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SUMMARY:Disaster developmentalism\, flailing states\, the commodity consen
 sus and the Amazon safety valve - Dr Susanna Hecht (UCLA)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20200925T171500
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20200925T184500
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/a0c39aea-f93f-45b0-94a1-568ae7aff5b0/
DESCRIPTION:Online seminar (via Zoom) followed by Q&A - all welcome  (NB -
  all times given in UK time)\n\nCurrent deforestation rates and numbers of
  fires are on the rise in Amazonia\, in spite of a period\, at least in th
 e Brazilian Amazon\, where economic expansion seemed to be decoupled from 
 deforestation. \n\nDr Hecht argues that while indeed deforestation rates d
 id decline for a decade\, this may have had more to do with institutional 
 contexts\, implementation of regulation\, political circumstances and nove
 l agreements\, than production intensification per se. Indeed\, the region
 al dynamics followed more the dynamics of the Jevons Paradox\, than the la
 nd sparing model\, and the system had high levels of “leakage” in to l
 ess regulated systems (Bolivia\, Chaco) and regions with less environmenta
 l activism and more undefined tenurial regimes\, such as Matopiba\, the re
 gional development matrix actively promoted under Dilma Rousseff. While so
 y systems intensified\, overall livestock systems did not\, in part becaus
 e of their role in land claiming. Other elements of the clandestine econom
 ies (gold\, timber\, coca) expanded as well. Small farmer and peasant econ
 omies expanded in part because of active agrarian reform periods in the la
 st ten years in Bolivia and in Brazil as a result of political pressures.\
 nHer central argument\, however\, is that in the last 5 years\, Pan Amazon
 ia has become a scene of flailing states as internal civil strife\, questi
 ons of political legitimacy\, corruption etc\, and direct policy intervent
 ion to reduce regulation and promote expansion have paralyzed regulatory a
 pparatus through an expanded economic dependence on global commodities—l
 egal and illegal--- under conditions of increasing inequality\, and minima
 l national value added. This dynamic has been exacerbated by the Covid sit
 uation.\n\nDr Hecht is Professor at the University of California Luskin Sc
 hool of Public Affairs\, and the Institute of the Environment and Sustaina
 bility. She is also Professor of International History and Politics at the
  Graduate Institute for International Development Studies in Geneva.  She 
 is considered one of the founders of the analytic approach known as politi
 cal ecology. She is the recipient of the David Livingstone medal\, Eleanor
  Melville and Carl Sauer awards. Her books\, including Fate of the Forest:
  developers defenders and destroyers of the Amazon\, have won multiple awa
 rds\, and her most recent work\, The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost 
 Paradise of Euclides da Cunha\, was awarded the best book on environmental
  history by the American Historical Association in 2015.\nSpeakers:\nDr Su
 sanna Hecht (UCLA)
LOCATION:Online
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/a0c39aea-f93f-45b0-94a1-568ae7aff5b0/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Disaster developmentalism\, flailing states\, the commodi
 ty consensus and the Amazon safety valve - Dr Susanna Hecht (UCLA)
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