Participatory processes and environmental planning in the Legal Amazon: a view on participation of Society in decision-making processes

Processos participativos e planejamento Ambiental na Amazônia Legal: um olhar sobre a participação da sociedade nos processos decisórios

Abstract

In respect to State institutions responsible for the environment, there are different possibilities of decision-making processes that have an impact on environmental regularization: one of the components of territorial organization. These paths will dependon the steps of the participatory process and the possibilities offered by the State to intervening actors, whether from civil society or political society. The focus of this work is, therefore, to analyze the feasibility of normative instruments and power relations that are given to participatory decision processes in pursuing environmental regularization. Thus, we give attention to the possibilities of insertion of each social actor in the processes of environmental regularization, in the relations of power that arise in the decision-making arenas, the reflection of the federative pact in the context of environmental management and the influence of the institutional structure on the possibilities of action on the part of the actors. We show that a mosaic of elements such as the historical inheritance of what is known in Brazil as "environmental management" expresses the aggravation of the problems of the Federation regarding the hegemony of agrarian elites in the decision-making processes. This situation was not resolved by the federative pact, which conforms to an exclusionary and ineffective scenario of citizen participation related to environmental management envisaged in the regularization and territorial planning processes.