From the CIAO Atlas Map of South America 

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CIAO DATE: 2/99

Global Change and the Political Economy of Sustainable Development in Brazil *

Valérie de Campos Mello

Candido Mendes University
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999

(DRAFT VERSION. DO NOT QUOTE)

 

Abstract

This paper is concerned with understanding the transformations in environmental standards and policies that have been taking place in Amazonia from an International Political Economy (IPE) perspective. It argues that, while extensively considering international solutions to achieve “global environmental management,” mainstream IR approaches have tended to overlook the effects of global economic processes on environmental standards and policies. Yet critically assessing political ecology at the time of global change requires one both to stress the ecological limits to globalization, and to emphasize the limits imposed by globalization on chances of long-term sustainable development. The paper highlights the disrupting and potentially negative social impacts that global change might produce in Brazil and attempts to define the environmental impact of globalization in Brazil, and especially in Amazonia, focusing both on changes in social relationships and on transformations in the model of accumulation as determinants of the new Amazonian policy. The paper concludes by emphasizing the ecological limits to globalization in Amazonia, stressing both the incompatibility between the scale of economic activities carried out in the region and the ecological carrying capacity on the one hand, and the resistance encountered at the local level by local groups and social movements whose ecological space is being transformed as a result of globalization.

 

Introduction

Amongst the world’s greatest environmental problems, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is without doubt the one which has caught the largest audience and attracted the most attention, being of concern to a large number of actors, governments, international institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations and media. It is also a topic which has received frequent treatment by the IR literature on Global Environmental Politics, with a special emphasis on the role played by the international community in helping solving the problems of Amazonia. Many studies point out to the internationalized or even globalized character of Amazonia and Amazonian policies. Yet, while a lot of attention is drawn to the role of international regimes, epistemic communities and foreign pressure in explaining policies and politics in Amazonia, little attention is given to another major international link between Amazonia and the world, namely, the impact of global change and economic globalization on environmental standards and policies.

The mainstream literature on international environmental protection, a literature dominated by Neoliberal Institutionalism, tends to emphasize cooperation and inter-state bargaining while neglecting factors such as, at the international level, the redefinition of Brazil’s international insertion in the context of globalization, the role of global patterns of production, trade and investment, the State reform, and at the internal level, conflicts, resistance, and those actors excluded from global or governmental processes. While extensively considering international solutions to achieve “global environmental management,” mainstream IR approaches tend to overlook the effects of global economic processes on environmental standards and policies. The literature on global environmental politics predominantly tends to emphasize the positive and potentially integrative effects of globalization, highlighting the benefits of the widespread acceptance of the concept of sustainable development and of the establishment of a model of “global environmental management.” Yet there is a relation between the globalization process and the situation of the environment. The link is both direct — global economic processes such as production, trade and investment put pressure on the world’s natural resource basis — and indirect — economic globalization is accompanied by a liberal consensus which has impacts on all policies, including economic policies affecting the environment and environmental policy itself. Both materially and ideationally, the globalization process is redefining the historical context within which environmental standards and policies and made and transformed. By neglecting this major link between Amazonia and the world, mainstream IR approaches fail to account for some of the very sources of environmental problems, resulting in what Robert Cox calls a “problem-solving” perspective. 1

In recent years, since the mid-1980s, Brazil has changed substantially its policy towards the Amazon in the context of the transformative process taking place in Brazil with the liberalization reforms and the acceptance of the imperative of globalization. Institutional changes and new instruments introduced from the return to democracy in 1985 to Cardoso’s administration in the mid and late 1990s, associated to a cooperative position at the international level, with the acceptance of a large number of international programs and policies, have generated a certain optimism as to the chances of a sustainable approach to Amazonia. At the same time, the transformative process of the 1990s has important implications for the region. Restructuring at the global level has modified the conditions of Brazil’s international insertion, placing new challenges and constraints on the road to sustainability in Amazonia. Indeed, ecological structures are integral to political and economic processes, and are shaped by social organization at the local, national and global levels. As global change helps transforming state-society relations in Brazil, new forms of environmental destruction emerge and new contradictions in Amazonia’s political economy become evident. Critically assessing political ecology at the time of global change requires one both to stress the ecological limits to globalization, and to emphasize the limits imposed by globalization on chances of long-term sustainable development in Amazonia. It means understanding how both the model of accumulation and social relations in Amazonia are being transformed in the context of global change, the resistance globalization is encountering and the impacts it will have on natural resources and ecological processes.

This paper is concerned with understanding the transformations in environmental standards and policies that have been taking place in Amazonia. It first reviews possible explanations for these changes, comparing and assessing theoretical approaches. To begin with, the Neoliberal Institutional perspective, focusing on the role of international regimes, institutions and on the existence of an “epistemic community,” is considered. This approach perceives concern at the international level for the preservation of the Amazonian rainforest as the major determinant factor. It sees the integration of environmental concerns in international institutions as having favorably influenced the trend to environmental policy reform. Secondly, the Realist interpretation of policy shift as resulting from the hegemonic pressure from powerful countries is examined. However, I. It first locates the policy change in the domestic context of the return to democracy and the emergence of the environmental movement in Brazil, reflecting new political demands for environmental protection. It then links them to the liberalization process, to the shift to market-oriented reforms and to global change, showing the different channels which have enabled transnational actors and alliances to have an impact on Brazil’s environmental policy reform. While recognizing the importance of international factors in explaining the transformations of environmental politics in Amazonia, such an approach is more interested in critically assessing this new environmental policy which is emerging in the context of global change.

The paper concludes by emphasizing the ecological limits to globalization in Amazonia, stressing both the incompatibility between the scale of economic activities carried out in the region and the ecological carrying capacity on the one hand, and the resistance encountered at the local level by local groups and social movements whose ecological space is being transformed as a result of globalization. 2 It underlines the limits of policy change in the context of globalization and of the consolidation of a free market model of development, showing who is controlling and managing the reform process, and highlighting the persistence of structural obstacles to long-term sustainable development in Amazonia.

 

I. Policy Reform in Amazonia

Developmentalism was the national project that guided policies in Brazil from the 1950s until the mid-1980s. During these years, the developmentalist state carried out with relative success the construction of a modern, urban and industrial society. In the context of the high degree of state intervention in the economy, the occupation of the Amazon region was defined as an important issue for both economic, social and strategic reasons. The State played a crucial role in the development process of Amazonia through the planning system put in place by the military regime, aimed at favoring the rapid and extensive development of the region. The occupation of the Amazon was also aimed at populating the region for strategic reasons. The military regime made a priority of the internal colonization of low populated regions such as Amazonia, seen as threatened by external invasion. Finally, the colonization and development of Amazonia were part of the state project to ease social tensions in other parts of the country where there was conflict over land ownership. Amazonia would help solve the structural inequity in land ownership in Brazil, as impoverished populations of the Northeast were encouraged to migrate to the region.

Until the 1980s, deforestation was a nationally-led process resulting directly from patterns of state intervention in the region, mainly from large scale colonization and integration projects. As such, it was integrated in the wider context of the national modernization strategy based on the alliance between the state, national elites and foreign capital. Deforestation was thus fully part of the government policy for the region. The region was transformed from a completely forested and lowly populated region into a region with a high urbanization rate and an important participation in national production and income. Yet this was done at a high social and environmental price. Public policies allowed for the prosperity of entrepreneurs and large land owners while penalizing small farmers, migrants and indigenous populations. Local and poor population were increasingly deprived of access to land and to natural resources. At that time, there was little concern for the preservation of the world’s largest reserve of tropical forests, even though it was becoming the focus of a great deal of international attention, both public and private. Instead, the Brazilian government gave particular emphasis to restating its sovereignty over Amazonia and protecting itself against external interference. In the early 1980s, the first environmentalists concerned about the preservation of the Amazonian rainforest met strong resistance from the Brazilian government.

Unlike other rainforest countries, in Brazil there was no clear direct relationship between the causes of deforestation and international involvement as was the case with timber logging for exports in Asia or with the so-called ‘hamburger connection’ in Central America. The links were more indirect, and international influence was exerted in a more fluid way, through Brazil’s insertion in the international system. The “public ownership” of forests in Brazil is also different from some other tropical countries. Most of the Amazonian forest technically belongs to the federal government and is under the responsibility of the national environmental agency, IBAMA. 3 This structure makes the responsibility for forest protection fall predominantly on government. Under authoritarian rule (1964–1984), environmental protection was not really an integral part of government policies. Absolute priority was granted to economic development, and the adverse consequences on the environment were accepted as necessary evils on the road to progress. By the mid-1980s the situation started to change substantially, as international factors began having a direct impact on deforestation standards and politics. Not only was a connection established between the situation of the environment in Amazonia and the situation of the global environment, affecting every human being on the planet, with the discovery of the role played by deforestation in global warming and in the greenhouse effect. Direct connections were also established between Brazil’s foreign debt and the situation of the environment, or between the role of international institutions such as the World Bank and forest depletion in Amazonia. This global awareness, in return, was practically translated into a strong international campaign involving a variety of actors, both governmental and non-governmental, in the defense of the Amazonian rainforest. These actors, through direct pressure or transnational alliances, played a significant role in influencing the environmental policy reform which has been taking place in Brazil since the mid-1980s and in the reform in state policies towards Amazonia.

The progress in environmental policy in Brazil starting in the 1980s is by no means an isolated phenomenon. In recent years, most countries have been through a process of reform, Latin American countries in particular. Despite the continued criticism by some NGOs, the academic literature on the topic is united in recognizing that significant progress has been achieved in environmental policy in recent years. In the region, Brazil is probably the country which deserves the largest share of international interest for its environmental policy. This is mainly due to two reasons: on the one hand to its economic weight, which makes it a member both of the most industrialized nations and of the most polluted nations. The 1997 “State of the World” report includes Brazil in the “G8” group of the most important countries from the environmental point of view. 4 On the other hand, the importance of the Amazonian forest induces increased international concern and attention from a whole variety of actors. The poor environmental record of the Brazilian record over the past decades contributed to attract attention to the fate of the world’s largest tropical forest.

By the end of the 1980s, and more clearly at the beginning of the 1990s, some changes started to be visible in Brazil’s environmental policy as well as in its Amazonian policy, a change noticed and praised both by Brazilian and foreign observers. 5 This shift included both a change in regional and sectorial policies affecting Amazonia’s economic activities and the attempt at strengthening of monitoring and control by the environmental agencies. In a context of economic recession and slowing down of the expansion of the agricultural frontier, this policy shift enabled a real reduction in the deforestation rate in Amazonia in the early 1990s. 6 According to INPE, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, the annual average deforestation rate dropped from 0.54 % in the period 1978–1989 to 0.48 % in the 1988–89 and 0.30 % in 1990–91. In the mid-1990s, it is undeniable that the determinants of Amazonian policy have been transformed. Changes in economic policy and growing liberalization were accompanied by a change in the pattern of state intervention in Amazonia. The recent years have seen the development of a variety of institutional and economic instruments aimed at strengthening environmental protection in the region. 7

These include, at the domestic level, the attempt at improving the regulatory and implementation capacity of environmental institutions, the launching of a new comprehensive development strategy for Amazonia, the introduction of new mechanisms and instruments such as ecological-economic zoning and extractive reserves, and an effort to make policies on a more participatory basis and to consult with local populations, indigenous peoples and NGOs. At the international level, the traditional defensive position based on the sovereignty argument gave place to a more cooperative stance, culminating in 1992 with the offer of the Brazilian government to host the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Brazil assumed an active role during the “Prepcoms,” the Preparatory Committees, and UNCED itself, leading the elaboration of the Biodiversity Convention and showing real commitment to the Climate Change Convention. Despite reminders of the nationalistic position which had prevailed in Stockholm in 1972, Brazil’s position during UNCED recognized the extreme relevance of global environmental problems and saw it as a priority in the international community’s agenda. The UNCED Conference has in a sense completed Brazil’s shift toward a more responsible policy regarding global environmental affairs, and has meant the acceptance of international cooperation for the protection of Amazonia. The largest program is the ‘Pilot Program for the Protection of Tropical Forests in Brazil’ (commonly referred to as ‘PPG7’), the most important international instrument dealing with the deforestation problem in the Amazon, launched after a proposal of the G7 in Houston with funds from the World Bank and the European Union. The Program approved in 1991 involves external assistance in the form of grants, technical cooperation, and concessional loans, to implement activities in the area of environmental zoning, conservation units, environmental education, natural resource management, monitoring and enforcement, demonstration projects (pilot projects carried out by non-profit groups, small farmers and forest dwellers), and science and technology. Among the many components of the Program, the Project to Support Forest Management in Amazonia, part of the demonstration projects, represents a significant advance, having adopted a participatory methodology and being based on a wide vision of the intersectorial problems which hamper sustainable management. An Amazonian Working Group (Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico, GTA) was formed as a coalition of environmentalists, rural unionists, community groups and indigenous people. The recognition by all participants that NGOs have an important contribution to make, being uniquely positioned to implement certain kinds of field demonstration projects, is considered as the major strength of the PPG7. 8

In recent years, Brazil has demonstrated some willingness to try to comply with international standards, accepting timber certification programs, and trying to follow guidelines of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) in an effort to discipline the domestic timber market and move towards more sustainable forms of forest management. Both the attempt to comply with some of ITTO’s guidelines and criteria and the development of international cooperation projects such as the Pilot Program for Amazonia signal reform in environmental policy and a significant change in Amazonian policies. While in the 1970s no one called for the preservation of the forest, in the 1990s publicly opposing the preservation has become unacceptable. While in the 1970s cattle-ranching was seen as the way to development in Amazonia, in the 1990s it has become a symbol of destruction. The international image of Brazil has improved, as reflected by articles in the international press welcoming the environmental reform and the “Integrated Policy” for Amazonia. Although it is still an incomplete reform and the implementation of some aspects of the new policy is and will be extremely problematic, the acceptance of the concept of “sustainable development” represents an advance in relation to the previous situation of complete ignorance of environmental considerations.

 

II. Competing Theoretical Approaches to Environmental Reform

The end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s thus witnessed an undeniable shift in the Brazilian government policies regarding Amazonia, affecting the dynamic of deforestation in the region. The shift seems to indicate a change in the determinants of Brazil’s environmental policy, showing a growing role of international factors in decisions affecting the political economy of environment and development in Amazonia. Considering the nationalistic character of Brazil’s reactions to international interference in the past, it is interesting to investigate the reasons for this policy shift and ask how it became politically possible. What is interplay of national and international factors which accounts for the transformations in Brazil’s policy regarding Amazonia? How do major IR approaches explain and interpret such a change? And what role do they give to the global historical context within which these transformations take place, the context of the process of economic globalization?

The role of international campaigns in favor of environmental protection and the Amazonian rainforest has often been identified as the main force behind this policy reform. Neoliberal Institutionalists argue that the shift reflected Brazil’s perception of the interests at stake in the global environmental debate, and was the result of the dynamic created by the development of an “international regime” for tropical forests and of the existence of an “epistemic community.” Realists instead see issues of strategy and security as having played a major role. Yet, while inter-state negotiations and the development of institutions and regimes at the international level, stressed by Neoliberal Institutionalists, and the issues linked to ‘environmental security’, emphasized by Realists, have both played a role in delimiting the international framework for action, explanations focusing exclusively on international causes tend to present ahistorical and “problem-solving” accounts concerned almost exclusively with inter-state bargaining and policy-making. Instead, I suggest a critical, political economy approach which tries to bridge the domestic-international divide by presenting a causal construct that links both global change and local actors in the making of environmental politics in Brazil.

II.1. Neoliberal Institutionalism: Shift in Interest, Institutions and Epistemic Communities

II.1.1. A shift in interest: environment, trade and development

According to the Neoliberal Institutionalist viewpoint, one of the major reasons for environmental policy shift in Brazil is the perception that the country’s national interest was to try to improve environmental protection at the domestic level. The very nature of environmental issues has contributed to make the Brazilian government abandon its view of forests as a purely national resource and recognize their role as global resources. Indeed, the Amazonian issue was starting to bear upon Brazil’s broader foreign policy goals. It was not just the direct political and economic costs of external pressure, but rather their impact on Brazil’s broader foreign policy objectives that was decisive in helping to shift Brazilian policy. At the end of the 1980s, Brazil was showing willingness to improve its relations with developed countries. During the Collor administration, Brazil was beginning a liberalization process aiming at better integrating the country into the world economy. Collor’s modernization and liberalization project could only succeed if cooperative relations were established with developed countries. It could not afford to suffer discrimination for environmental reasons. The previous discourse on the “internationalization of the Amazon” and his focus on sovereignty had given the image of Brazil as an environmental villain, and was having negative impacts on the country’s foreign relations. Collor made sustainable development and economic liberalism the two main axes of his foreign policy discourse. Thus Brazil’s change of stance on the environment reflected the will to preserve its main political interests on trade, debt, and development. 9

II.1.2. International public opinion and epistemic communities

The Neoliberal Institutionalist approach also views international public opinion has having an impact on the shift in environmental policy in Brazil. At the beginning of the 1990s, environmental concerns were very high in developed countries. Public opinion was becoming increasingly aware of the extent of environmental destruction, especially on the issue of tropical forests. The exotic nature of the topic, linked to its immediate perception contributed to promoting a sort of mobilization in favor of tropical forests. Second, several campaigns were launched through the media, which played a major role and provided supportive structure to the on-going issue of environmental protection. In the case of the Amazon, the records in depletion attained in 1988, when satellites detected huge fires, together with the murder of Chico Mendes, a trade unionist rubber-tapper who fought for the protection of the forest, were also widely covered by the media. The linkage between deforestation and global warming was made, and fighting for the preservation of Amazonia became a way to preserve lifestyles and production and consumption patterns in developed countries.

In this context, NGOs started to multiply their efforts to promote the protection of tropical forests. These included not only demonstrations and campaigns, but also the organization of boycotts and bans. NGOs have also been pressuring the Brazilian government to include mahogany on the CITES (Conference on the International Trade in Endangered Species) list of endangered species. Greenpeace has also been working with local communities and indigenous people to revert deforestation by targeting the mahogany industry. Greenpeace claims that as a result of its action several logging companies have been forced to stop their operations in the Indian lands of the State of Pará, and the state Association of Timber Exports was forced to sign an agreement not to log in Indian lands anymore. 10

Besides direct external pressure by foreign NGOs, another important factor was the development of an alliance between grassroots organizations in Brazil and international NGOs which in turn sought support from their governments to pressure Brazil. A “vertical link” was created between Brazilian and international NGOs. A “vertical link,” according to Ronen Palan, creates a direct link whereby a group residing in one society is attached to a group residing in another by common purposes or interests. 11 In the case of Amazonia, the development of this vertical link allowed grassroot movements and national NGOs to bypass the national government. By ensuring the support of their counterparts in developed countries, they got governments of the United States and of some European countries to exert diplomatic pressure on the Brazilian government in favor of the protection of the Amazon. These links have also functioned particularly well in the case of extractive reserves. In this specific case, a combination of growing internal and external pressure in the form of a transnational coalition formed by sustainable grassroot groups, social groups such as unions, left-wing political parties, domestic and international environmental NGOs and temporarily the US Congress all exerted decisive pressure upon the highest levels of the Brazilian government in favor of the establishment of extractive reserves. 12 The shift in environmental policy-making in Brazil and the establishment of extractive reserves can thus be interpreted as resulting from the action of an “epistemic community” with broad international support.

II.1.3. The shift within the international development community

Finally, the role of the nascent forest “international regime” is stressed by Neoliberal Institutionalists as a main reason for Brazil’s change of stance on environmental policy. Though there is no “international regime” strictu sensu, as no legally-binding convention or treaty regulates the problem of deforestation, several instruments exist, forming a sort of informal “regime.” 13 This regime encompasses both provisions in development and trade programs and environmental measures per se. There has been a shift in priorities in the international community, which made available financial and technical assistance (to a certain extent) in order to include environmental concerns in development projects. International institutions help institutional-building, establishing technical and legal standards, improving enforcement and undertaking research, as well as providing financial support. The growing involvement of the international community in environmental issues in Brazil has played a critical role in reinforcing and assisting the domestic forces pressing for environmental reform. After 1988 the World Bank established new environmental conditionalities linking the concession of new funds to the submission of environmental impact assessments, affecting Brazil in the electric and in the mining sector. Besides direct economic pressure, the multiplication of environmental conferences has provided the opportunity to launch debate, given incentive to research and new technologies, and attracted media coverage, thus increasing public awareness. 14 Parallel to increasing diplomatic pressure, developed countries multiplied forms of economic instruments to address the issue of forest protection. These included the application of conditionality in the concession of new loans and credits, limiting Brazil’s access to multilateral finance; the use of unilateral trade measures, the development of projects of timber certification and eco-labeling, and the move towards the inclusion of environmental clauses in GATT and then in the WTO. Of particular concern to Brazil is the development of an international certification scheme for tropical timber, which would discriminate against timber extracted in an unsustainable manner. All these factors contributed to build the awareness that preserving Amazonia was in the country’s national interest and that failing to revert deforestation would negatively affect the country’s international image.

II.2. Realist Interpretations: Power, Hegemony and Security

At the other end of the theoretical spectrum, Realists would interpret policy change in Brazil as resulting more from factors linked to hegemony and security. If Brazil has changed its stance on environmental policy and policies affecting Amazonia, it is first because hegemonic powers have pressured it to do so, and second, because Brazil itself perceived the issue as an opportunity to make claims within the international power system.

II.2.1. Hegemonic pressure on Brazil

In the Realist perspective, the changing agenda of the United States in relation to Latin America had a real influence on the Brazilian government’s decision to carry out an environmental policy reform. Indeed, after the emphasis on security considerations which dominated the Cold War years, the mid-1980s saw the growing focus on trade as a central element in US foreign policy towards Latin America. Trade liberalization was seen as a means to foster US interests in Latin America. This trade-dominated orientation of US foreign policy contributed to the establishment of linkages between trade and non-trade issues such as environmental protection, social rights or human rights. Trade negotiations became the fora where all issues would be addressed, providing the US with a sustained leverage over the bargaining process. 15 This leverage allowed the US to include the issue of environmental protection in many international discussions. In particular, the focus on the issue of tropical deforestation served well US strategic goals, since emphasizing deforestation as a major factor contributing to global warming diverted the attention away from the issue of emissions caused by industrial activities, for which the US has a very high share in responsibilities. By focusing on the role of forests as “carbon sinks,” reducing the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere and helping to fight global warming, the US could soothe its environmentalists without facing the strong reaction that a reduction in industrial emissions would provoke within national business and industrial sectors, while allowing for the maintenance of its standards of living and consumption. Another reason for the special attention given by the US and other developed country to Amazonia was its importance as a “reservoir” of biodiversity. Deforestation in Amazonia could mean the reduction of biological diversity and of the genetic materials which are the basic sources of medicinal and chemical products, representing a potential loss for pharmaceutical remedies and other chemical processes, as well as agriculture. The success of the pharmaceutical industry itself is, to a certain extent, dependent on the existence of tropical forests. The pharmaceutical lobby was thus actively supporting measures to preserve rainforests in general and Amazonia in particular. These two reasons motivated the formation of a coalition of advanced industrialized countries in favor of the preservation of Amazonia both as a main instrument to fight global warming and as a “reservoir” of biodiversity. This configuration of interests at the international level explains, in the Realist perspective, the high degree of pressure exerted on the Brazilian government to fight deforestation and ultimately its decision to redirect its policy towards Amazonia.

II.2.2. Strategic opportunities for Brazil

A second factor put forward by Realists is the perception by developing countries such as Brazil that international environmental negotiations could provide a unique forum to discuss development and the international economic order. The end of the Cold War strengthened the feeling that Latin America was becoming increasingly marginalized. The perception was that many of the factors that had fed interdependence were losing their force. Thus, the emergence of global environmental interdependence was seen as an important exception to this trend. 16 Since the Stockholm Conference in 1972, developing countries had been refusing all forms of interference in their internal environmental affairs. As far as tropical forests were concerned, they advanced sovereignty criteria to oppose any instrument dealing with forests at an international level. However, during the UNCED negotiation process, forests began to be considered by developing countries as bargaining tools for other negotiations and for obtaining additional resources and transfer of technology. Indeed, many countries in the South believed that the growing concern about the environment in the North gave them a bargaining leverage for their demands on global economic relations. UNCED for example was looked upon as a “conjunctural window” where a few cards could be played. 17 Developing countries realized that not only was their participation essential for a real solution to emerge on issues such as global warming or tropical deforestation. They also perceived themselves as having a high potential of “nuisance capacity” through deforestation, the pollution of oceans, air and soils. In addition, the South has the largest share of natural and biogenetic resources in the world. Amazonia is the richest ecosystem on earth in terms of biological diversity. This situation gives southern countries, and Brazil in particular, some “resources” and leverage power in negotiations. According to Mac Neill et al, developing countries “saw an opportunity to hold the environment hostage to the resolution of certain equity, debt, technology transfer, trade and other economic development issues.” 18 During UNCED negotiations, the Group of 77 based its strategy on a document prepared by the South Center which highlighted the need for developing countries to take advantage of developed countries’ interest in forests in order to obtain some sort of compensation for tropical forests’ protection. 19 The decision to undertake policy reform in Amazonia was part of a strategy aiming at trying to benefit from developed countries’ interest in the region and to gain access to resources and technology.

Finally, Realists also stress the potential strategic use that Brazil could make of the possession of such valuable natural biodiversity resources. The national biodiversity reserves, and Amazonia in particular, can be seen as one of the few “strong cards” of which Brazil disposes to reposition itself in the global geopolitical scenario. They would confer to the country important comparative advantages in the global competitivity game. Such an asset is recognized and put forward by the Brazilian government. The National Integrated Policy for Legal Amazonia believes that the Amazonian Project will “help the country face the challenge to define a new and better pattern of insertion in the international system,” and identifies the “comparative advantages Amazonia possesses in front of the country and the world: its territorial dimension, its geographical position, the magnitude and diversity of its resource base and its cultural identity.” 20 Strategic considerations stressed by Realist analysis thus played a role in determining the recent focus of the Brazilian government on environmental protection and forest preservation in Amazonia.

II.3. Critical IPE: Linking Social Structure and Globalization

Both Neoliberal Institutionalism and Realism shed light on important aspects of the “internationalization” of Brazil’s environmental policy and contribute to draw an accurate picture of the international setting within which the policy shift took place. Yet they only provide an incomplete account of the changes taking place in Brazil today in respect to Amazonian policies.

Both Neoliberal Institutionalism and Realism are notable for their a-critical appraisal of global environmental politics. As has been shown above, the literature on global environmental predominantly tends to emphasize the positive and potentially integrative effects of globalization. Globalization is often a-critically accepted as a process which includes a globalization of values. 21 In this context, international development institutions are seen to play a major role in “educating” bureaucrats and politicians and in influencing policy-making in developing countries. Globalization is thus evaluated by Neoliberal Institutionalism as a “progressive” process, which universalizes environmental protection as an imperative, together with human rights, that will ultimately bring higher environmental standards to the Third World. Neoliberal Institutionalism tends to emphasize the integrative effect of globalization, highlighting the benefits of the widespread acceptance of “global environmental management.” Realists, on the other hand, perceive potential gains to be drawn from the use of the structural constraints represented by economic interdependence in order to institutionalize environmental protection and develop instruments to promote “sustainable development.” To be fair to both approaches, it seems plausible to assert that globalization has in a sense helped to create conditions for the development of policy mechanisms and institutions that will universalize and promote the concept of “sustainable development.” But the way the environmental debate has been framed by the international development establishment in order to legitimize market reforms is not questioned by mainstream IR authors, and existing alternatives to the liberal ‘sustainable development’ approach are seldom addressed.

In addition, there seems to be limited concern within the mainstream literature about the impact of globalization on the political economy of environmental reform in developing countries. Although the “problem-solving” discourse emphasizes the benefits arising from the “globalization of the environment,” i.e., the inclusion of environmental concerns in the international political agenda, these approaches fail to establish a concrete link between global change, restructuring and state reforms on the one hand, and sustainable development in the Third World on the other hand. The nature of this link, and, even more, its empirical measure, are difficult to establish. There are, however, some signs indicating that global change is exerting a structuring influence on the redefinition of environmental politics in the South. The kind of sustainable development being promoted seems to represent more the consolidation of a liberal project of “environmental management” than a real shift away from destructive practices. Globalization tends to consolidating a market-friendly view of sustainable development, a view which gives priority to the sustainability of “global growth” and to the correction of environmental damage. This is being carried out at the expense of the competing alternatives and participatory view of sustainable development as stressing not only development but also social equity and decentralized participation.

Table 1:
Competing Approaches to Amazonian Policies

  Realism Neoliberal Institutionalism Critical IPE
Causes of forest
Destruction
1. Imbalance between population and resources: settlement plans and frontier expansion. 1. market failures: externalities, inadequate pricing of forest products
2. Bad Management, subsidies.
1. Model of accumulation: developmentalism in the past, globalism today.
2. system of political and social relations
Causes for Policy Reform in Brazil 1. US and G7 hegemony: role of forests as carbon sinks and in biodiversity.
2. Strategic Opportunities for Brazil: Amazonia as a bargaining tool, providing comparative advantages.
1. Shift in Brazil’s Interests: influence on economic relations
2. Role of Public Opinion and NGOs
3. Epistemic Communities
4. Role of the International Forest Regime
1. Evolution in the Brazilian social structure: redemocratization, social movements in Amazonia.
2. Reform of the State
3. Redefinition of accumulation model: liberalization, market reforms
Major Solutions
Considered for Amazonia
1. reconversion of military
2. Decrease in population growth rates
1. international regimes, ITTO guidelines International cooperation projects: PPG7, Panafloro, Carbon sequestration projects.
2. Correction of market failures
3. Removal of inefficient regulation: subsidies.
1. Change in the model of accumulation: redistribution at global and national level
2.democratization, participation, change in land tenure system, local solutions: extractive reserves, small-scale projects.
3. participation of local actors: rubber-tappers, indigenous populations, forest people alliance.
4. Regulation at the Global level: control of activities of TNCs, of IOs such as the WTO, WB, IMF and UN agencies

 

III. The Interplay of Domestic and Global Factors

In order to understand the transformations in Amazonian policies in the 1990s, it is useful to consider the dynamic interaction between local, national and global factors or, in other terms, how the “outside” becomes the “inside” and the “inside” becomes inseparable from the “outside.” As stressed by Palan, “the problem of causation, which assigns predominance to either the domestic or the international, is misdirected. The evolution of a system comes about by internal responses to outside circumstances that are in turn re-affective in relation to the general environment as a whole.” 22 It is more the dynamic combination of domestic and international factors which is responsible for social and political. Indeed, while some of the pressure for environmental reform in Latin America has come from the environmental movement internationally, rare are the Latin American governments which have taken action in defense of the environment without pressure from below, from their own citizens. 23 Deforestation and the socio-ecological crisis in the Amazon are first of all linked to the broader issues of economic development and patterns of state intervention in Brazil. As stressed by Hurrell, “the case of Brazil and the Amazon makes it very clear that the focus on formal international agreements and on Brazilian participation in international conferences will be a wholly inadequate guide as to what is likely to happen in the Amazon. Effective management of the Amazon will certainly involve international cooperation and inter-state agreements. But it will also depend on the existence of a sufficiently powerful domestic political coalition and of a sufficiently effective administrative apparatus to ensure compliance with whatever international norms and agreements may be entered into.” 24

While the influence of global factors — such as the pressure of international NGOs, governments or organizations — on environmental concerns in Brazil appears quite clearly, the role of endogenous factors should not be neglected to understand the political economy of environment and development in Brazil. The aim of the critical, IPE perspective is not purely to show the influence of international factors and of the economic globalization process on state policies in the Amazon region. Rather, it is to investigate how global change interferes with the “political trajectory” of environment and development in the Amazon region, and to make explicit the responses given by the actors affected by global change. This aim is what distinguishes a “critical approach” to ecology, an approach interested in theorizing social change, from “problem-solving” IR approaches, in particular Neo-liberal Institutionalism, and also from a great deal of the literature on Third World politics.

The academic literature on Third World politics has often been dominated by the belief in the primacy of exogenous factors in explaining the political change affecting Africa, Latin America and Asia since the expansion of western capitalism. As stressed by Jean-François Bayart, this type of analysis is limited to the “short time” of events. Instead, a critical analysis of political change starts start with Braudel’s concept of “longue durée”: contemporary politics, argues Bayart, should be viewed in the light of these layers of “slow history.” 25 In order to restitute historicity to the analysis of politics, it is useful to situate politics at the crossing of “inside dynamics” and “outside dynamics,” as in Balandier’s approach. By questioning the continuity of civilizations and the underlying longue-durée structures of present forms of civilization, it becomes possible to overcome the erroneously universalist interpretations of the political field. 26

Without entering in depth into the debate on the universalist bias of the literature on Third World politics, Bayart’s critical view can provide a valid starting point for an analysis of the political trajectory of environment and development in Brazil and of its interaction with global change. The essential element here is to stress that there are several “temporalities” acting and interacting in the political economy of environment and development in the Amazon region. The first temporality is an abstract one, a sort of transcendental or constitutive category of all social facts. In this case, this “abstract temporality” refers to the general relationship between humanity and nature. Then comes the concrete temporality, divided in the longue, moyenne, and courte durées. The longue durée is the enlarged historical perspective, including dimensions such as the traditions of the man-nature relation in the Brazilian political and economic history, the different civilizations involved in the social formation of Brazil, the secular times of the indigenous cultures, and the historical types of accumulation. Then comes the moyenne durée of the economic and social model adopted in the country in the post-war period, and of the transformations promoted by the Brazilian state from the 1950s until the middle of the 1980s, including the patterns of state intervention in this period, the evolution of economic interests and of the political and institutional regime during those years. Finally, there comes the short term, the influence of events such as the murder of Chico Mendes, the organization of UNCED and its results, the fires in the rainforest. In today’s Amazonia, the clash of different temporalities is the key to understanding the social and political conflicts deriving from the unequal access to natural resources. One major conflict is due to the coexistence of primitive forms of accumulation (extractive activities) and of modern capitalistic types of social relation. The process of globalization interferes with every level of temporality: by creating pressure for the universalization of liberal capitalism, it calls for the extinction of pre-capitalistic or mercantilistic remains (extractivism), resulting in social conflicts and violence between actors inserted in different temporalities. By redefining the type of insertion of the country in the international political economy, globalization affects the domestic political economy, and in this sense, it helps to shape the political trajectory of environment and development in Brazil.

The critical approach I adopt is centered around three basic assumptions. First, it accepts the relativity in the understanding of nature and rejects the ‘same boat’ ideology which prescribes universal solutions to ecological problems. Second, it believes in the inadequacy of concentrating exclusively on interstate relations. And third, it identifies economic development and globalization as the underlying causes of the ecological crisis and thus as major factors to be taken into account in the analysis of the responses to that crisis. It is also an International Political Economy approach in that it looks at the interaction between states and markets from a perspective which tries to overcome the classic domestic-international distinction. 27

Although the ecological dimensions of global structural transformation have not penetrated the core concerns of IPE, there have been some attempts to develop an IPE approach to ecological change. 28 In particular, the work of Polanyi has been used as a basis to understand the contradictions of capitalist development and its impact on ecology in the context of global change. The greatest contribution of Polanyi is his understanding of markets not as mechanisms arising naturally but rather as resulting from the exercise of state power. His work on The Great Transformation (1944) has served as a basis for analyzing what is now understood as the “second Great Transformation,” the globalization process experienced at the end of the Twentieth Century. As far as global political ecology is concerned, the starting point for a critical approach is Polanyi’s understanding of the ‘Great Transformation’ process as provoking a ‘disembedding’ of society which took the form of the commodification of labor and nature. While Realism and Neo-liberal Institutionalism view ecology as an exogenous and passive sphere to be controlled and ‘managed’, isolating ecological problems from the sphere of power and ideology, the critical IPE approach borrows from Polanyi’s conceptualization of the interrelationship between social organization and the natural world, nature becoming commodified with the advent of market society. It rejects the ‘management’ approach of the ecological crisis and considers it as an example of a ‘problem solving’ rather than of a critical approach.

The approach focuses on the globalization process as the key to understanding the transformations in state-society relations taking place in the 1990s. Its aim is to develop a critical and historically based approach that can explain the character and the shortcomings of environmental politics in the 1990s and shift the emphasis away from state actions or bargaining to state-society relations. The ‘globalization’ of Amazonia is not limited to international negotiations, diplomatic pressure of epistemic communities, as Neoliberal Institutionalism and Neorealism seem to indicate. A critical IPE approach thus provides a more comprehensive analysis of environmental politics as related to international restructuring and to the transformations in the political economy of environmental and development in Brazil. In this sense, it is able not only to account for the causes of social change, but also to explain the nature of the reactions to that change.

III.1. The Rise of the Brazilian Environmental Movement and Political Change in Democratic Brazil

Environmental policy reform has first to be situated within the context of a change in the structure of social and political relations in Brazil. At the end of the 1980s, political support for policy shift at the internal level was beginning to emerge. Brazil had just started a new democratic era, with the direct election of the first civilian president in thirty years. The new democratic regime allowed for the manifestation of genuine environmental concerns, present in the country’s cultural identity. 29 With the return of the country to democracy, the ecological movement established itself as a permanent political actor and the environmental issue became a locus for the exercise of citizen rights. The environmental movement in Brazil is the oldest and most developed one in Latin America. The Rio Conference in 1992 allowed for a real consolidation of the environmental movement in Brazil. Today, the movement is fully established and institutionalized, with a well-implanted network of activists and organizations. It is estimated that there are over 300 associations working on topics related to Amazonia, representative of the environmental movement, of extractors, small producers and organized communities. 30 The environmental movement in Brazil has been able to create alliances or work with other sectors such as unions or other social movements. Alternative social movements started to proliferate, with the outstanding example of the development of the “Forest Peoples’ alliance,” where rubber tappers and indigenous peoples signed a pact for the defense of forests and land rights of forest people. Regarding Amazonia, the main concern of NGOs has been to press for more democracy in decisions affecting the region and for wider participation in policy formulation and implementation. NGOs have no homogeneous position, however, they have been able to work together up to a certain extent and to unite efforts at some moments, having clear impacts on government’s policy.

In addition, public opinion in Brazil is becoming increasingly receptive to the issue of environmental protection, reflecting the existence of a popular consensus on the intrinsic value of nature. A 1993 survey reveals that 71% of the population have a declared interest for environmental issues , and deforestation is singled out as the major environmental concern: 58% of the surveyed population point out deforestation as the most important problem at the global level and 33% at the domestic level. Finally, 47% agree that what occurs in the Amazon, for having impacts on the whole world, cannot be decided by Brazilians alone. 31 A more recent survey reveals that only 27% of Brazilians accept that economic development should have priority over the environment. 32 Finally, the role of the media in building-up public awareness is also to be noted. During UNCED, in Rio, the Brazilian media played a structuring role in changing public attitude. As a result, public awareness rose substantially. The changes in environmental policy thus reflected an evolution in public opinion in Brazil and the growing role of the environmental movement as a political actor.

II.3.2. Accumulation, globalization and changing state-society relations

The combination of the growing awareness at the internal level, rendered possible by the democratization context, and the international pressure both at governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental levels, thus contribute to explain the trend to environmental policy reform in Brazil and the change in the determinants of Amazonian policies since the end of the 1980s. Yet to fully understand the new directions of Amazonian policies in the 1990s, it is necessary to situate them in their “historical structure,” is Cox’s terminology, that is, in the context of the transformative process of state-society relations, a process itself linked to the need to redefine an economic accumulation model for Brazil and to articulate a favorable insertion of the country in the international political economy. As global change poses new constraints on Brazil’s economic development, responses emerge at the national level in an attempt to dynamically insert Brazil in the globalization process. The economic liberalization process and the reform of the state carried out in the context of the restructuring of the accumulation model have important implications for the political economy of environment and development in Amazonia. The environmental policy reform of the 1990s has eventually incorporated the goal of sustainable development in Brazil, and permeated the activities of all social actors, from government to business and industry and diverse social movements. Yet it seems that Brazil is moving towards a liberal model of “environmental management” rather than towards a model which would ensure long-term sustainability and social equity.

Globalization constitutes a key factor in explaining policy shift in Amazonian policy. Global change has decisively contributed to modify the political economy of development in 1990’s Brazil, leading to a redefinition of patterns of state intervention, of state-society relations and of the country’s insertion in the international economy. In Amazonia, this transformative process has led to a shift away from the traditional ‘state-led development-sovereignty’ oriented approach to Amazonia towards a ‘management’ approach to environmental protection. This market-friendly approach has been translated into a policy which, while still poorly implemented, recognizes environmental protection as a central issue. Today, Brazil is living a period of transition, and this at different levels: transition from economic populism to economic ‘pragmatism’; transition from developmentalism toward sustainable development; transition from a developmentalist to a coordinating type of state; transition from nationally-led Amazonian policies to more internationalized ones. All these processes are still incomplete. However, the historical analysis of the political economy of Amazonian development and of its determinants allows one to detect some general trends in this transition as far as Amazonia is concerned.

Beyond the acknowledgement of a policy change and the recognition of this change as a partly internationally determined phenomenon, three issues seem particularly interesting here with regard to the interplay between domestic and global processes. The first issue is the new impact that the economic liberalization process will have in Amazonia as Brazil becomes increasingly globalized. Will the environmental policy reform affecting Amazonia, considered as an (albeit modest) step forward, be fostered in a context of growing economic globalization? How will the liberalization process of the 1990s affect the Amazonian political economy? The second issue has to do with a corollary of the acceptance of liberal, market-oriented, policies, i.e., the reform of the state and of state institutions and the redefinition of their role. Will the state’s capacity to provide a sustainable model for Amazonia be enhanced? Will it improve policy-making and implementation? Finally, the third issue concerns the structural factor lying at the root of Amazonian social and environmental conflicts, namely, the lack of democracy in the access and control of natural resources. Is the policy reform altering this situation and promoting democratization in Amazonia? And, as the international insertion of Brazil is redefined, will new connections be made between international factors and actors and forest depletion, with what effects, and for whom? To sum up, will the 1990s Amazonian policy be able to promote long term sustainable development in the region, understood as a development which is both socially and ecologically conscious?

III.2. Globalizing Amazonia: the Obstacles to Sustainability

Global change was a major determinant of both the adoption of economic policy reforms in the 1990s and of the nature and orientation of these policies. It combined to the generalized crisis of the state which had marked Brazil in the 1980s, a crisis affecting the state’s structure, functioning, and its pattern of intervention. With the exhaustion of import substitution industrialization as the motor of development and the failure of heterodox policies to stabilize the economy and restore growth, liberalizing policies were adopted in the 1990s. This new policy framework, put into action with the 1993 Real Plan, included stabilization, trade liberalization, privatization and state reform, and is being implemented in a rather dynamic manner by the Brazilian State. The State is seeking to redefine Brazil’s insertion in the international political economy in a favorable way and to master a transition from a developmentalist to a coordinating type of state. 33 The present international conjuncture, which until August 1998 had been ensuring an abundant flow of FDI to the country, combined with the normalization of domestic economic life after the end of inflation and some substantive gains in the population’s purchasing power, have contributed to the relative success of President Cardoso’s enterprise so far, guaranteeing his reelection in October 1998. However, the subsistence of structural problems such as the reproduction of patterns of exclusion and the uneven character of Brazil’s globalization pose serious threats to the chances of a development model which would be socially just and ecologically sustainable.

III.1. The Impact of Trade Liberalization and Economic Integration

While it is still soon to fully evaluate the real impacts of the Cardoso administration’s “integrated policy” and of the economic liberalization process, it is becoming clear that the optimism generated by the policy shift must be tempered. First of all, a look at the figure indicates that the shift itself was limited. The fires in the Amazon have not stopped, on the contrary, the deforestation rate is speeding up again, showing that the decline in the early 1990s was more the result of the slowing of economic activities in the country than of coherent government policy. With the stabilization of the economy since the Plano Real, the demand for timber, meat and cereals has increased, placing new pressure on land. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the annual deforestation rate grew from 11,130 km to 14,896 km from 1991 to 1994 and had reached 14,900 km in 1995. 34 A more careful examination of Cardoso’s administration policies regarding Amazonia shows that the Integrated Policy, combined to the “Brazil in Action” Program, promotes large projects, the development of transport, new hydroelectric plants, in clear continuity with the large-scale projects developed by the authoritarian regime. The Integrated Policy focuses on economic growth and on the integration of the region as ways to improve environmental and social conditions. In this sense, it does not represent a real departure from previous policies. Throughout the military regime, the goal was also to promote growth and to “integrate” the region. The 1996 Brasil em Ação plan does not recognize the goal of environmental sustainability; instead, it stresses “sustainable growth.” 35

In addition to concentrating on economic growth, the liberalizing reforms introduced by Cardoso have corresponded to a shift to predominantly market-oriented approaches to environmental problems. The view is that export markets will demand better environmental performances from exporters and thus contribute to higher environmental standards in the exporting country. Yet while state-owned companies were often big polluters, there is no guarantee that privatization, deregulation and the installation of multinational companies will bring to the country higher environmental standards. Rather than promoting higher standards, export markets can strengthen resource-exploiting industries with unsustainable practices. In Brazil, the focus on export promotion has been accelerating the production of soya to the detriment of more traditional cultures. There is a risk that the easy access to world markets will increase the pressure on the natural resource base and accelerate the rhythm of deforestation in Amazonia. 36 Finally, export markets can marginalize small-scale traditional production. Trade liberalization can affect Amazonia by penalizing some extractivist products, which have seen their participation in domestic markets being reduced as a result of growing competition by cheaper products originating from Malaysia. In this case, competition could lead small producers to abandon sustainable production and turn to less sustainable activities. 37

III.1.2. The expansion of timber exploitation

Another serious obstacle on the road to long term environmental sustainability in Amazonia is the recent boom in timber exploitation and the arrival of Asian logging companies in Amazonia. Historically, forest products have not played an important role in Brazil’s economy. However, exports of forest products have been expanding regularly, growing from US$ 944 million in 1981 to US$ 1,889 million in 1992. 38 This is mainly due to the increase in tropical timber trade, facilitated by trade liberalization and the opening of the economy to foreign investment. The role of timber in the Brazilian economy is now expanding and experiencing a real boom, encouraged by a strong international demand for tropical hardwoods. In the state of Amazonas the government is offering new subsidies to attract timber companies which are now leaving the state of Pará after the complete exhaustion of timber resources in this region. While in the past the tropical timber industry received few foreign investments, the situation is changing today with the reduction of wood availability in some Asian countries. Federal authorities now have to face Asian logging companies which are moving into the Amazon in search of new timber sources after the exhaustion of raw material in countries like Malaysia, in another clear example of the effect of economic globalization and trade liberalization on the environment. It is now estimated that 22 foreign logging firms are operating in Amazonia, and three more were expected by 1998. According to IBAMA, 1.9 million hectares of Amazon land are now owned by foreign firms. These firms have bought bankrupt local companies and are now using advanced technology to transform the Amazon into a major timber extraction center. A harsh debate has been going on in Brazil about the Asian logging firms, as they have been accused of smuggling, illegal extraction, falsification of import guides and irregularities in the purchasing of land. 39 Finally, illegal logging is by no means the monopoly of foreign companies. Actually, attempts to regulate the timber market have long been rendered difficult by the continuous practice of illegal logging. The Ministry of Justice has received several complaints about illegal logging on indigenous lands, but has been unable to reverse the tendency. Economic liberalization is thus affecting the political economy of development and environment in Amazonia in a significant way, with potential adverse environmental impacts

III.2. The Impact of the State Reform

The economic liberalization and the state reform undertaken by the Cardoso administration are also redefining the state’s ability to pursue environmental policy reform. The reform of the state, understood as a necessary condition to undertake economic liberalization, meant an effort to limit state competence in several areas in order to accomplish a transition from an interventionist to a coordinating type of state. Environmental policy started to be redefined, with the view of revising and eliminating state regulations that might be causing environmental damage and of relying more on economic instruments. The changes in land policy and the introduction of an instrument such as the Green Protocol submitting bank lending to Environmental Impact Assessments are examples of this tendency. Eventually, environmental policy in the Cardoso administration seems to be more dominated by a market-friendly approach, stressing the benefits of liberalization, privatization and market mechanisms. The market-friendly orientation poses new challenges and constraints on the state’s ability to promote sustainability in Amazonia.

At the institutional level, the resources available for environmental protection at a time of “fiscal crisis of the state” are very limited. The policy shift was not effectively translated into a budget reallocation in favor of environmental protection. The fiscal crisis is reducing the resources available for environmental protection. In October 1998, in the context of the adjustment plan negotiated with the IMF in order to protect Brazil from speculative attacks after Russia’s collapse, the government announced cuts in all public spending, including a 20% reduction of the environmental budget. Before that, 9% of IBAMA’s budget had already been cut, causing the closure of 210 of IBAMA’s 554 units in the whole country. 40 This leaves Brazil in the situation of relying almost exclusively on external sources for funding its environmental projects. In these conditions, funding agencies, and in particular international institutions, are actually in the position to determine the shape of projects and to define priorities. 41

A second set of problems has to do with the deficiencies in monitoring and enforcement by government agencies, which are often under-staffed and badly equipped to control such a large territory. The President of IBAMA himself, Eduardo Martins, recently recognized that “we still don’t have a proper environmental policy, we only have a sketch. Today, there are good intentions and little effective actions.” He also notes that Brazil does not really have a forest policy. For Martins, the country could, with some efforts, succeed in controlling timber production, using both economic instruments in terms of pricing and conservation measures, and even become a “forest power.” Yet the lack of resources, and the poor implementation and monitoring do not allow for a real improvement in forest management. 42 Another institutional weakness is the lack of an adequate body coordinating environmental policy. Altogether, the process of implementation of Agenda 21 has been gradual, based on occasional measures, and in general there has not been a real incorporation of sustainability goals in public policies or in public administration practices.

The trend towards deregulation and privatization is another worrying aspect of the Cardoso administration policy, as it could undermine the control of pollution and environmental degradation. Privatization could favor short-term analysis and immediate gains over long-term environmental concerns. Yet privatization is being considered as an important instrument in the new Amazonian policy, confirming the market-oriented strategy. The privatization of forests could result in higher damage if not properly accompanied by intense monitoring and control by IBAMA. Given the agency poor records so far, a sound implementation seems highly unlikely. The private sector has not so far demonstrated enough interest in moving towards more sustainable forest practices, as these require both high investment costs and capital immobilization periods which are not attractive for investors. This explains why, instead, logging companies opt for short-term initiatives aimed at making fast, easy profits through indiscriminate exploitation. NGOs have been particularly concerned with the risk associated with privatizing forests, seen as yet another way to ease the access of logging companies into the region. Privatization seems premature as the administrative reforms necessary to the consolidation of the regulatory actions of the state are still lacking. Though in some sectors there is a real excess of regulations, the main problem remains the incapacity to implement existing legislation. In Amazonia, some sectors of public administration need to be expanded and strengthened to ensure implementation of reforms and legislation. 43 In a context of reform of the state, decreases in public expenditures and reductions in staff, there seems to be little room to undertake the reforms necessary to ensure long term sustainability in Amazonia.

III.3. Global Versus Local: The Limits of the “Management” Approach

Finally, the third aspect to be considered within a critical IPE framework is how the policy reform is affecting the issue of democracy and of the access to common resources in Amazonia. I have argued above that one of the main obstacles to sustainable development is the lack of democracy in the access, use and control of natural resources in Amazonia. As observed by Guimarães, a main characteristic of ecopolitics in Brazil has been the exploitation of Brazilian common property resources according to a developmentalist ideology guided by private criteria for the allocation of resources. 44 This “privatization” of resources, especially in Amazonia, benefited a few segments of society (cattle-ranchers, land-owners, traditional elites and speculators) while marginalizing local populations who traditionally depended on natural resources for their living, such as rubber-tappers, extractors, small farmers and indigenous populations. In the mid 1990s, the advent of the Cardoso government has meant the arrival of a modernizing discourse, declaring the intention to democratize and decentralize policy and to promote social justice. Yet in Amazonia, far from the “globalized” parts of the Brazilian economy and society, democratization and redistribution are difficult to grasp. The new environmental policy carried out by the Cardoso administration does not seem to be reversing the exclusionary tendency which had prevailed so far. Environmental policy reform under Cardoso seems to be privileging international solutions and programs that do not fully address the basic needs of local populations, while allowing for the perpetuation of the role of the military and of traditional elites in the definition of priorities and strategies for the region.

III.3.1. Limits of international influence

The influence of international factors in explaining policy change in the Brazilian Amazon has been well accounted for and analyzed, as I have shown above. Yet the magnitude of the international influence should not be associated automatically with progress in fighting the ecological crisis. First of all, the impact of the action of international NGOs is sometimes problematic. As pointed out by Kaimowitz, “despite increasing rhetoric to the contrary, for the most part Northern governments and NGOs have tended to view the environment as if it were a separate “sector,” rather than a reflection in terms of natural resource use of the general way in which production and the society are organized.” 45 In Brazil, NGOs are to a large extent financially dependent on international funds. According to a 1996 study, among the NGOs that operate with a budget superior to US$ 100,000, funds coming from international cooperation amount to 50% of total resources. 46 As a result, the agenda that prevails ends up reflecting concerns of environmentalists in developed countries, and not necessarily the priorities of local and national populations.

The market-orientation adopted by the Cardoso administration also makes governmental environmental policy highly dependent on foreign resources. In this context, the World Bank is assuming a growing role in Amazonian policies. After being the target of heavy criticisms by environmentalists worldwide, the World Bank is said to have undergone a profound environmental reform. Yet the poor results of World Bank programs such as PANAFLORO (Plano Agropecuário e Florestal da Amazônia) show the limits of environmental reform at the World Bank and other international institutions, highlighting the risks involved in relying excessively upon international actors to ensure sustainability in Amazonia. While small farmers, rubber-tappers and indigenous communities were supposed to be the main beneficiaries of PANAFLORO, the project actually resulted in a deterioration of their living conditions, in an intensification of environmental degradation and in the damage of extremely fragile ecosystems. In some cases, the project has even benefited land speculators and logging companies, contributing to perpetuate excluding social structures in the region. The project has ended up excluding the very groups which it is intended to benefit, depriving them of the access to their sources of subsistence and of the control over their natural environment, as well as threatening the very future of these natural resources.

The “globalization” of Amazonia encompasses another worrying aspect. Brazil’s Patent Law, a result of intense pressure from the US government and lobby from pharmaceutical companies, authorizes the patenting of genes of plants, animals and even indigenous peoples for commercial use. 47 The transformation of the tropical flora in a market product under the control of large international pharmaceutical companies illustrates once again the ongoing process of the commodification of nature which ultimately penalizes populations who traditionally depended on nature for subsistence and who had developed the knowledge now being patented. In this case, international pressure, which took the form of US lobby for the approval of the Patent Law by Brazilian Congress, has meant the victory of corporations’ lobbies and powerful economic interests over local populations deprived of control over their lives.

III.3.2. Limited democratization: the State, local elites and the military in environmental management

While some international actions and channels certainly represent impediments for sustainability prospects in Amazonia, a major responsibility must be given to the continuity of old practices and in discriminatory state policies. First of all, the political practices in the region are still of an undemocratic character. A traditional oligarchy maintains control over the political apparatus. The governors of the states of Amazonas and Acre are under investigation for their participation in fraudulent activities and their involvement in a number of corruption scandals. 48 There is a tendency towards a militarization of environmental protection, in a Realist view emphasizing ‘environmental security’.

While ensuring the survival of the oligarchy and the military’s interest, the Cardoso administration has not developed a strategy to strengthen local actors and allow them to fully participate in decision-making processes. Cardoso had promised during the campaign to consolidate the decentralization process and to base his government on the “State-Society” partnership. 49 However, participation has been restricted. NGOs seem disappointed with the environmental performance of the Cardoso administration. There is also concern over the fate of indigenous populations, as the demarcation of indigenous lands is going slowly 50 . Finally, the initiative presented by the state as a real solution for the region, the Pilot Program (PPG7) does not construct a real strategy to strengthen the role of small producers and extractors, the actors who are best prepared to fight deforestation as they depend on the forest for their living. The program has been criticized for the lack of participation by both state agencies and NGOs, and for failing to address major policy issues such as the impact for the local population or for the timber industry and the long-term sustainability of the activities. 51

Most of these initiatives taken by the State and by international organizations have thus failed to address the real causes of deforestation and to take into consideration the needs of local people who depend on the forest for their living. They are not reverting the structural conditions which have led to deforestation, promoted capital concentration and aggravated social inequality. In Amazonia more than elsewhere, the weight of tradition perpetuates elitism, the power structure remains concentrated and exclusionary, and decision-making processes respond to the particular interests of the best organized groups of society, who tend to “privatize” common resources for their exclusive benefit. 52 To a large extent, actions undertaken by the government and by international organizations in Amazonia have tended to benefit the most organized sectors of society or the ones with the easiest access to power, in a situation which seems to be in continuity with the politics of the military regime.

 

Conclusion

This chapter has argued that changes in environmental standards and policies in Brazil have to be understood as part of the deep transformations the country is facing as its insertion in the international political economy is redefined in the context of economic globalization. Reviewing both Neoliberal Institutionalist and Realist approaches, it has shown that these approaches fail to link the adverse impact of global economic processes to the environmental situation of Amazonia, focusing on the positive and integrative effects of globalization. It has thus proceeded presenting a critical view over the globalization of Amazonia. It has concentrated on the role played by globalization in influencing the political economy of policy reforms taking place in Brazil in the 1990s and in promoting a redefinition of Amazonian policies along the lines of the “international consensus” reflected in the concept of sustainable development.

This critical approach is more able than the other two not only to account for the determinants of policy reform, stressing the mutual interaction between national and international processes, but also to explain the nature of the new policy and its implications in terms of ecological sustainability and social equity. By focusing on the contradictions of the “sustainable development” consensus, it is able to explain that “management” approaches to the environment will not succeed in bringing long-term sustainability. Understanding ‘global Amazonia’, the changing dynamics of deforestation, its contradictions and the resistance it is encountering requires an approach that restitutes historicity to the analysis and stresses the underlying structural factors responsible for social change. It is thus useful to consider not only the historical structure within which change takes place in Amazonia, that is, in Cox’s view, the particular configuration between ideas, institutions and material forces, but also, in order to overcome the determinism of purely structural approaches, the pressure and resistance this configuration is encountering. 53

I have argued that globalization poses serious limits to sustainable development in Amazonia, for three reasons. First, globalization has significantly affected policy reform and directed the transformation of the Brazilian state through its participation in the world system. It has favored market-oriented strategies that do not integrate environmental concerns. In a few areas the impacts of globalization have been particularly noticeable, such as in new patterns of trade in forest products and the impact of transnational alliances between local and international environmental organizations. The Cardoso administration is fostering an economic restructuring that will strengthen the same model of accumulation which is causing environmental destruction and pollution rise in the most developed countries. Second, the “reform of the state” adopted in the context of the transformative process of the 1990s is not likely to allow for an improvement in environmental standards, as it reduces the budget allocated to environmental agencies and programs, hampering the implementation of legislation and further deteriorating the governmental agencies’ efficiency. And third, despite a discourse emphasizing the need for an “intense dialogue” between all social actors in a “conscious effort toward a state-society partnership,” the present policy is not promoting a democratization of the access of natural resources nor of the control of resource management processes. On the contrary, it tends to reproduce exclusion and to deny “entitlement” to a large part of the population.

In Amazonia, globalization has contributed to the exacerbation of conflicts, a new scale of conflicts which go beyond the mere fight for land. The conflicts which feed deforestation in the Amazon are, above all, conflicts about justice and distribution. Deforestation corresponds to processes with a logic and trajectory which has roots in Amazonia’s social and economic history. As privileged groups maintain preferential access to natural resources owned by the state, the Amazonian development strategy of Cardoso’s government seems to be a continuation of rather than a break with the previous strategy built up during the authoritarian years. While a greening of the discourse has taken place, possibilities of a real shift toward sustainability are increasingly reduced by the constraints imposed by economic liberalization and the restructuring induced by global change. Conflicts in the Amazon are linked to the redefinition of Brazil’s insertion in the world economy and to the restructuring of state-society relations. In this setting, Brazil’s policy towards the Amazon appears to be increasingly determined by international factors, and seems to be addressing the needs of an international audience instead of those of the 20 million Amazonians. It is not based on a political analysis of how to make the Brazilian society more sustainable and equitable, and it does not give the country really progressive environmental standards. In Brazil, environmental considerations have ended up becoming part of a conservative modernization strategy, benefiting the “globalized” sector of the Brazilian society while excluding large segments of the population, perpetuating social conflicts in the Amazon region. The case of Brazil shows how the issue of forest protection is linked both to the power struggles over the control of resources and to the ownership system inside Brazil, to the impact of different modes of production and accumulation on the environment, and to the new dynamics taking place at the international level.

What is needed to reverse patterns of deforestation is a real democratization of the access and control of natural resources. As many authors have observed, policies implemented in the Amazon in the last decades came out of a search for solutions to problems outside the region. However, a solution to the crisis will have to keep with regional priorities. 54 A key element for sustainability is the democratization of the access and control of natural resources, ensuring that the people who derive cultural and economic benefits from the resources have a role not only in the definition of the way the resources will be used but also in the way the benefits will be distributed. Amazonia, more than any other region in Brazil, is a region of diversity, made of indigenous, rubber tappers, small farmers, landless people, capitalist farmers, Asian logging firms, traditional elites, and a largely urban population. Although living within the same borders, they belong to different universes with different temporalities, values, relations with the ecosystem, production relations, and even different languages. 55 For all these actors to coexist, the heterogeneity of the Brazilian society needs to be respected, both culturally and economically speaking. The forest ought to be perceived as part of local people’s identity, and no longer as an obstacle to development which needs to be removed. Local people need to regain political and economic control over their lives. Unfortunately, in arbitrating the conflicts between alternative uses of the natural resources in Amazonia, the Brazilian State in the 1990s had tended to reproduce the exclusionary logic which denies the existence of such diversity. Doing that, it strengthens a “globalized” Amazonia which, because it depends on the extraction of resources and commodities to attend external demand, is perfectly inserted in centuries of dependency and “globalized” economic history.

 

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Endnotes

*: Paper presented at the Panel “The International Political Economy of the Environment: The Diffusion of Policies.” International Studies Association (ISA) Convention, Washington DC, February 17th 1999.  Back.

Note 1: Robert Cox (1986:208). Back.

Note 2: See Mitchell Bernard (1997:84–5) on the ecological limits to globalization. Back.

Note 3: As stressed by May and Reis (1993:12), in 1985, more than 75 % the Amazon territory was still in the public domain. Back.

Note 4: The “G8” includes the United States (largest economy and largest share in CO2 emissions) China (largest population), Brazil (largest biodiversity), and also Germany, Japan, India, Indonesia and Russia, which, all together, are responsible for 56% of the world population, 58% of CO2 emission and 53% of forests. See Worldwatch Institute (1997). Back.

Note 5: The change in policy has been noted and discussed by, inter alia, Daila Maimon (1992), Andrew Hurrell (1992), Ronaldo Serôa da Motta (1993). Back.

Note 6: Ronaldo Serôa da Motta (1993:1). Back.

Note 7: For a full account of policy reform, see Valérie de Campos Mello (1997). Back.

Note 8: See Garo Batmanian (1994:8–9) and Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico (1996:27). Back.

Note 9: See Andrew Hurrell (1992:417). Back.

Note 10: Source: Friends of the Earth (1996) ‘Preventing Mahogany Murder’. In Links November/December 1996 :15. And Greenpeace (1996) “Brazil: Rainforest Under Siege,” Press release, Rio de Janeiro, 26th July 1996. Back.

Note 11: Ronen Palan (1994:54–55). Back.

Note 12: The case in described in Eduardo Silva (1994:704–8). Back.

Note 13: For a complete analysis of the informal international regime for forests, see Valérie de Campos Mello (1997) chapter 4. Back.

Note 14: See Gordon J. MacDonald and Marc A. Stern (1997:5 and 11). Back.

Note 15: MacDonald and Stern (1997:5–6). Back.

Note 16: Andrew Hurrell (1992:418–420). Back.

Note 17: See Alain Lipietz (1992:117). Back.

Note 18: Jim Mac Neill et al (1991:62). Back.

Note 19: According to this document, one of the “strategic considerations for the South” should be the “restructuring global economic relations in such a way that the South obtains the required resources, technology and access to markets enabling it to pursue a development process that is not only environmentally sound but also rapid enough to meet the needs and aspirations of its growing population.” See South Centre (1991:1). For a view of North-South conflicts during UNCED negotiations see Valérie de Campos Mello (1993). Back.

Note 20: Ministério do Meio Ambiente (1995), paragraphs 2 and 5. Back.

Note 21: I am referring here to the dominant IR approach to Global Environmental Politics (GEP) represented by Keohane, Haas, and Levy among others. There are important exceptions to this trend. For critical IPE approaches to GEP see, inter alia, Bernard (1997), Doran (1995), Lipietz (1992), Lipschutz and Conca (1993), Paterson (1996), W. Sachs (1993), I. Sachs (1995). The political economy approach to ecology also considers critically the impacts of globalization. See for example Guimarães (1995), Hall (1989), Hecht and Cockburn (1989).... Back.

Note 22: See Ronen Palan (1994:60–1). Back.

Note 23: David Kaimovitz (1996:21). Back.

Note 24: Andrew Hurrell (1991:201–2). Back.

Note 25: Jean-François Bayart (1989). On the concept of longue durée, see Fernand Braudel (1969:41–83). Back.

Note 26: Georges Balandier (1971:39). Back.

Note 27: See Robert Gilpin (1987:11–4). Back.

Note 28: For example Mitchell Bernard (1997) and Matthew Paterson (1996). Back.

Note 29: On the origins of political ecology in Brazil see José Augusto Pádua (1991). Back.

Note 30: Source: Ecolista (1996) Cadastro Nacional de Entidades Ambientalistas. MATER NATURA/ ISER/ WWF. Back.

Note 31: Survey by Samyra Crespo and Pedro Leitão (1993). Back.

Note 32: Survey by IISER/IBOPE/Ministry of the Environment, quoted in ‘Meio Ambiente: População à Frente do Governo’. Gazeta Mercantil 10th March 1997. Back.

Note 33: On the crisis of the state and the transition from a developmentalist to a coordinating state, see Bresser Pereira (1996). Back.

Note 34: INPE (1996). According to the Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico (GTA), the metholodogy used by INPE is controversial, and the figure might not be exact. GTA (1996:98). There is however little doubt that deforestation has been increasing since economic stabilization. Back.

Note 35: Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico/ Amigos da Terra Internacional (1996:46–7). Back.

Note 36: Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico (1996:47–8). Back.

Note 37: See GTA (1996:84). Back.

Note 38: Source: Ministry of the Environment (1997). Back.

Note 39: According to a report by an External Commission which has been created in Congress to investigate the activities of the Asian companies and denunciations of irregularities, the companies are processing 30 million square meters a year, five times more than they have declared, indicating that the companies might be lying in their reports to IBAMA. The issue has almost turned into a diplomatic incident, as the Commission has even heard submissions from the Ambassador of Malaysia in an effort to elucidate the situation. Meanwhile, local and regional politicians congratulate themselves with the arrival of the Asian loggers, considered as a source of jobs, investments and resources for the region. Source: O Estado de São Paulo 22th June 1997. Back.

Note 40: Source: Rede Verde de Informações Ambientais, 25/98. !4th october 1998. Source: Rede Verde de Informações Ambientais, 25/98. !4th october 1998. Back.

Note 41: 68. Nogueira-Neto Quoted in ‘Brasil anda davagar depois da Rio 92’ in Gazeta Mercantil, 12th March 1997. Back.

Note 42: Interview of IBAMA’s president Eduardo Martins with Veja, July 2d 1997. Back.

Note 43: GTA (1996:35). Back.

Note 44: Roberto Guimarães (1991:90). Back.

Note 45: David Kaimovitz (1994:10). Back.

Note 46: Source: Mater Natura–WWF (1996) Ecolista Cadastro Nacional de Instituições Ambientalistas. Quoted in Umberto Giuseppe Cordani (ed) (1997:294). Back.

Note 47: For example, NGOs have announced that the espinheira santa, a common plant in Brazil known for its anti-inflammatory and analgesic faculties, have become property of a Japanese laboratory, in a case of appropriation of the genetic characteristics of plans traditionally used in the country to cure diseases. Source: Rede Verde de Informações Ambientais (electronic bulletin) n 21/97, August 11th 1997. Back.

Note 48: See ‘Os Donos da Selva’. Veja, 21 May 1997:31. Back.

Note 49: See Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995) Mãos à Obra Brasil. Propostas de Governo Fernando Henrique. Brasília, s/ed. Back.

Note 50: In 1996, of the 364 indigenous lands in Amazonia, only 171 were homologated. GTA (1996:164). Back.

Note 51: See GTA (1996). Back.

Note 52: Roberto Guimarães (1991:75–8). Back.

Note 53: See Robert Cox (1981). Back.

Note 54: See Bertha Becker (1992:103) Mary Allegretti (1995:157–8), and Stephen Nugent (1996:91). Back.

Note 55: Francisco de Oliveira (1994:13). Back.