The Political Economy of Planted Forests in Brazil: Inconsistencies between the green narrative and governance provisions

Abstract

In 2018, Brazilian authorities released a new policy plan for the planted forests sector. The plan’s discourse promoted planted forests for their environmental and climatic potential, despite its actual contents prioritizing a highly commercial approach to the planting of forests. Motivated to better understand contradictions of the kind, this thesis’ main objective is an in-depth analysis of Brazilian governance framework for planted forests, seeking to shed light on the political economy of planted forests activities in the country, as well as the interests driving those. The approach taken by this study brings together two lines of research on the topic of planted forests: the often utilized political economy perspective, and the less frequent institutional-legal aspects that permeate analyses of the former. Accordingly, the research question guiding this enterprise is: How does the Brazilian government promote planted forests and their multiple uses within its federal governance? In order to answer to this question, this research uses a qualitative case-study approach, built upon document analysis of laws, decrees, rulings and policies that directly impact planted forests activities in Brazil. In addition, elite interviews were used to complement the data and analysis. This research shows that the Brazilian state promotes planted forests for their potential to recover environmental assets, provide ecological services, and improve rural livelihoods. However, this green narrative is not effectively translated into the governance framework around their establishment, use, and expansion. The results show that Brazilian planted forests governance favors industrial and commercial uses of its resources, rather than the aforementioned socio-environmental goals. Those, however, are discursively used to justify the promotion of planted forests in sub-optimal contexts. This thesis argues that this scenario is made possible by an informal alliance between the state and the planted forests industry, in which the state perceives its national industry as a key component to its development project. By framing planted forests as part of the green economy, the planted forests governance framework aims to facilitate the operations of the industries, so that those can generate foreign revenue to finance the country’s socio-economic growth.