Governance and metagovernance systems for the Amazon

Abstract

In this article, we examine the existing governance of the Amazon and the potential for more robust collaborative governance involving the countries of the Amazon region and other stakeholders. Our focus is the metagovernance of the (multilevel and fragmented) national governance systems that have proven incapable of controlling the environmental and social harms affecting the region. We focus our transnational analysis on the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and our intranational analysis on Brazil (which has sovereignty over the greatest part of the Amazon). We explore the governance challenges, and point to possible ways to address them. | INTRODUCTIONThis article explores governance arrangements intended to ensure the social and environmental sustainability of the Amazon. To 'govern' someone or something is to control or manage it, to limit risks or improve performance. Governance designates the legitimate exercise of ongoing control (i.e. management and supervision, etc.) over a social system (e.g. a country, community or organization) to direct how it behaves and ensure its integrity. 1 'Governance' in this article refers to the processes and systems used to manage institutions that affect the Amazon.'Metagovernance' refers to the overarching institutional arrangements that govern a governance system-that is, 'governance of governance'. An institution comprises government or private rules, together with the organizations and processes that create, interpret, modify and implement them. Metagovernance can exist at local, regional, national or transnational levels and is particularly important when governance authority is independently exercised by organizations (e.g. delegated or shared authority). A country's environmental and social governance is often fragmented spatially, with power and authority distributed to its states or regions, and also fragmented by topics (i.e. separate instruments and authority exist for different environmental or social issues) or fragmented both spatially and topically. Amazon governance is also fragmented transnationally, as it is carried out by different countries. The metagovernance challenge is to supervise and manage the effectiveness and integrity of these fragmented arrangements, at all levels. This article examines the existing governance of the Amazon through the lens of metagovernance and the potential for a more robust collaborative approach involving the countries of the Amazon region and other governance stakeholders. We focus our transnational analysis on the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO).Because the bulk of the Amazon is located within the territory of Brazil, we pay particular attention to that jurisdiction, whose governance illustrates issues that affect the Amazon countries. Our evidence is drawn from international agreements (ACT and ACTO), official websites, reports and official documents and an in-depth investigation of environmental governance in Br...

The Key to the Sustainability and Conservation of Extractive Reserves in the Amazon

“…Solutions to reduce deforestation and burning and improve the quality of life of small producers require investment, increased supervision, and the development of technological and economic alternatives [104]. Therefore, the existence of environmental and socioeconomic policies with effective governance will reduce deforestation [18].…”

“…For example, deforestation, burning, mining, and business agribusiness have resulted in degradation of the forests that is visible from space, altered climatic conditions, caused biodiversity losses, and hindered sustainable livelihoods in the Amazon [12][13][14][15][16][17]. This has drawn the attention of national and international communities and led to the adoption of new measures in an attempt to mitigate the damage to natural and environmental resources [18][19][20].…”

Governing the Interlinkages between the SDGs

“…There is not yet much research published the application of metagovernance on the multilevel dimension of SDG implementation, but there is no reason why that field of application would be an exception. Some first examples include research in Brazil (Kull, Pyysiäinen, Christo, and Christopoulos, 2018;Martin, Teles da Silva, Duarte dos Santos, and Dutra, 2022), Denmark (Engberg, 2018), Belgium (Temmerman, De Rynck, and Voets, 2015), and Norway (Tønnesen, Krogstad, Christiansen, and Isaksson, 2019).…”