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

Abstract

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