An Extractivist War on Life: Legal and Political Manoeuvres to Enable the Advance of Agribusiness Interests in the Brazilian Amazon

Most of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions stem from land use, land-use change, and forestry and the clearing of areas for agrarian extractivism, with the Agriculture, Forestry and other land uses sector accounting for over 73% of Brazilian GHG emissions. The expansion of agrarian extractivism in the Amazon has been accompanied by efforts to capture democracy at regional and national levels. The agribusiness/agro model reproduces the colonial extractivist system and is centred on the production of commodities as a means to facilitate the accumulation of capital in the centres of power. In order to achieve this, the proponents of agrarian extractivism seek to co-opt democracy and legitimise appropriation by deploying policies and laws as instruments of violence. This article analyses the feedback system through which agribusiness/agro influences politics and how the legal framework is then used to enable and justify extractivist practices in the Brazilian Amazon. The conclusion here is that Brazil must change its policies with respect to non-allocated public lands within its Amazon, with the aim of creating or expanding conservation unit areas, demarcating and titling traditional peoples’ territories, and pursuing land reform and forms of governance that promote a complex system of reproduction of life, not capital.