Green crime, territorial resistance and the metabolic rift in Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado biomes

There are several emerging threads from the field of Green Criminology (GC) that provide for a dialogue with, and extension of, our collective analysis of environmental harm, of escalating social conflict on the frontiers of resource extraction and cultivation, and the indivisibility of ecological damage from corporeal rupture for the subjects of this study. The regular transgression of regional, national and international legal instruments supposedly protecting environments and human rights involves the often opaque and complex organisation of, and inter-relation between, local, corporate and state actors whose activities constitute- but are rarely prosecuted as- criminal behaviour. GC has shifted a focus beyond the immediacy of environmental crime to consider the broader motivations for and outcomes of environmental disruption and this invites a closer interrogation of the social relations and tensions that underpin a seemingly uncontrollable territorial advance of environmental degradation, and an intensification in conflict in culturally and bio-diverse regions. This paper builds upon the class oriented and southern perspectives on green crime to contextualise and analyse resistance by riverine, quilombolo , indigenous and agrarian communities in the globally important Amazon and Cerrado biomes of Brazil. These have been the target of violent land invasions and massive scale hydro energetic, mining and agribusiness projects, yet the communities have organised in ways that merit attention due to the different spaces and scales of contestation with relative success.