Corporate power in the bioeconomy transition: The policies and politics of conservative ecological modernization in Brazil

The bioeconomy transition is a double-edged sword that may either address fossil fuel dependence sustainably or aggravate human pressures on the environment, depending on how it is pursued. Using the emblematic case of Brazil, this article analyzes how corporate agribusiness dominance limits the bioeconomy agenda, shapes innovation pathways, and ultimately threatens the sustainability of this transition. Drawing from scholarship on power in agri-food governance and sustainability transitions, an analytical framework is then applied to the Brazilian case. The analysis of current policies, recent institutional changes and the case-specific literature reveals that, despite a strategic framing of the bioeconomy transition as a panacea for job creation, biodiversity conservation and local development (particularly for the Amazon region), in practice major soy, sugarcane and meatpacking conglomerates dominate Brazil’s bioeconomy agenda. In what can be described as conservative ecological modernization, there is some reflexivity regarding environmental issues but also an effort to maintain (unequal) social and political structures. Significant agribusiness dominance does not bode well for smallholder farmers, food diversity or natural ecosystems, as major drivers of deforestation and land-use change (e.g., soy plantations, cattle ranching) gain renewed economic and political stimulus as well as greater societal legitimacy under the bioeconomy umbrella

A educação ambiental em maricá/rj : uma visão de Darwin e do príncipe wied-neuwied no século XIX e nos dias atuais

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo descrever os relatos dos naturalistas, Príncipe Maximiliano de Wied-Newied (1815) e Charles Darwin (1832), em suas viagens pelo Município de Marica/RJ, as ações do município no que se refere às questões ambientais em Escolas no 1° Segmento do Ensino Fundamental. É uma pesquisa qualitativa de caráter exploratório-descritiva acerca da história do Município de Maricá e da legislação vigente no Município. Dados foram levantados através de questionários e entrevistas com professores de escolas municipais. Deve ser estabelecida uma política, por parte dos órgãos públicos, direcionada à preservação do patrimônio cultural e ambiental do Município e aproximando dos alunos as atividades de Educação Ambiental

New bounds for Tsallis parameter in a noncommutative phase-space entropic gravity and nonextensive Friedmann equations

In this paper, we have analyzed the nonextensive Tsallis statistical mechanics in the light of Verlinde's formalism. We have obtained, with the aid of a noncommutative phase-space entropic gravity, a new bound for Tsallis nonextensive (NE) parameter (TNP) that is clearly different from the ones present in the current literature. We derived the Friedmann equations in a NE scenario. We also obtained here a relation between the gravitational constant and the TNP.Comment: 15 pages. Final version to appear in Physica

Gestão do regime farmacológico em doentes com doença pulmonar obstrutiva crónica

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic and incapacitating disease, whose regimen includes inhalation medication. The evidence shows a low adherence, which may increase the aggravation of the disease. Objectives: To study the adherence and the perceived competence of patients to comply with the treatment regimen of COPD and evaluate their knowledge on the use of inhalers. Methodology: Quantitative and cross-sectional study, participants were 45 patients with COPD. We used the Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), the Perceived Competence Scale (PCS), and a questionnaire on the use of inhalers. Results: Participants reported good adherence to the medication regimen and reported a high degree of perceived competence to maintain the treatment regimen of COPD. However, they manifested little knowledge about the use of inhalers and the inhalation technique, which compromises the effectiveness of the established therapeutic plans and exacerbate the deterioration of the clinical condition. Conclusion: This study suggests that nursing care should be developed with a focus on knowledge and training in the inhalation technique.Enquadramento: A doença pulmonar obstrutiva crónica (DPOC) é uma doença crónica e incapacitante, cujo regime terapêutico inclui medicação por via inalatória. A evidência revela uma baixa adesão terapêutica, o que pode potenciar o agravamento da doença. Objetivos: Estudar a adesão e a competência percebida das pessoas para cumprirem o regime de tratamento da DPOC e avaliar o seu conhecimento sobre o uso de inaladores. Metodologia: Estudo quantitativo e transversal. Participaram 45 pessoas com DPOC. Utilizou-se a Escala de Adesão aos Medicamentos, a Escala de Competência Percebida e um questionário sobre o uso de inaladores. Resultados: Os participantes relataram uma boa adesão ao regime medicamentoso e reportaram um elevado grau de perceção de competência para manter o regime de tratamento da DPOC. No entanto, revelaram poucos conhecimentos sobre o uso dos inaladores e a técnica inalatória, o que compromete a eficácia dos planos terapêuticos instituídos e potenciam o agravamento da condição clínica. Conclusão: Este estudo sugere que sejam desenvolvidos cuidados de enfermagem centrados nos conhecimentos e no treino da técnica inalatória.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neglect paves the way for dispossession: The politics of “last frontiers” in Brazil and Myanmar

A convergence of factors creates a worrisome contemporary pattern of resource dispossession of local populations in developing countries. Growing market demand for commodities, states’ interest in expanding their fiscally fertile territories, and environmental conservation pressures have promoted resource frontiers, where locals all too frequently lose access to land, water and livelihoods. To add momentum and legitimize outsiders’ agendas, such locations are sometimes framed as “last frontiers” – the final places of possibility. While various forms of resource “grabbing” have gained increased attention, we argue that a crucial dimension of frontier dynamics – neglect and its role in facilitating dispossession – warrants further study as it tends to be overlooked. Drawing on the frontiers and political ecology literature, this article analyzes how neglect by state authorities, markets, and environmental organizations paves the way for dispossession in those landscapes. We compare two cases: the Matopiba soy frontier in the savannas of Brazil\u27s Cerrado and the Chin Hills of western Myanmar. Our results show how neglect is critical to imaginatively frame regions as “empty” places of possibility, excluding local actors economically from development and politically from governance initiatives. We argue that neglect not only precedes but is an enduring feature of resource frontiers, and identify four consecutive phases: (I) pre-frontier abandonment, (II) selective support to outsiders, (III) overlooked harms to communities, and (IV) socially exclusive sustainability agendas. As environmental concerns gain increasing global salience, Phase I sometimes leaps to Phase IV as international actors pounce to control what they regard as “last frontiers” for conservation. We conclude that external actors’ inaction enables local communities’ dispossession as much as their actions. This raises critical policy and scholarly questions about actors\u27 responsibility and accountability, not only for harms done but also for systematically failing to heed local actors’ aspirations and needs

Commodity-Centric Landscape Governance as a Double-Edged Sword: The Case of Soy and the Cerrado Working Group in Brazil

Persistent ecological and socio-economic impacts from the expansion of industrial monocultures in the tropics have raised land use sustainability to the top of the environmental policy agenda. As major crops such as soy continue to experience growing market demand and threaten both natural ecosystems and traditional populations, a number of multi-stakeholder governance initiatives have been established around agricultural commodity chains or key landscapes. Effectiveness in curbing unsustainable land use, however, remains limited. In this context, innovative initiatives have blurred the lines to combine both supply chain and landscape governance. We analyze such arrangements-here conceptualized as commodity-centric landscape governance (CCLG)-with an in-depth case study of the Cerrado Working Group, a multi-stakeholder initiative led by civil society and the soy agribusiness to address land use change in that savanna landscape in Brazil. The paper examines how that initiative has come about, its agenda, as well as usually underexposed political dimensions using agenda-setting theory. The research is based on extensive fieldwork in Brazil, with data collected through document analysis and 56 key-informant interviews. The findings suggest that a sustainable development agenda for the Cerrado has been substantially narrowed to become mostly one of conversion-free soy supply, serving more the interests of that agroindustry and its consumers than those of the landscape\u27s most vulnerable stakeholders, such as local communities. While the Cerrado Working Group has importantly broadened the policy scope beyond commodity certification, its limited inclusiveness and a skewed agenda have led to instruments that target only soy farmers as beneficiaries. We conclude that, although effective for targeting conversion drivers, CCLG can crystallize and reinforce existing land use patterns by granting disproportionate power to dominant stakeholders, thus limiting the agenda to incremental changes. As a consequence, distant demand-side actors may exert greater governance authority than the landscape\u27s own population. If embodying norms of inclusiveness and equitable participation, CCLG may serve as an entry point, but it does not per se replace inclusive land-use planning and integrated landscape governance

Understanding deforestation lock-in: Insights from Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon

Cropland and pasture expansion continues to erase natural ecosystems at a staggering speed globally, notably in the tropics. Conventional policy approaches, usually focused on a particular land-use change driver (e.g., specific commodities) or individual regulations (e.g., the Amazon Soy Moratorium), have consistently failed to achieve sufficient or sustained results. The swift reversal of Brazil’s earlier success in reducing Amazon deforestation – now again accelerated – offers perhaps the most sobering illustration of that. Therefore, this article draws from scholarship on sustainability transitions to propose a more comprehensive systems view of unsustainable land-use patterns. We examine persistent tropical deforestation as a case of “lock-in,” using a transitions lens, and explore its constitutive elements. As a case study, we analyze the situation of Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon, where as much as one-third of that biome’s deforestation takes place. While subject to some specific factors, those places are also enmeshed in a broader setting that is common across the Brazilian Amazon’s deforestation frontier (e.g., infrastructure conditions, market demands, and sociocultural norms). Drawing from document analysis of Brazilian policies and fieldwork in three Land Reform settlements in Pará State, we expose multiple forms of techno-economic, institutional, and socio-cognitive lock-in that together drive deforestation systemically in those settlements. These drivers form a strongly consolidated socio-technical regime around large-scale agriculture that includes material and immaterial factors (e.g., cultural ones), a regime that not only resists change but also – like a vortex – pulls others into it. Escaping deforestation lock-in may thus require outside forces to help local actors destabilize and eventually replace this unsustainable land-use regime. International zero-deforestation efforts offer a starting point, but a transition requires moving beyond piecemeal, incremental change or end-of-pipe approaches and toward concerted, strategic action that addresses multiple of those regime elements in a coordinated way to replace it as a system. We argue that understanding deforestation lock-in is vital for tackling its worrisome persistence and that sustainability transitions theory offers an illuminating, but still underutilized, framework to analyze and eventually overcome unsustainable land use

Environmental malgovernance in Brazil: what to do in the face of purposeful destruction?

Deforestation has grown significantly during Jair Bolsonaro’s term by cutting funding, monitoring capacity, and enforcement rights from Brazil’s environmental agencies. But is his presidency the only one to be held accountable? Consumers, traders, and financiers have also profited from this, as Mairon G. Bastos Lima (Stockholm Environment Institute) and Karen da Costa (University of Gothenburg) analysed