Sustainability criteria in rural communities: an analysis on the Cruzeiro and Jatobá sites, Crato/CE

Abstract

Environmental issues are in the scope of all world debates, sustainability is present in all dialogues involving growth and development, but what is perceived is a large number of speeches and few effective actions. It identifies some small-scale, one-off actions usually coming from communities and associations that escape the capitalist economic model, giving opportunity to a new kind of economy with modus operandi in self-management and collaborative processes. This study aims to identify the sustainability challenges in the rural communities that survive from the pequi collection at the Cruzeiro and Jatobá sites in the rural area of ​​the city of Crato/CE, using a descriptive, exploratory and participatory observation study through community conversation and semi-structured interviews with the representatives of the families participating in the project, to map the community and record the process of building community knowledge, using a qualitative approach to content analysis. It is understood that the challenges are listed in all aspects: the distance of the urban zone, the access, the shortage of piped water and the absence of three-phase energy beyond the disinterest of the public policies in territorializing this community. The possibility of the existence of new forms of community organization around the beneficiation of pequi in the Cruzeiro and Jatobá sites has changed the perspective and the dreams of this community in not having to leave its place, but to have opportunities of empowerment, allowing its permanence and enlarging them, from the beneficiation of pequi.