After the (Green) Revolution comes (ecological) restoration: Scientists and peasants in Pontal do Paranapanema, Brazil

This chapter offers an analysis of ecological restoration practices in a rural settlement in the Pontal do Paranapanema region, located in the west of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Restoration is approached here as an agencement resulting from a set of socio-ecological reparation practices developed by heterogeneous agents. The purpose of the restoration practices analyzed here is to create new forms of encounter and cohabitation. The territory in question is historically marked by ecological degradation resulting from an extensive exploitation of natural resources, the violence of armed militias and conflicts around land occupation. Restoration as an agencement that is orientated towards socio-ecological repairing simultaneously works as a technique for regenerating the soil and local biodiversity, as an incentive for the political organization of rural settlers and as a system of socio-economic production based on agro-ecological techniques and local consumption. To succeed, this restoration work requires a joint effort involving different actors (human and non-human) in a context that is marked by vulnerability and precariousness. The conclusion discusses the challenges of recovery in a context of ongoing slow violence in which the devastation caused by the economic and political processes that shaped the territory’s current geomorphological configuration is increased by the pressure that the agro-export model today exerts at the local level.