Esferas públicas sobre desmatamento na Amazônia brasileira

Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon, given its social and environmental relevance, prompts several discussions based on its historical context and its relations with the State, the Market and Society, which makes it possible to affirm that there are several public spheres on this important territory for Brazil and the world. With the intention of contributing to the scientific, social and political debate, this research aims at answering how the public spheres on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, at the international, national and regional levels, were able to influence political decisions. In order to do that, the discourses of the publications of the newspapers Amazônia Real, Folha de São Paulo and The New York Times were selected, considering the period between 2011 and 2020. To answer the research question and meet the objectives of the work, the theoretical foundation of the Theory of Communicative Action, of Jürgen Habermas’ Public Spheres, of the Critical Discourse Analysis, of the Social Management and of the historical context of the Brazilian Amazon region were used, the latter explaining the conflicts and public policies related to environmental protection. In the three mentioned newspapers, 1,272 texts related to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon were collected in the chosen analyzed period, of which, 629 were excluded, which accounts for 643 articles remaining for the analysis. For an organization of the information, the MAXQDA data analysis software was used. The discourses analyzed in the investigated newspapers were analyzed through four discursive structures: Public Policy, Business, Technical-Scientific and Environmentalist. These structures allowed the discourses of social subjects to be characterized in an organic way for a better understanding of the public spheres. The public spheres identified were: “Forest Code”, “INPE” [Brazilian National Institute for Space Research], “Fire Day”, “surveillance”, “Beef Moratorium”, “Soy Moratorium”, “CAR” [Brazil’s Rural Environmental Registry] and “major infrastructure works”, “Arc of Deforestation” and “Paris Agreement”. The results of these spheres influenced the conducts of Society, of the State and of the Market on the problems caused by deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. A reflection of this was the passing of the Forest Code and other actions that caused the expansion of inequalities in the Amazon territory. The discourses related to the Environmentalist and Technical-Scientific discursive structures were presented with greater capillarity points of view converging with the environmental perspective. In the discursive sets of Public Policy and Business structures, it was found that there was a diversity of public opinions in relation to environmental and economic contexts.Some contributions were the observation of deforestation as a reason for the creation of public policies; the identification that there are convergent discourses between environmentalists and businessmen who seek to comply with international environmental agreements; and the identification that scientific studies have not yet been consolidated to the point of having an impact on reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The investigated newspapers need to get closer to the Amazonians, as it was found that they influence government actions. It was demonstrated that the public spheres interfere in the practices of international bodies and governments. It was evidenced that there is an interconnection between State and Market – system – to the detriment of social and environmental discussions, which confirms the “colonization of the world of life” in relation to environmentalist practices.