São Paulo territory and concession of areas with environmental value to the private sector: role of the State as an enabler of capitalist accumulation and resistance of local communities.

• Grant number: 24/22036-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Fabrício Gallo
• Grantee: Vitória Diniz de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas (IGCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project proposes to investigate the bidding process to the private sector, through concessions, for Conservation Units, here understood as Areas of Environmental Value. We will also explore the role attributed to the State in the face of the continuous advance of capital, to commodify areas that would previously have been beyond its reach of potential gains. Thus, what follows are the reactions of civil society in the search for their rights, in particular traditional communities, given the State's ignorance towards them, followed by an arduous and constant struggle to defend their territories. We will seek to investigate the idea that the private sector observes the region known as the Paranapiacaba Ecological Continuum (formed by the three State Parks: Carlos Botelho, Intervales and Turístico do Alto da Ribeira - also known as PETAR), as an "Environmental Continuum of Spatial Valorization ", given the constant attacks on the territories that make up it. Furthermore, we intend to look into other questions that interest us greatly, such as the possibility of creating regulatory tricks that circumvent the legislation that protects areas with traditional communities from being granted, especially in specific cases, such as when the communities are located within the boundaries of a park, in order to understand that those areas could potentially be under threat from new concessions in the not too distant future.