Amazon, Frontier and Protected Areas: dialectic between economic expansion and nature conservation

Abstract

The territorial dynamics of the frontier in the Brazilian Amazon region indicates that land and natural resources continue to be incorporated into the mechanisms of capital accumulation. This process has largely spread into Protected Areas (Conservation Areas and Indigenous Lands), reaching natural spaces and traditional territories inhabited by indigenous peoples and Amazonian communities. Thus, the expansion of the frontier in the south of the state of Amazonas is analyzed, in view of the pressures of the Government and extractive economies to convert Protected Areas into a space of capital. Such expansion is not supported solely by economic agents and society, but has the Government as the main inducing agent. The results indicate an increase in deforestation and disruption of the environmental policy, configuring the restructuring of the frontier.