Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition

Abstract

Tensions concerning environmental governance have increased in Brazil since the far-right came to power in 2016. We offer insight into this process by analysing the first two years of Jair Bolsonaro’s (2019-ongoing) environmental policies—namely, how Brazil’s environmental protection arrangements are being dismantled. We find that the Bolsonaro administration centralises environmental governance in Brazil through complementary authoritarian and populist means. First in restricting participatory decision-making spaces such as the National Environmental Council (Conama) and the National Council of the Legal Amazon (CNAL), and, second, by attacking indigenous and traditional peoples, NGOs, scientists, and other environmental defenders. To illustrate the authoritarian dimension of Bolsonaro’s environmental governance, we carry out a political-institutional analysis of contemporary Brazilian environmental politics and then exemplify the ways and extent to which attacks against environmental defenders is a constituent part of Bolsonaro’s environmental populism. We hold that such attacks are not merely rhetorical but a political tactic to legitimise Bolsonaro’s authoritarian environmental governance in the promotion of ‘total extractivism’ while maintaining a populist appeal.

Environmental defenders suffering death threats and "under protection" in the state of Pará, Eastern Amazonia, Brazil

“…This is seen in the deforestation rates in the Legal Amazon, with the highest deforestation rate concentrated in the state of Pará (INPE, 2022). As documented, forest fires in the Amazon, western Pará state in August 2019 accelerated forest destruction and led to international repercussions (Kröger, 2020;Menezes & Barbosa Jr., 2021;Rapozo, 2021, Deutsch & Fletcher, 2022.…”

“…The fallout from these measures has been discussed by Araújo (2020), Thomaz et al (2020), , Menezes & Barbosa Jr. (2021), Rodrigues & Kalil (2021), Rapozo (2021), Pelicice & Castello (2021), Souza et al (2021) and Deutsch & Fletcher (2022). Dismantling of environmental governance in Brazil is not merely a rhetorical and ideological mechanism conducted by a national political group, but a political tactic designed to legitimize the promotion of "total neoextractivism" (Buzogány & Mohamad-Klotzbach, 2021) and the economic and political support of neoextractivist agents for hegemonic political groups.…”

Populism and nature—the nature of populism: New perspectives on the relationship between populism, climate change, and nature protection

“…The five contributions of this special section address several research gaps concerning the relationship between populism and environmentalism. The articles offer exciting new viewpoints that expand and deepen the current focus in the literature on populism and climate policy in that they 1) extend the analysis beyond Western European examples (Riedel 2021;Menezes and Barbosa 2021;Solorio et al 2021), 2) focus on differences between populist parties' handling of environment and climate change-related issues (Oswald et al 2021), 3) analyze the impact of the climate change movement on different parties at the sub-national level (Berker and Pollex 2021), and 4) investigate the policy impact of populist parties on environmental and climate governance (Riedel 2021;Menezes and Barbosa 2021;Solorio et al 2021).…”

“…The paper by Roberto Goulart Menezes and Ricardo Barbosa, Jr. (2021) offers a similar analysis of the transformation of Brazilian environmental governance and the policy effects of the right-wing populist government led by Jair Bolsonaro since 2019. Following the left-wing's neo-developmentalist ecological modernization agenda, the Bolsonaro government has reintroduced the traditional extractivist resource exploitation regime that has marked Brazil for centuries.…”

Enacting just food futures through the state

“…While here we draw specific attention to the far-right's effect on food policies it is also important to recognize that alongside these processes there was increased deregulation of environmental and land protection(Sparovek et al, 2019;Menezes & Barbosa Jr, 2021) as well as an increase of violence and conflict in the countryside(Barbosa Jr & Roriz, 2021).…”