The paper analyzes the expansion of capitalist relations on the agricultural frontier of Matopiba (a region formed by parts of the states of Maranhão, Piauí and Bahia, and the whole of Tocantins) in the 2000s, in a context of financialization of the economy and a growing call for measures to cope with the climate crisis.
We highlight the advance of the privatization of land, which has been increasingly assuming the role of financial asset, and of natural goods such as native vegetation, in view of the new functions attributed to them by environmental policies. This process has occurred largely on the basis of the illegal appropriation of public lands and common goods, hitherto used sustainably by indigenous peoples, quilombolas and peasants, triggering new conflicts and contradictions. To make room for industrial-based agriculture, especially soybean monoculture, extensive areas of cerrado have been deforested and rural communities, surrounded, with the destructuring of agroextractive systems. At the same time, specific compensatory environmental initiatives are encouraged, which function mainly as alibis for the continuity of the ongoing devastation in the region.
The high rates of deforestation observed in recent years are related to the government's retreat in relation to the work of monitoring and penalizing environmental crimes in favor of the creation of market-based instruments for the environment. Law 12,651/2012 instituted market compensation for the requirement of an area of ??native vegetation inside the property to be preserved through the Environmental Reserve Quota (CRA). This change, together with the creation of payment policies for ecosystem services, has contributed to the valorization of cerrado areas unattractive to mechanized agriculture and encouraged a new form of expropriation, the green grabbing.
The research is based on the collection of bibliographic and documentary data, as well as field work. It is in progress and presents partial results.
Mots clés : Matopiba - Brazil|agricultural frontier|private property|cerrado|market-based instruments for the environment
A104584MM