A ilusão da igualdade: natureza, justiça ambiental e racismo em Belém

Abstract

This master thesis comes from a concern about the lack of recognition of social and racial inequalities as structuring elements in the production of urban space in Brazil, mainly by environmental studies. Address the exploitation of the environment to achieve profit and favor certain social classes that have control of land ownership, and social and political power, it has been the most common approach in the Brazilian context. In the context of an Amazonian city like Belém, flat relief and water stand out as historically dynamic elements of urban occupation and disproportionately more severe environmental consequences for certain social groups. Thus, this master thesis aims to reveal environmental injustices and social and racial inequalities in the production of the urban space of Belém, historically marked by rentier urban growth, by territorial dispute and countless environmental consequences. The methodological procedure was diverse, first of all it started with a bibliographic review about nature, Brazilian racial issue, and the sociospatial formation of Belem. Then, it was made analysis of urban growth patterns of the metropolitan region of Belem, through digital rating techniques of orbital images, with two periods of time (1984 to 1999 and 1999 to 2018). The same period of time selected were used to analyze the urban occupation and the hydrological impacts in the river basin of the Metropolitan Region of Belem. To conclude, it was made analysis of socioeconomic, racial, environmental and urban infrastructure data of Belem. The obtained results show that there is a correlation between the urban spot, the vegetal cover and the reduction of adequate rates for the operation of river basins in the Metropolitan Region of Belem. Furthermore, it was verified that two out of three people live in the flooding area of Belem, which is mostly composed of black and low-income people. It was also verified that the overflow in the city match with the flooding susceptible areas, due to the lack of urban drainage and the incapacity of public management of the territory, masked with a speech which blames the nature. It is conclude that the environmental issues in the urban space of Belem affect unequally the population of the city and they are based on structures of political, economic and social power grounded in racism and inequality.