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2. The Amazon Wildfires and Environmental Conservation: What Can the EU do?
- Author:
- Helder Hermani
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Europeum Institute for European Policy
- Abstract:
- Helder Hermani published a EU Monitor in which he focuses on the ways EU can contribute to the conservation of Amazon rainforests. He provides analysis and proposes 5 specific steps. The European Union is arguably the global power most devoted to the environmental conservation and combating climate change. However, isolated actions tend to prove ineffective in achieving these objectives. "The neoliberal policy oriented to private investments, coupled with the bulky military composition at the highest level of officials, has driven Brazil to pursue two goals in regards to international bodies: a permanent seat in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the status of major non-NATO ally.“ "The EU [...] must make it easier for suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, consumers and public authorities to identify products from deforestation-free supply chains.
- Topic:
- Environment, Neoliberalism, Investment, Conservation, and Supply Chains
- Political Geography:
- Europe, South America, and Amazon Basin
3. The changing face of environmental governance in the Brazilian Amazon: indigenous and traditional peoples promoting norm diffusion
- Author:
- Veronika Miranda Chase
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
- Institution:
- Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
- Abstract:
- Transnational networks of non-state actors are using ILO Convention No. 169 as a powerful instrument of environmental governance. The treaty promotes the norm of Free, Prior and Informed Consultation (FPIC), empowering local communities to influence infrastructure projects that impact their livelihoods and natural resources. However, there is a disconnect between the Brazilian government’s discourse and the effective implementation of this norm. Using document analysis and process tracing, this article investigates this rhetoric-practice gap. It argues that these transnational networks are diffusing the FPIC norm through Consultation Protocols, slowly bridging the gap.
- Topic:
- Environment, Treaties and Agreements, Governance, Transnational Actors, Indigenous, Norms, and Norm Diffusion
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
4. Global climate adaptation governance in the Amazon through a polycentricity lens
- Author:
- Fronika Claziena Agatha de Wit and Paula Martins de Freitas
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
- Institution:
- Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
- Abstract:
- The 2015 Paris agreement has made adaptation to climate change a global goal and increased the polycentricity of the governance landscape. This study uses insights from polycentric governance theory to analyze the emergence of adaptation governance (AG) in Brazil and its implications for the state of Acre, situated in the Amazon region. By using a qualitative data analysis, including subnational climate policies and semi-structured interviews, we aim to analyze the advantages and challenges of polycentric AG in Acre and provide recommendations for improved AG in the region.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Treaties and Agreements, and Paris Agreement
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
5. Dilemmas of an Expert Witness in the Amazon
- Author:
- Stuart Kirsch
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This article discusses two affidavits submitted to the Inter-American court system. The first is concerned with Suriname’s refusal to recognize indigenous land rights despite its international obligation to do so. The second addresses problems associated with indigenous land titles in Guyana. Comparing the two cases permits observations about ethnographic research conducted for expert witness reports, including the need to make affidavits legible to three different audiences, each with its own frame of reference: the legal system, communities seeking recognition of their rights, and anthropology (Paine 1996). I also consider the narrative choices in these affidavits, the political dilemmas of being an expert witness, and the compromises of short-term ethnography.
- Topic:
- Development, Culture, Economic growth, Social Justice, and Public Policy
- Political Geography:
- South America, Amazon Basin, and Suriname
6. URBAN CONFLICTS IN NORTHERN AMAZON REGION: DISORDERED GROWTH OF WETLANDS/RESSACAS IN MACAPÁ
- Author:
- Bianca Moro de Carvalho
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Internationally recognized for its immense wealth of natural resources, the Brazilian Amazon Region and its enormous forest are characterized by significant urban conflicts. The growth of illegal settlements in Amazon cities is a sad reality that has transformed the region’s space. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate part of my doctorate investigation in which I present the squatter-settlement development process (called favelização) of wetlands in the city of Macapá where there is intense occupation of environmental protection areas for precarious housing construction. Also by virtue of such phenomenon, the Federal University of Amapá, via its extension project called “Planning with the Community,” has been seeking to answer some questions relating to informal urbanization processes and their effects on communities living in ressaca areas.
- Topic:
- Environment, Urbanization, Conflict, and Settlements
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
7. Rethinking IR from the Amazon
- Author:
- Manuela Picq
- Publication Date:
- 12-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
- Institution:
- Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
- Abstract:
- This article proposes Amazonia as a site to think world politics. The Amazon is invisible in the study International Relations (IR), yet its experiences are deeply global. I present the international dynamics at play in Amazonia at different historical moments to posit that this periphery has contributed to forging the political-economy of what is refer to as the core. The Amazon's absence from the study of IR speaks about the larger inequality in processes of knowledge production. Serious engagements with Amazonia are one way to invite a plurality of worlds in the production of theories, disrupting global divisions of labor in knowledge production ally.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Indigenous, and Knowledge Production
- Political Geography:
- Amazon Basin and Global South
8. The Environmental Impacts of Soybean Expansion And Infrastructure Development in Brazil's Amazon Basin
- Author:
- Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz, Robert K. Kaufmann, and Daniel C. Nepstad
- Publication Date:
- 05-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- For decades, the development of transportation infrastructure in the Brazilian Amazon has been the government's main social and economic development policy in the region. Reductions in transportation costs have not only opened the agricultural frontier to cattle ranching and logging but have also caused more than two-thirds of Amazonian deforestation. Currently, soybean cultivation is a new economic force demanding improvements to roads in the region. Profitable soybean crops have spread over the Mato Grosso's cerrados and now head toward the core of the Amazon rain forest. One of the main constraints for soy expansion into the Amazon has been the poor condition of roads. In this study, we analyze the effect Amazon transportation infrastructure programs have on soybean expansion by lowering transport costs. The analysis is based on spatial estimates of transportation costs for the soybean sector, first using current road networks and then projecting changes based on the paving of the Cuiabá-Santarém road. Our results indicate that paving the Cuiabá-Santarém road would reduce transportation costs by an average of $10 per ton for farmers located in the northern part of Mato Grosso, by allowing producers to reroute soybean shipments to the Santarém port. Paving the road also would expand the area where growing soybeans is economically feasible by about 70 percent, from 120,000 to 205,000 km2 . Most of this new area would be located in the state of Pará and is covered largely by forests. A Cost-Benefit analysis of the road project indicates that the investments in infrastructure would generate more than $180 million for soybean farmers over a period of twenty years. These benefits, however, ignore the project's environmental impacts. If the destruction of ecological services and products provided by the existing forests is accounted for, then the Cuiabá-Santarém investment would generate a net loss of between $762 million and $1.9 billion. This result shows the importance of including the value of the natural capital in feasibility studies of infrastructure projects to reflect their real benefits to society as a whole.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, Environment, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Latin America, and Amazon Basin
9. Towards a Sustainable Cocoa Chain: Power and possibilities within the cocoa and chocolate sector
- Author:
- Jan Cappelle
- Publication Date:
- 01-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- The cocoa tree is an important source of income for millions of farming families in equatorial regions. Cocoa originates in the river valleys of the Amazon and the Orinoco in South America. Its discoverers, the Maya people, gave it the name 'cocoa' (or 'God's food'). Cocoa was introduced to Europe in the fifteenth century. Cocoa imports were heavily taxed, and as a result it was consumed as a drink only by the wealthy. Investment from Great Britain and The Netherlands, combined with the launch of the chocolate bar in 1842 by Cadbury, resulted in a greater demand for chocolate. This led to the gradual expansion of cocoa production, spreading to Africa in 1870.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Africa, Europe, South America, Netherlands, and Amazon Basin
10. Bolivia: Climate change, poverty and adaptation
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Bolivia is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change for six basic reasons: It is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and suffers from one of the worst patterns of inequality. Low-income groups in developing countries are the most exposed to climate change impacts. It is the country in South America with the highest percentage of indigenous people, where much of the poverty and inequality is concentrated. It is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world, with a wide variety of ecosystems that are vulnerable to different impacts from climate change. More than half of the country is Amazonian, with high levels of deforestation which adds to the vulnerability to flooding. Located in a climatically volatile region, it is one of the countries in the world most affected by 'natural' disasters in recent years. It is home to about twenty per cent of the world's tropical glaciers, which are retreating more quickly than predicted by many experts.
- Topic:
- Climate Change and Development
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, Bolivia, and Amazon Basin