De que Amazônia vocês estão falando?: a categoria Amazônia para o Banco Mundial e o BNDES

Abstract

The Amazon category is treated in different ways by different people, therefore, it is necessary to understand how the World Bank and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) understand the Amazon. What is the Amazon for the World Bank and BNDES? How do they think about Amazon? Do the Amazon concepts for the two banks change over time? How many concepts do the two banks use for Amazon? How do they see the Amazon? The objective is to understand how the World Bank and BNDES think about the Amazon. This general objective unfolds in others that would be to understand the history of the Amazon; analyze the documents of the World Bank that deal with the Amazon; study the BNDES documents that address the Amazon category. To achieve these goals, documents dealing with the Amazon are used and are available for public debate in the portals of the two banks. There are four hypotheses raised: both the World Bank and BNDES understand the Amazon as a source of natural resources available to the world market; the definition of the Amazon category for both the World Bank and the BNDES involves the dependence of the Amazon on the world market; there is a common project between the World Bank and BNDES about and for the Amazon and, finally, the World Bank continues to dictate, finance and project the future of the Amazon. The Amazon category varies with the time of production and reproduction of world capital, as at one time it was an "empty" region ready to be explored and occupied, while at another moment it is a region of natural resources that need to be preserved, but without detachment of the “vocation” of exporting primary or semi finished goods supplying the great centers of the world and national market, while the promises made by the two development banks do not arrive. During this wait, both at the World Bank and at the BNDES, the idea, also aimed at the Amazon, of “sustainable development” arises. For the World Bank, “sustainable development” is the redemption of the sins committed during the 1970s and 1980s, as the World Bank did not blame the financing it gave and the projects it carried out in the Amazon during this period. For the BNDES, which was born with one foot in the concern of the “environmental issue”, the path is not so difficult, despite doing the opposite of what the World Bank did, and they only did it because it was what had to be done. The concept of Amazon is variable for the World Bank and BNDES, it depends on what the capital, as a whole, wants for the moment.