Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

This essay takes a (green) criminological and multidisciplinary perspective on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, by focusing on the crimes and damages that are associated with Amazonian deforestation. The analysis and results are partly based on longer ethnographic stays in North Brazil (Amazon region). If focuses on the human victimization of deforestation such as violence against forest inhabitants, which is usually committed by large landholders (e.g., cattle and soy farmers, timber traders) or their henchmen. Ultimately, deforestation also leads to the disappearance of communities and traditional lifestyles. This essay takes a more sociological and political science perspective on the question of why (illegal) Amazonia is accompanied by so much deforestation-related crime and violence, and on the question as to how and why Amazonian deforestation has arrived on the political agenda. The prolonged drought of 2014 and 2015 in populous southern Brazil seems to change the Brazilian debate and discourse with regard to deforestation and development.