A collective force in the semi-arid interior of Pernambuco to articulate agroecological organizations of civil society around strategic axes and enhance political incidences. This is the role of the Pajeú Agroecology Network, which has as its central debates the defense of the Pajeú River, combating climate change, women's leading role in agroecology and strengthening of territories.
The Network is present in Pajeu Backlands, which is home to 17 municipalities and around 314 thousand inhabitants, including cities such as Serra Talhada, Sertânia, São José do Egito and Afogados da Ingazeira. Marked by backlands traditions, dry climate landscapes and a rich cultural diversity — from cordel to poetry —, the region faces challenges such as pollution of water resources, the impacts of renewable energy and climate changes, but also stands out for resistance initiatives and sustainable coexistence with the biome.
“Working in a network is strategic because no one does anything alone. Our proposals for coexistence with the Semiarid region, combating desertification and climate change can only be achieved through collective processes,” says Riva Almeida, coordinator of the Sabiá Agroecological Development Center, one of the founding organizations of the Network.
According to Almeida, Centro Sabiá played a historic role in the formation of the Pajeú Network, acting as an articulator of several local organizations during the execution of an Agroecological Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER) project, between 2014 and 2017. “It was a period of intense political crisis in the country, and we felt the need for greater coordination to face the challenges”, Explica.
Now, after going through a strategic planning process, with support from the Ecos Fund, from ISPN, between August 2024 and April 2025, the Pajeú Agroecology Network is reorganizing itself to expand its capacity for political influence. Held in three meetings, the final planning proposal was presented at the headquarters of Casa Mulher do Nordeste, in Afogados da Ingazeira (PE), on April 8.
“Strategic planning was a demand for RPA to continue building sustainability, with women’s associations, informal groups, non-governmental organizations and unions as protagonists, committed to coexisting with the Semiarid region. This has been RPA’s fight since its first movements,” explained Sara Rufino, Project Supervisor at Casa Mulher do Nordeste.
For the representative of the Pajeú Women Producers Network, Apolônia Gomes, planning was essential for the organization to find its direction and establish governance. “After building this space, women in particular were able to understand their role in the RPA, in the community and in the spaces in which they work.”
The Pajeú Network is made up of the Sabiá Center, the Casa Mulher do Nordeste, the Pajeú Agroecological Association (ASAP), the Diaconia, the Bom Sucesso Community Association, the Mixed Rural Association of the Fortuna Community, among others. Each one leads a strategic debate for political incidence.
The expansion of wind and solar farms in the Sertão do Pajeú is one of these strategic and controversial debates in the region. While on the one hand they represent renewable energy sources, on the other hand the projects – when implemented on a large scale – bring with them a series of environmental and social impacts that concern local communities and civil society organizations.
Wind farms face criticism for causing constant noise pollution (with noises that can exceed 45 decibels), high bird mortality rate migratory (including endangered species) and a profound transformation in the landscape of the hinterland, affecting entire ecosystems.
Solar complexes generate controversy because of intensive land use (with earthworks that alter the natural drainage), disposal of photovoltaic panels (which contain heavy metals) and the indiscriminate use of herbicides for maintenance of the areas.
“We are not opposed to the renewable energy proposal, but to the model that is arriving in the territory: a centralized model that degrades and destroys. With deforestation and the use of herbicides to 'clean', in the case of solar panels, the area around the panels,” says Almeida, coordinator of Centro Sabiá.
In the Feijão e Posse quilombola territory, in Mirandiba (PE), what is worrying is a project by the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL), carried out by Eletrobras, which intends to implement new electricity transmission lines in the region.
According to the treasurer of the community association, Mazer Souza, the project will pass through nine communities. “Our fight today is for the company to change this route. We don’t want transmission lines passing through our territories. It will impact our lives, and what we have preserved over the years will be devastated.. As if we didn’t exist there.”
According to her, the Pajeú Agroecology Network has strengthened the association to reach out to the people responsible for the project and question the contradictions of the project. “There is a law that protects our quilombola communities and nature, but there is a law that gives the right to devastate what we preserve in exchange for money. And we know that life is not compensated with money".
Families in the community fear for environmental reserves and for possibly being removed from their lands. The community's actions in the RPA seek to bring information about what is happening in the territories and disseminate information to other quilombola territories.
Defense of Pajeú
The sanitation and treatment of wastewater from the Pajeú River is a fundamental agenda of the Network. Target of deforestation and fires in the surrounding area, the watercourse receives urban sewage and garbage discharges from nine different emitters.
Territorial movement carried out for the first time in 2010 to denounce threats in the Pajeú river basin led by the family farmer of Movement of Rural Women Workers of Pernambuco (MMTR-PE) Vanete Almeida, the Pajeú Caravan was resumed in 2023, the result of an articulation of the Pajeú Agroecology Network with the Pajeú Hydrographic Basin Committee (COBH Pajeú).
COBH Pajeú is part of the integrated water resources management system of Pernambuco and is made up of a significant part of the Network's organizations.
“It is in this instance of water management that RPA organizations influence public policies for conservation and preservation of the environment based on experiences of living with the Semiarid region on an agroecological basis,” explains the president of the Committee, Ita Porto de Oliveira.
For Ita, who is also a political and pedagogical advisor at Diaconia, occupying the water governance space is “fundamental to proposing solutions” to important issues such as combating desertification, revitalizing basins and the impacts of renewable energy projects.
Women in agroecology
The Pajeú region has historically faced a context of violence against women. Data demonstrates this reality: in the first six months of 2024 alone, there were 1.203 cases of violence registered in all 17 cities of Pajeú, almost 5% of the 26.752 cases that occurred throughout the state in the same period. The municipalities in Pajeú that lead the ranking are Serra Talhada, Afogados da Ingazeira, São José do Egito, Tabira and Carnaíba.
“One of the Network’s principles is to emphasize the perspective of gender equality, to guarantee economic autonomy, access and control over common resources and goods, and women’s participation in political decision-making spaces,” explains Sara Rufino, from Casa Mulher do Nordeste.
Apolônia Gomes, in turn, recalls that the Network has been a “gateway” for women to discuss public policies in their municipalities, “so that they can be in these places, acting and strengthening themselves, accessing the market and other policies, launching commercialization and working with the products they produce”.
“It is another space for us to promote women’s rights, such as fair division of domestic work, production and insertion in the institutional market, so that they break the cycle of violence”, concludes the representative of the Pajeú Women Producers Network.
The support of Ecos Fund to the Pajeú Agroecology Network is a strategic action to strengthen community and socio-environmental partnerships, part of the Seventh Operational Phase of the Small Grants Programme, implemented in Brazil by the Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza (ISPN), in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and resources from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Learn more here.