Reforma agrária e meio ambiente.

Abstract

What kind of theoretical and empirical argument can support a denounce that landless movements represent evironmental threat? A methodological scheme to analyze environmental risks due to landless movements is the aim of this paper. The starting point is that environmental risks in a settlement area may be affected by the landless movement itself, by specific characteristics of each settlement, by the socio-cultural environment where settlement lies, and by personnel characteristics of the settled people. Therefore, in order to evaluate what consideration those four dimensions. The cocoa region, at the Southeast Cost of the State of Bahia is taken as an empirical evidence. A preliminar conclusion, for this case, is that environmental risks on settlement of agrarian reform are not higher than would represent land under control of other category of land owner. Even though such a conclusion may not be true for other environments, the main point of this paper, however, is to raise a discussion regarding a methodological proposal for analizing environmental risks due to struggle movements for land, at the national level, in Brazil.