Accumulation by dispossession and green grabbing: wind farms, lease agreements, land appropriation in the Brazilian semiarid

Abstract

Wind power presents itself as an alternative to fossil fuels, playing an important role in fighting climate change. In that context, the Brazilian semiarid inland emerges as a new frontier for the wind industry given its high potential. Since being the landowner also means being the wind owner, we sought to understand how the processes of wind and land appropriation to produce wind power occur in the light of two concepts, ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and ‘green grabbing’. To that end, fourteen wind lease agreements were analyzed. It was concluded that: the wind lease contracts are the legal instrument that enables the appropriation of wind and land; that the appropriation of the wind is a process of ‘accumulation by dispossession, in which there is the privatization of a common good; and that this process only happens because of the land appropriation, understood as being a green grabbing process.

Energy Justice and Territory: Present and Futures of Wind Energy in Brazil

“…This is a particularly complex matter leading to exploitation of the state's traditional communities, entailing forced dislocation and issues of "land grabbing", described as the "process of dispossession of rural populations, farming families, peasants and traditional populations through Veronica Olofsson Energy Justice and Territory: Present and Futures of Wind Energy in Brazil privatisation and commodification of resources" (Traldi 2021:8). The many landless communities in Bahia are particularly vulnerable to being dispossessed of their land since they legally do not own their land and therefore have no legal rights in comparison with the wind energy companies being backed up by legal and economic power as well as local, regional and national political interests (Traldi 2021 the literature review for this study did not reveal studies on this matter in the interior of the Northeast region. The newness of the wind energy expansion in the region may be one reason explaining the lack of research on the subject, as well as the mere fact that the less observed semiarid Caatinga biome in North-eastern Brazil is overshadowed by the socio-environmental conflicts occurring in e.g., the Amazon, highlighting the necessity to include a broader analysis of the social implications in the transition to cleaner energy sources.…”

“…The lack of transparency and issues of confidentiality that permeate these contracts reproduce exploitation and marginalisation further increasing socioeconomic inequality, uneven development and a power imbalance where energy companies and the local population are playing by different rules. In accordance with the study by Traldi (2021), that investigates the contracts of wind energy companies in communities in the Brazilian Northeast, the core of the problem is the confidentiality clause of the contracts, leading landowners to sign contracts without being permitted to access legal assistance (Traldi 2021).…”

“…The fact that the contracts have an automatic renewal every 20 years further reproduces exploitation and expulsion of these populations for generations to come, leaving the control of land in the hands of the energy companies for as long as 70 years in some instances (Traldi 2021). emphasising its importance in a nation that is stricken by great income disparities and socioeconomic inequality.…”

Unjust Winds of Change: The Politics and Narratives of Wind Farms in the Brazilian Northeast

“…Livelihood impacts that affects local and traditional communities include reduced quality of soil due to wind energy installations and waters for fishing being disturbed in coastal regions where wind energy have been installed since the early 2000's (Souza Júnior et al 2019). These impacts are even more damaging in regions where insecure land tenure, socio-economic inequalities, and political marginalisation are excessive, disproportionately effecting communities (Brannstrom et al 2017;Traldi 2021).…”

“…We focus on wind energy expansion in the state of Bahia in North-Eastern Brazil, currently the state where wind power installations are expanding the most. Additionally, Bahia is a state that is characterised by its many traditional and landless communities, highly vulnerable to the land dispossession that the wind energy expansion entails (Traldi 2021). Many traditional communities in this state are still not represented by any existing landless or peasant movement or organization nor governmental policy frameworks, thus not granting them full property or territorial rights (Santos et al 2019).…”