Appropriation and use of natural resources in the Pará Amazon

Abstract

The Pará state represents an important political jurisdiction when it comes to the Amazon Region conservation, once it encompasses the fringes of expansion to agricultural, mineral, energy and forestry activities in the Brazilian Amazon. Therefore, the state is considered a border of deforestation extension, continuously presenting the highest rates of forest loss of the region. In this study, the border limits of the Pará state were assumed to be the physical ones, despite of the conflict between state, capital and environment frontiers. In this context, the aim of this study is to present the discussion about the use and appropriation of natural resources in the so called ‘deforestation border’ of the Para state, underpinned by the bibliographic research and Bertha Becker's conceptual approach to the human occupation in the Brazilian Amazon Region. The data used to carry out this analysis includes maps and graphs that show this process in details. The results revealed that the historical occupation dynamics found in the region is subject to the policies of the National Government, which are directly intertwined with the world market. It was also possible to verify that the main actors linked to the primary and secondary forest removal were the loggers, miners and the agribusiness sector. Thus, a special attention is needed to the Amazon Region deforestation border, to allow for the development of an adequate and articulated policy that can effectively address the conservation of its natural heritage, together with the social development of its local populations.