A RAZÃO COLONIAL EM INSTRUMENTOS DE POLÍTICA AMBIENTAL: USINAS HIDRELÉTRICAS NA AMAZÔNIA BRASILEIRA

Abstract

For decades, the Amazon has embodied a multitude of expropriated territories, which have undergone a historical process of spoliation in favor of a discourse centered on progress and development associated with the establishment of hydroelectric power plants. In this article, we analyze the dynamics of employing environmental policy tools within the context of the harm and disasters engendered by the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Brazilian Amazon. Our methodological approach commenced with documentary research encompassing economic feasibility studies, impact reports, basic environmental plans, and inspection reports issued by ANEEL (the National Electric Energy Agency). As our bibliographical analysis deepened, guided by a decolonial perspective, the primary aim of this article was to dissect the colonial rationality that normalized the suffering and social disasters caused by hydroelectric enterprises in the Brazilian Amazon. This rationale is the same that, through the invention of the development category, legitimizes the utilization of natural resources and territories by large capitalist enterprises, even at the expense of secular communities. In the Brazilian Amazon context, environmental policy tools, predominantly mitigation and compensation measures, are employed as tactics to endorse the licensing of hydroelectric power plants. Each instance of harm inflicted upon the territory is linked to the licensing process, which outlines ways to mitigate the disaster, as if aspects of life, culture, and food sovereignty could be quantified in the name of market logic.