The Future of Amazonia in Brazil. Marcílio de Freitas
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and worldwide ecological dynamics.
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Promotion of sustainable development depends on the solution of complex problems, among which are the development and consumption of efficient nonpolluting energy sources; reorganization of the land transport sector and better management of traffic systems; substitution of the industrial pollution matrix; protection of the sea’s natural resources and of soil and air use; institutionalization of the mechanisms of measurement and control of air pollution; better management of the impacts of climate change; combating noise pollution; better management and protection of water resources; preservation and adjusted management of biodiversity and natural heritage; development of mechanisms to minimize risks and protect human health in unhealthy occupational matrices; better management and control of ecotoxicology and the impact of fungicides and pesticides; mobilization of the theoretical and empirical structures of the economic and social sciences; development of human resources for the management of sustainable development; and elimination of extreme poverty.
The transformations of these dynamic variables into quantitative indicators to be incorporated into national and worldwide socioeconomic policies are problems without short-term solutions. These problems are part of the world guidelines of research on the world sustainability.
It has become necessary to create new technical and political foundations to put pressure on the structures of current economic models that relate to increasing privatization of world biomes. This “surge in privatization” contradicts the conception of management of access to the planet’s wealth in the long term. Religion, politics, and science, also worried about the future of its existence, have incorporated environmental issues in their agendas without breaking with the economic processes. A new international division of environmental enterprises has taken form in articulation with the interests of NGOs, important actors in the construction of worldwide citizenship, especially in Amazonia. The presence of these actors in Amazonia has been tense and contradictory. Therefore, the need has arisen to construct political instruments to keep the democratic system committed to new world political, social, ethnic, and ecological contracts reaffirming the geopolitical importance of the countries from the African, Asian, and Latin America continents. This book incorporates new elements into this framework, reaffirming the importance of Amazonia at this world juncture.
The sustainability paradigm proposes to construct a network of global integration through sustainable structures. This presents a new political perspective: the world’s economic restructuring. The struggle against the social inequality will incorporate new socioeconomic tendencies into public policies and the market. It also enhances the possibility of the opposite: market and the national ←xviii | xix→state creating new tools to increase social inequality. The degree of friction and asymmetry between these two processes is highly dependent on the evolution of the economic and political powers of the richest countries, the worldwide integration of basic public policies-health, education, and culture-and the politicization and organization of worldwide public opinion. The role of science and technology in the confrontation of “economic crisis vs. sustainability,” embedded in the process of developing models of economic sustainability, is still under construction.
This complex socioeconomic universe has been designed and consolidated into the public policy of science and technology and integrated into Amazonia’s cultural characteristics and production matrix. This region is being projected as the primary world center for sustainable development over the next decade.
However, its full opening to the predatory economic market and the structural changes to federal laws made by the current Brazilian government complicate the policies on environmental protection and climate change in this region. These actions from the Brazilian government also risk jeopardizing the possibility of Brazil becoming a developed country through the sustainable use of this region.
There is a fascist dimension of the current Brazilian government that potentiates the rapid ecological destruction of Amazonia
There are signs that the international community has already begun to discuss the first political steps to make Amazonia into common heritage of mankind. The implementation and unfolding of this issue are still unpredictable.
More radically, Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University published on May 08, 2019 an article in Foreign Policy magazine asking: Who will Save the Amazon (and How)? Stephen proposes invading Brazil to stop the ecological destruction of the region. International pressure to protect Amazonia is ongoing. Global warming is the main trigger of this type of political action that is in the process of rapid dissemination around the world. The protection and development of Amazonia, without reifying it, is a challenge for many generations of young Brazilians. A tenacious fight against human stupidity and the financial market’s greed.
This book will allow the reader a consistent understanding of the heuristic range of the concept of sustainability and its nexus with Amazonia and worldwide processes.
Through this book, the authors honor the Prussian scientist Alexander-von-Humboldt (1769–1859) for his brilliant works on the earth sciences. We also honor the photographer and activist Claudia Andujar (1931 – ….), Swiss-Brazilian, for her long struggle to protect the indigenous peoples of Amazonia.
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We thank Professor Bruce Patrick Osborne for the competent grammatical review of this book. Special thanks to Michelle Smith, Divya Vasudevan, and to Editorial Team of Peter Lang Publishing.
Manaus, November 25, 2019
Marcílio de Freitas
References
Barifouse, R. (2019). ‘Dia Mundial do Meio Ambiente: 68% das áreas de proteção e indígenas da Amazônia estão ameaçadas, diz estudo (World Environmental Day: 68% of Amazonia’s protection and indigeous areas are threatened, says study)’, BBC News, 5 June, <https://www.bbc.com/ portuguese/ brasil-48504317>, accessed 22 July 2019.
McGrath, M. (2019). ‘Deforestation: Tropical tree losses persist at high levels’, BBC News, 25 April, <https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48037913>, accessed 10 July 2019.
UN News. (2019). ‘World is on notice’ as major UN report shows one million species face extinction’, UN News, 6 May, <https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/05/1037941>, accessed 15 August 2019.
Walt, S. M. (2019). ‘Who will save the Amazon (and how)?’, FP-Foreign Policy—The Magazine, 5 August, p. 1, <https:// foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/05/who-will-invade-brazil-to-save-the-amazon>, accessed 28 August 2019.
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1.1 Amazonia: Worldwide Material and Symbolic Representations
Amazonia is strategic to Brazil and mankind. It raises a number of important issues to the world, with emphasis on the following: its participation in the construction of a new aesthetic concept for mankind, its sustainable development as the world’s largest open living library, as a strategic space belonging to Brazil and the world, as a means to renew the planet, as the planet’s thermostat, and as the planet’s climate stability mechanism. These meanings of Amazonia’s material and