By Victor Barros Correia.
In the past few years, Brazil has seen dramatical change in its economy and political scenario. The country suffered an accentuated shift, moving from a left to right wing government, with an impeachment process in the middle. It might be suitable to point out that the scope of this piece is not to underline the ongoing debate about the new government policies, moral and ethics, but instead, show an alternative for maximizing the present strategies in a way that can benefit the entire nation and symbiotically, the world.
President Jair Messias Bolsonaro promised throughout his campaign that his main focus for the economy is to decentralize the state bureaucracy for the creation of new business clusters, the flexibilization of labour laws, as well as exploration and exploitation of environmental protected areas in order to promote growth and development. These three main agenda items of the government are expected to cause great opposition from civil society, unions, NGO’s and academic organisations. However, there is one area where President Bolsonaro can indeed proceed with his neo-liberal agenda and still promote entrepreneurship and creation of new business ideas, diversify the economy and at the same time not enter in conflict with the civil society organisation groups. This area is Brazil’s last frontier: The Blue Amazon.
In 2004 the navy admiral Roberto de Guimarães Carvalho wrote an article for the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, in which he launched the concept of the Brazilian ocean to the public, calling it the ‘Amazônia Azul’ or the ‘Blue Amazon’. This name highlights and draws attention to the hidden subaqueous Amazon in an attempt to divert the spotlight of the public opinion from the grandeur of the Amazon Forest to the fauna, flora and resources that could also be found in the Brazilian ocean.
Put into numbers, the Blue Amazon covers 4.5 million km2, which is half of the Brazilian land territory and slightly less than the 5.2 million km2 of legal Brazilian Amazon forest, where living and non-living resources can be found in the airspace above the water, the water laminate and in the ocean floor and subsoil. Examples of these resources are all the derivates from the hydrocarbons such as oil and gas, fisheries, different minerals that are relevant to the technology business in the 21st century, and also immense opportunities in the renewable energy industry, just to mention a few.
However, the choice is in hands of the new government to view the ocean as a new pattern in development. The political thought behind President Bolsonaro’s motivation to liberalize the economy should give priority to the entrepreneurial aspects of the ocean, developing the capacity of Brazil to generate new technologies, companies and involving society in viewing the ocean as a potential business as opposed to a mere bathing space. Another aspect of the ocean economy to consider is sustainability. The creation of this new economy should already be seen integrating the fundamentals of sustainable development in order to face the earth’s challenges and the competitive aspects of the market in the future.
As a major international player and a responsible nation, Brazil must honour the international agreements to which the country is a signatory, such as: The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. The country’s development should be incorporated within those objectives.
The Blue Amazon has the advantage, with a few exceptions of maritime areas, that the new government will not need to violate human, social or cultural aspects in order to bring about development. On the contrary, the Green Amazon would be a place where their policies will face strong opposition and intrude upon ecological reserves as well as indigenous protected areas, causing it to go in opposite direction of what the world acknowledges and heads for today.
Brazil’s last frontier should be embraced by the new president and by the entire nation as a space in which physical presence in the water must be felt as it is on land, generating growth and viable alternative for the future. The Blue Amazon is not just a boundary water desert, but rather a place of dynamic progress.
Victor Barros Correia – is an international civil servant and a PhD candidate at Leiden University
