Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:30:40.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Amazonian Deforestation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Andrew Hurrell
Andrew Hurrell
Affiliation:
University Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University and Fellow of Nuffield College.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Environmental issues have very obviously come to occupy a prominent place on the political agenda, both domestically and internationally. This process has been driven by grass-roots concern for the future consequences of environmental degradation, assisted in many cases by the adoption of the green movement and of green issues as a platform for protest on a broader range of social and political issues. National governments have increasingly taken up the cause of environmental protection, either out of genuine conviction or out of fear of the electoral consequences of not doing so. Internationally the emergence of green issues has been further encouraged by broader shifts in the international system and the declining salience of old issues, above all the changing nature of East/West rivalry.

Type
Commentary
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 197 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The murder in 1988 of Chico Mendes, principal spokesman for Brazil's rubber tappers, had an enormous international impact.

2 The need for this kind of academic integration is being increasingly recognised. See, for example, Rockwell, Robert, ‘Puzzles of Global Environmental Change’, Items 44, 1 (03 1990)Google Scholar and Sanderson, Steven, ‘Policies Without Politics: Environmental Affairs in OECD-Latin American Relations’, unpublished paper, 04 1990.Google Scholar

3 For a recent discussion of this problem, see Pearce, David, Barbier, Edward and Markandya, Anil, Sustainable Development. Economics and Environment in the Third World (Aldershot, 1990).Google Scholar

4 For a recent examination of various options for such development see Gradwohl, Judith and Greenberg, Russell, Saving the Tropical Forests (London, 1989).Google Scholar

5 Browder, John, ‘Public Policy and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon’, in Repetto, Robert and Gillis, Malcolm (eds.), Public Policy and the Misuse of Forest Resources (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Hans Binswanger, ‘Brazilian Policies that Encourage Deforestation in the Amazon’, World Bank Environment Department, April 1989; Mahar, Dennis, Government Policies and Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon Region (Washington D. C. 1989).Google Scholar

7 The increasing focus on institutional weaknesses is clear from a recent World Bank Country Brief: ‘Finally, overriding all environmental work in Brazil is a critical problem of institutional weakness’, ‘Country ENV Briefs — Brazil’, 1990, p. 1.

8 Dryzek, John, Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Ecology (Oxford, 1987), p. 84.Google Scholar

9 The central text is Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass., 1979)Google Scholar. For a collection of critical essays, see Keohane, Robert (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York, 1986).Google Scholar

10 For a good introduction to these perspectives, see Keohane, Robert, International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, 1989Google Scholar) and Jervis, Robert, ‘Realism, Game-Theory, and Cooperation’, World Politics 40, 3 (04 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the application of these approaches to the environment, see Young, Oran, International Cooperation. Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment (Ithaca, 1989).Google Scholar

11 For a good review of this literature see Haggard, Stephen and Simmonds, Beth, ‘Theories of International Regimes’, International Organization 41, 3 (Summer 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Weiss, Edith Brown, In Fairness to Future Generations. International Law, Common Patrimony and Intergenerational Equity (New York, 1988), p. 48.Google Scholar

13 For a recent US view that does identify the state weakness as one of the most important barriers to finding solutions to such so-called new security issues as drugs or the environment (and hence a major problem for US foreign policy), see Nye, Joseph, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York, 1990), p. 198.Google Scholar

14 Hall, Anthony, Developing Amazonia. Deforestation and social conflict in Brazil's Carajás programme (Manchester, 1989)Google Scholar; Bunker, Stephen, Underdeveloping the Amazon. Extraction, Unequal Exchange and the Failure of the Modern State (Chicago, 1985)Google Scholar. See also Schmink, M. and Wood, C., ‘The Political Ecology of Amazonia’ in Little, P., Horowitz, M. and Nyerges, A. E. (eds.), Lands at Risk in the Third World (Boulder: Westview, 1987).Google Scholar

15 On the various roles of the state see Skocpol, Theda, ‘Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research’, in Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Skocpol, Theda, Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, 1985).Google Scholar

16 The analysis of these pressures forms the major theme of the Brundtland Report. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford, 1987).Google Scholar

17 For a graphic account of rural violence see Amnesty International, Brazil: Authorised Violence in Rural Areas (London, 1988).Google Scholar

18 Hecht, Susanna and Cockburn, Alexander, The Fate of the Forest. Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon (London, 1989)Google Scholar, especially chapter 6. In addition to placing too much emphasis on the geopolitical factors, this account is wrong in asserting a strong US influence over Brazilian geopolitical thought and notions of ‘total war’ against Cold War subversion (p. 103). A fuller analysis of the geopolitical question would need to consider the relative position of the Amazon in Brazilian geopolitical thought and would probably give greater weight to the ideas of General Meira Mattos: de Meira Mattos, Carlos, A Geopolítica Pan-Amazônica (Rio de Janeiro, 1980).Google Scholar

19 See, for example, Sautchuk, Jaimeet al., Projeto Jari. A Invaso Americana (São Paulo, 1980)Google Scholar; Pinto, L. F., Carajás: O Ataque ao Coraçao da Amazônia (Rio de Janeiro, 1982Google Scholar; Cota, R. G., Carajás: A Invaso Desarmada (Petrópolis, 1984).Google Scholar

20 For the original elucidation of this viewpoint see Evans, Peter, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, 1979Google Scholar). On this point see Bunker, , Underdeveloping the Amazon, especially pp. 38–48Google Scholar, in which he argues for the need to ‘integrate the internal dynamics of regional social formations with the external dynamic of a world market system’, p. 48. See also Cardoso, F. H. and Muller, G., Amazõnia: expansāo do capitalismo (São Paulo, 1977).Google Scholar

21 Hecht, and Cockburn, , The Fate of the Forest, p. 98.Google Scholar

22 Cleary, David, Anatomy of the Amazon Gold Rush (London, 1990), p. 204.Google Scholar

23 Hall, , Developing Amazonia, pp. 253–254.Google Scholar

24 Even granted the significant degree of continuity, to talk, as Hecht and Cockburn do, of Brazil after 1985 as under ‘normal civilian rule’ [p. 118] is to underestimate the extent of political change in the 1980s.

25 As Paul Cammack argues in his recent critique of Skocpol, there is a danger of developing too rigid a dichotomy between the state and civil society and of focusing too much on the narrow question of the policies, attitudes and capacities of the state apparatus to the neglect of the interests represented by the state. See Cammack, Paul, ‘Review Article: Bringing the State Back In?’ British journal of Political Science 19, 2 (04 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 See Ely, Roland, ‘Brasil y las Guyanas’, Político International (Caracas) 9 (1988)Google Scholar. On the broader debates within the military over their role, see Stepan, Alfred, Rethinking Military Politics. Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, chapters 5 and 6; and Walder de Góes, ‘Militares e Polí;tica, uma Estratégia para a Democracia’, Reis, Fábio Wanderley and O'Donnell, Guillermo eds., A Democracia no Brasil. Dilemas e Perspectivas (São Paulo: Edições Vertice, 1988).Google Scholar

27 Both quotations as reported in The Times, 8 March 1989. The full texts of Araújo Castro's most important speeches and articles, including ‘O Congelamento do Poder Mundial’ can be found in Amado, Rodrigo (ed.), Araújo Castro (Brasilia, 1982)Google Scholar. For a fuller statement of the most recent Brazilian position see Neto, Bernardo Pericás, ‘Meio Ambiente e Relações Internacionais’, Contexto International 9 (01. /06 1989)Google Scholar, especially p. 12.

28 On the growth of these frictions see Hurrell, Andrew and Felder, Ellene, The U.S.-Brazilian Informatics Dispute (Washington, 1989).Google Scholar

29 John Browder, ‘Public Policy and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon’, in Repeto, and Gillis, , Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources, pp. 251–2.Google Scholar

30 For a useful micro-study of the origins and pattern of spontaneous colonisation, see Lisansky, Judith, Migrants to Amazonia. Spontaneous Colonisation in the Brazilian Frontier (Boulder, 1990).Google Scholar

31 Bunker, , Underdeveloping the Amazon, pp. 52–3Google Scholar. David Cleary presents an alternative view. Considering the examples of state intervention in the goldmining sector (especially at Serra Pelada), he argues that ‘Where social tensions threaten to explode, or where the federal authorities believe there is political advantage to be gained, they have little hesitation in intervening, even at the expense of traditional allies’. [Cleary, , Anatomy of the Amazon Gold Rush, p. 72Google Scholar]. There is, however, an important difference between effective intervention of this kind and the capacity to institute a broader shift of policy which would undercut the position of a wide range of traditionally privileged and locally powerful groups.

32 On the growth of grass-roots opposition see Hecht and Cockburn, The Fate of the Forest, chapter 8 and Hall, Developing Amazonia, chapter 5. As elsewhere in Brazil, it is important to keep the actual political impact of such new social movements in perspective and not to allow their novelty to overshadow study of the traditional sources of political power.

33 On the lobbying of private capital see Malori Pompermayer, ‘Strategies of Private Capital in the Brazilian Amazon’, in Schmink, M. and Woods, C. (eds.), Frontier Expansion in Amazonia (Gainesville, 1984).Google Scholar

34 The pattern of party realignments and their impact on the decisions of the Constituent Assembly have been thoroughly analysed by David Fleischer in ‘The Constituent Assembly and the Transformation Strategy: Attempts to Shift Political Power from the Presidency to Congress’, to appear in Lawrence Graham and Robert Wilson (eds.), Contemporary Issues in Brazilian Public Policy (forthcoming).

35 The literature in this area is uneven. There are now a number of general studies of transnationalism. See, for example, Keohane, Robert and Nye, Joseph (eds.), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar; and Willetts, Peter (ed.), Pressure Groups in the Global System (London, 1982)Google Scholar. There has also been considerable work in the related fields of human rights. See, for example, Weissbrodt, David, ‘The Contribution of International Non-Governmental Organizations to the Protection of Human Rights’, in Meron, Theodor (ed.), Human Rights in International Law (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar. Systematic study both of environmental NGOs and their influence in Latin America is rarer. For a general overview of their role, see Luard, Evan, The Globalization of Politics. The Changed Focus of Political Action in the Modern World, chapter 4 (London, 1990)Google Scholar; and Roggeri, H., NGOs and Environment-Development Issues (Nairobi, 1986)Google Scholar. For a strong argument for the transformative potential of NGOs and grassroots organisation see Myers, Norman, ‘Environmental Challenges: More Government or Better Governance?’, Ambio 17, 6 (1988).Google Scholar

36 See in particular Haas, Peter M., ‘Do regimes matter? Epistemic communities and Mediterranean pollution control’, International Organization 43, 3 (Summer 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 See Richard Cooper's fascinating analysis of the evolution of scientific consensus and international cooperation in the field of public health. Richard Cooper, N., ‘In ternational Cooperation in Public Health as a Prologue to Macroeconomic Cooperation’, in Cooper, Richardet al., Can Nations Agree? (Washington D. C, 1989).Google Scholar

38 Haas, , ‘Epistemic communities’, p. 402.Google Scholar

39 The best elaboration of this point remains Keohane, Robert and Nye, Joseph, Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).Google Scholar

40 That such feelings remain deep-rooted within the military can be seen from the comments in April 1990 by the military commander of Amazonia, General Antenor Santa Cruz: ‘The presence of the garimpeiro has strategic importance for the occupation of the territory. And, leaving aside the Indian areas, they should be placed in the national forests’. As reported in Isto E/Senhor, 4 April 1990.