With the expansion of the agribusiness frontier and extractive practices in the Amazon, the lack of integrated policies directed to regional development has resulted in socio-environmental impacts. In addition Brazil, eight other countries contain the biome in their territories: Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. In the context of a global emergency against climate change, each country's projects are indispensable in a sustainable future.

For the guarantee of sovereignty of the Amazonian countries, Professor Gustavo Menon, from the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH) of USP and phD in the Graduate Program in Latin American Integration (Prolam) of USP, states: "It becomes a debate to think about the construction of a green agenda that prioritizes life rather than extractive projects that impose environmental degradation and a logic of violation of rights".

Specific initiatives

In Ecuador, the Citizen Revolution – a popular movement to ensure social justice and combat poverty caused by social inequality – tried to contain extractivism with the Yasuní Fund. The idea of the project was to raise funds from the international community for the preservation of the Yasuní National Park, marked by Amazonian biodiversity. "It's worth saying that this project ended up implying a resounding failure," Menon says.

Other countries also face challenges in preserving the Amazon. He develops the reasoning when dealing with the exfoliation of forest resources: "When we look at the Peruvian reality, we are talking about actions led by the Peruvian State of exemption and tax immunity for large transnational companies."

In Ecuador, the Citizen Revolution – a popular movement to ensure social justice and combat poverty caused by social inequality – tried to contain extractivism with the Yasuní Fund. The idea of the project was to raise funds from the international community for the preservation of the Yasuní National Park, marked by Amazonian biodiversity. "It's worth saying that this project ended up implying a resounding failure," Menon says.

The theme of the protection of human rights is recurrent mainly in two countries: Bolivia and Colombia. According to Menon, the great Bolivian challenge, in the current situation, involves "what has been enshrined in the current Bolivian Constitution: the theses of the configuration of a plurinational state". Colombia, in addition to being recognized for threatening the actions of environmentalists, contributes to mining and oil exploration projects that attack the health of the ecosystem. However, gustavo petro's election as president highlights "an increasingly effort by the Colombian state to create funds for the preservation of the Amazon."

Construction with Brazil

With more than 50% of the Amazon in its territory, Brazil has a primary responsibility for the preservation of the biome. Therefore, the attention of environmental surveillance authorities focuses on the policies implemented by the Brazilian State and on projects for the future of the forest and the planet as a whole. Menon highlights Brazil's role in economic reprimarization and exploitation of natural resources.

Faced with the advance of environmental degradation, exploitation of natural resources and sponsorship of pesticides by transnational companies, the professor signals a contradiction of capitalist production with natural cycles. "In this context, the flexibility of environmental standards, paralysis of the Ministry of the Environment, the advancement of this agricultural frontier, there is not much to celebrate," he says.

We need to reorient the actions of the Brazilian State, in the sense of thinking about another project that implies sovereignty of Latin American countries, especially in Brazilian sovereignty, and in the creation of a world that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially just.

Geopolitical context

Despite the different projects, nations face the imposition of a global hierarchy: "From a geopolitical point of view and international relations, realize that, increasingly, the countries of South America are presenting themselves in a peripheral logic and dependent on international trade," menon explains. This subordinate stance, in a context of political fragmentation in South America, "opens a considerable margin for the performance of extra-regional forces in this Amazon basin."

The professor elaborates on the consequences of the current world dynamics: "This implies destruction of biomes, in the loss of the very rich biodiversity of the Amazon and, at the same time, in a series of pressures before indigenous lands, with increased agrarian conflicts, in a perverse logic of violation of human rights".

Source: Um só Planeta