Amazonian socio-environmental frontier: struggles, resistance and contradictions in confronting the agrarian extractive frontier

Abstract

Considering the advancement of the agrarian extractive frontier in Brazil, the research question was ‘what were the elements that enabled the formation and resistance of a socio-environmental frontier in the Amazon’? This extractive frontier has been related to the deforestation and environmental degradation caused by the expansion of predatory activities (logging, extensive cattle ranching, soybean cultivation, mineral extraction and hydroelectricity production), aggravating rather than mitigating climate change. The socio-environmental frontier has been created by the convergence of a diversity of experiences and fronts of struggle resisting the agrarian extractive frontier. Answering the question, the objective is to understand the main fronts of struggles, referred to as the environmentalist, peasant and Indigenist fronts. These fronts established the socio-environmental frontier, leading to the creation of protected territories, including Indigenous lands, extractive reserves and conservation units for sustainable use. It achieved recognition and international support, including financing of projects for protecting and consolidating such territories. Despite these conquests and victories, one cannot ignore the challenges and risks of the Amazonian communities becoming trapped by the logic of accumulation. The increasing demand for natural resources could disconnect them from the fundamental elements of their identities and connections to their territories.

Keywords:

• Socio-environmental struggles
• agricultural frontier
• sustainable development
• traditional communities
• Amazon
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Third World Quarterly for their comments and feedback, which helped to improve this paper. All errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 Proposed in a constitutional amendment (PEC no. 215) of 2000 and by a bill (PL no. 290) of 2007, the ‘marco temporal’ or ‘deadline’ thesis argues that only those lands occupied and in the possession of Indigenous peoples on 5 October 1988 – the day of promulgation of the constitution – can be considered Indigenous lands. Such a deadline would exclude all groups that were expelled from their lands or whose territory was not recognised in 1988 (Santos et al. 2021).

2 In 1988, the term biodiversity was coined in a publication edited by Edward O. Wilson entitled Biodiversity. The book gathered articles by famous authors, who presented a number of new concepts and discoveries that would help consolidate the discipline of ‘conservation biology’ (Franco 2013).

3 Coordinated by the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the GEF is a fund established in 1991 as an instrument for integrating global concerns into national development policies, focusing on climate change, pollution of international waters, biodiversity and ozone layer depletion (Bursztyn and Bursztyn 2012).

4 It regulates access to genetic heritage, protection of and access to associated traditional knowledge, and benefit-sharing for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

5 In 1957, Darcy Ribeiro published a study on SPI that pointed to the disappearance of 87 Indigenous ethnic groups between 1900 and 1957 (Oliveira 1995).

Additional information

Funding

The research and the thesis work in the PhD programme of the Centre for Sustainable Development (CDS), University of Brasília (UnB), were possible thanks to the support of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), Financing Code 001, Brazil. The thesis supervision in the Centre of Sustainable Development (CDS) has been supported by the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) with a research scholarship (bolsa produtividade em pesquisa) to Sérgio Sauer.

Notes on contributors

Gabriel Domingues

Gabriel Domingues has a PhD in Sustainable Development (2022) from the Centre fer Sustainable Development (CDS) of the University of Brasília (UnB). He also has a Master’s in Ecology (2010) and, in 2007, graduated in Tourism from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF). He is currently a regular servitor in the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment. He has experience in the management and implementation of public policies, focusing on biodiversity conservation programmes, enviromental management, protected areas, traditional communities and rural development. He has researched mainly on territorial management, regional development and political ecology.

Sérgio Sauer

Sérgio Sauer has a PhD in Sociology (2002) and is Professor at the University of Brasília (UnB), Planaltina campus (FUP), in the Centre for Sustainable Development (CDS/UnB), and in the Graduate Programme in Environment and Rural Development (Mader/UnB). He holds a CNPq scholarship (bolsa produtividade em pesquisa), is the leader of the Observatory of Socio-environmental Conflicts in Matopiba, and is one of the editors of the Journal of Peasant Studies.