Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663914552213 |
| Author | Caroline A Schmidt,Constance L McDermott |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Deforestation in the
Brazilian Amazon:
Local Explanations
for Forestry Law
Compliance
Caroline A Schmidt
University of Oxford, UK
Constance L McDermott
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
This article investigates how land users perceive laws restricting deforestation and
forest degradation, notably Brazil’s National Forest Code, and how legal meaning
emerges as place specific to influence their legal compliance. Interviews were held
with land users in Acre state, a municipality with high rates of deforestation located
in the forest frontier of the Brazilian Amazon. Critical legal geography was applied as
a theoretical framework to investigate the ways in which legal meaning emerges in
and through that social context. This research finds that non-compliance is associ-
ated with pervasive conditions of social stress combined with lived experiences of
contradictory legal processes, including shifting legal discourses and inconsistent
local law enforcement. In such social contexts, local legal meaning associates forest
conservation laws with socio-economic and legal inequality and the reinforcement of
structures of social exclusion.
Keywords
Brazilian Amazon, Brazilian Forest Code, critical legal geography, deforestation, forest
degradation, land users, legal compliance, REDDþ
Corresponding author:
Caroline A Schmidt, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
Email: caroline.schmidt@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Social & Legal Studies
2015, Vol. 24(1) 3–24
ªThe Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0964663914552213
sls.sagepub.com
Introduction
This article adopts a critical legal geography (CLG) approach to investigate how land
users perceive laws restricting deforestation and forest degradation in the Brazilian Ama-
zon and how legal meaning (re)emerges in social and place-specific contexts to influence
legal compliance. The CLG highlights how legal discourses and practices define the
ways in which individuals frame and assert their worlds (Milner, 1992: 322) and their
lived experiences of resistance and domination (Blomley, 2008: 156). The CLG empha-
sizes the temporal and spatial dimensions of law (Blomley, 2008:157), recognizing that
laws are not simply imposed within localities but also interpreted in and through those
settings (Blomley, 1994: 47). This analytical framework acknowledges that the
social–spatial setting can (re)define legal meaning and in turn shape the very nature and
extent to which individuals respond to legal provisions. In forest areas, this law–geogra-
phy interrelationship is crucial for understanding illegal deforestation and forest
degradation.
Deforestation and forest degradation have become an increasing focus of interna-
tional concern, escalating demands for legal reforms to arrest forest loss. This concern
has been heightened by the recent linkage of forests and climate change, including esti-
mates that forest loss accounts for 17%of the global carbon emissions (IPCC, 2007).
Since 2007, the Parties of the United National Framework Convention on Climate
Change have been debating about the design of an international mechanism for Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDDþ) as a mitigation option
to support the decrease of global carbon emissions (UNFCCC, 2007). The REDDþ
mechanism includes international forest carbon finance to compensate tropical forest
countries for taking measures, including legal reforms, to tackle the causes of deforesta-
tion and forest degradation whilst supporting sustainable management of forests and
enhancing carbon stocks (UNFCCC, 2007). The nature and impact of the governance
reforms that countries take to achieve REDDþcan only be understood in national and
local context, due to differences in the drivers of deforestation (Geist and Lambin,
2002; Schlamadinger et al., 2005) as well as differences in governance dynamics
(Thompson et al., 2011).
Brazil lies near the centre of international attention around REDDþ, as the country
having the world’s largest continuous tropical rainforest (Bo¨rner et al., 2010), covering
an area of approximately 5 million km
2
or about 61%of Brazil’s territory (Sparovek
et al., 2010). Due to the rapid loss of these forests, Brazil has been considered until
recently one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions from lost biomass (Kintisch,
2007). There is a large literature about the causes of deforestation and forest degradation
in the Brazilian Amazon (Asner et al., 2005; Binswanger, 1991; Chomitz et al., 2006;
Fearnside, 2003, 2005, 2006; Kirby et al., 2006; Margulis, 2003). The literature is largely
in consensus that cattle ranching, farming and infrastructure projects are the leading
direct drivers of deforestation, that is, the conversion of forested areas to other land uses.
However, due to uncertainties surrounding land tenure in the region, it is difficult to esti-
mate the percentage of this forest conversion that is illegal. Leading causes of Brazilian
Amazon forest degradation, as in the partial removal of the forest canopy, include timber
harvest and slash and burn practices for agriculture. In 2005, selective logging in the
4Social & Legal Studies 24(1)
To continue reading
Request your trial