Reflections on Regional Economic Resilience: the post-disaster scenario in Mariana (MG)

Abstract

In 2005, the rupture of the mining waste dam of the Samarco company made the municipality of Mariana (MG) the epicenter of a catastrophe that reached several spheres: economic, social, environmental and human. This article focuses on the literature on Regional Economic Resilience in order to analyze the economic resilience capacity of Mariana and the 34 municipalities also impacted by the tragedy. The main hypothesis is that the structural characteristics of localities that depend on a main-sector restrict their ability to resist and recover economically from adverse shocks. For the empirical analysis, the economic resistance indicator proposed by Martin et al. (2016) and the shift-share method was used in order to identify the main factors responsible for the reduction of employment in these localities. The results showed that the productive specialization and the low dynamism of the other sectors are factors that compromise the capacity of recovery after the shocks. Even this work is justified for contributing to the definition of policies to support local development and induction of productive diversification. The proposals made in this article point to the need to expand the capacity of families and companies to diversify their sources of income, invest in social relations, maintain capital reserves of different types and develop learning and adaptation skills. In the case of Mariana, the competitive advantage in the tourism sector, family farming and more interaction between universities and companies can generate strategies in the induction of economic diversification.