SANDIZATION, SILVICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES IN SOUTHWESTERN RIO GRANDE DO SUL

Since 1970's social-ecological crisis, sandization and silviculture have been on the environmental issues agenda in Southwestern Rio Grande do Sul, spanning various segments of society, such as local agriculturalist and rancher communities, technicians and politicians. Those are inseparable themes, given that sandization has been identified as the main process of environmental degradation in the region, whereas silviculture has been privileged as a solution in the environmental policies - both public policies, as well as public-private partnerships. Such policies present multiple scale institutional connections with the global context, going over national and regional policies and even the local context where outside policies integrate inside agricultural management systems remodeling landscape. Studies in Vila Kraemer (Rio Grande do Sul) show that the environment images that mankind makes, environmental values and landscaping preferences are part of the transformation and humanization mechanism of landscape and of creation of an analog nature. Starting from these findings and the premise that the environmental approach in vogue leads to the development of policies which neglect the social bias, we propose and discuss a so-called new approach, in line with environmental perception meaning to build alternatives fpr knowledge policies and landscape management, emphasizing sandization and silviculture, which include mankind as a subject.