Resumo:
This study evaluates the territorial development and the access forms to the land in the area of Medium San Francisco (MSF), in Bahia (Brasil). Theoretically it is taken as base the focus of territorial development, detaching the multifuncionality of the rural space as alternative of the communities' survival. The historical process of occupation of the area is noticed as reflex of the current behavior, mainly in the aspects related to the access to the land. The current existent relationship was characterized starting from secondary data, of interviews accomplished with technicians and representatives of organizations and
movements that act in the area and through lifted up relevant information about the communities. That situation reveals development indexes still low, although it has happened a relative improvement in the life quality in the last decade. The several access forms to the earth: Projects of Land Reform, of Credit of Land, Fund of Pasture and the Rural Black Communities, demonstrate the traditional wealth of the area. The evolution of the Index of Gini reveals the process of valorization of the lands in the area, starting from
the decade of 1970, with the implantation of irrigation projects and other incentives of the government action, bringing the old residents' expulsion and of their families. The organization and resistance of these social segments allowed to accomplish significant conquests in the access to the land, but the fight now is for the consolidation in exploration ways that make possible the permanence of the families in the area, besides the continuity of the process of regularization and enlargement of the access to the land.