Cattle Grazing and Forest Devastation in Brazil: Environmental Resources and Territorial Trajectories

Abstract

This article examines the history and present-day dynamics of deforestation and cattle grazing in Brazil’s Amazon. It discusses the long-standing strategic alliance between agribusiness and the Brazilian state, as well as the role of livestock grazing in Brazil’s developmental ideology of the frontier. It shows how the livestock industry is enlaced with soy production in the deterritorialization and deforestation of the Amazon, as well as the legalized theft of indigenous lands. It places these 

Brazilian dynamics into larger international context and analyses the class structure and state capture of Brazil’s agro-industrial sector.