of the indicators from the contributions of local people.
Just like what happened when CONJUS was set up people from Juruti actively participated in the whole process. “One of the pillars of this work was to build up the indicators with residents from Juruti”, explains Cecília Ferraz, from FGV, Executive Coordinator of the Sustainability Indicators Project. “They’re the ones who have a real perception of what it was like before the undertaking began, what it’s like now and what has to be maintained or what can be improved”, she comments.
Fund – Complementing the funds so that local institutions can carry out social, economic and environmental projects is the function of the Sustainable Juruti Fund (FUNJUS) that was launched in May. In this initiative Alcoa is working in partnership with Funbio.
“The objective is to give the community the capacity to make investments over time to improve the quality of life and the environment in the municipality”, explains the general coordinator of Funbio’s FUNJUS project, Manoel Serrão. Alcoa was the first company to deposit money in the Fund, with an initial investment of R$ 2 million that will be invested during the fund’s pilot phase.
“There’s the license granted by the appropriate organs and that’s very important. But just as important, or even more so, is the “license” that the local community gives us to operate, because that’s where you’re going to have to be living every day of your existence”, says Franklin Feder, president of Alcoa Latin America and the Caribbean, making clear that the challenge of entering into and maintaining dialogue with the community is one that has to be faced on a daily basis. “We know how to produce aluminum, but we didn’t know how to open a mine in the middle of the Amazon. The solution was to seek the best partners to help us in this task. That’s what we did” Feder adds.
School – A fourth initiative provides support for the Sustainable Juruti Tripod, especially as far as concerns guaranteeing funding for projects in the region. In April 2009 the Juruti Sustainability School was inaugurated, which is a program that has trained 40 representatives from public organizations and from civil society in how to prepare projects for seeking financing.
The Juruti Sustainability School employs various learning mechanisms, such as theoretical and practical lessons, research, training courses, technical assistance and notions of micro-funding. The students’ projects will receive help from specialists, in order to stimulate competitiveness in the search for financing. In this initiative Alcoa is working in partnership with the Peabiru Institute, an entity that since 2004 has been working mainly with training associations of residents and traditional Amazon communities.
“We expect to contribute in a significant way to the development of the municipality”, says the coordinator of the Juruti Sustainability School and assistant director of the Peabiru Institute, Rui Martins. “We’re looking to form a community of planners, people who are integrated and a place where citizens live alongside each other harmoniously. We’re trying to develop a critical mass of planners who think about sustainability”.
About Alcoa
Alcoa is the world leader in the production and management of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other capabilities of Alcoa's businesses to customers. In addition to aluminum products and components including flat-rolled products, hard alloy extrusions, and forgings, Alcoa also markets Alcoa® wheels, fastening systems, precision and investment castings, and building systems. The Company has been named one of the top most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and has been a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for seven consecutive years. More information can be found at www.alcoa.com.
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