WINDER RODRIGUES PIRES
Abstract:
The sugar cane plantation is present in Brazil since the Portuguese colonization beginning. The techniques used by the sugar cane industry toward production of sugar, and then alcohol, were not worried with preservation of natural resources, being associated, along its history, with environment damages as deforestation, fires, natural biodiversity injuries, water and soil contamination, among others. However, with the growth of social mobilization and the State rules around natural resources preservation and environmental quality, since the midtwentieth century, the field and the industry suffered a technical reformulation to reduce their environmental liabilities and increase its scale production, at the same time. The growing demand for renewable fuels originated with international agreements to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases intensified the expansion of the sugar cane industry in the areas of Cerrado in Brazil. The adequate climate (settings), soil and topographical conditions of this biometerritory made the success and intensification of this plantations, reconfiguring the areas an restructuring the environmental where they were planted. In micro southwest of Goiás State works ten sugar cane industries and another one being implemented. The goal of this study is set up a series of information about this sector, its transformations in a technical way, passing trough different phases (sugar cane, than alcohol and energetic cane at least) until nowadays, when incorporates the fame of sustainable development provider. In this search, the relationships between environmental policies, especially post-Kyoto, and the expansion of the sector are emphasized. Inside this, we sought to understand how the installation of the sugarcane industry in the microregion of south-west Goiás could offer empirical subsidies, from a socio-spatial analysis of territorial dynamics and legitimacy of the environmental speech made by the environmental sector. The methodology used was semi-structured interviews with those responsible for environment part and with the mill workers; lifting of the environmental legislation related; analysis of the studies and reports of environmental impacts of installed plants; and research of environmental public Agencies assessments. It was found that technological standard used by new plants installed in the micro south-west Goiás allowed minimize some environmental liabilities historically rooted to the sector. However, the intensification of sugar cane cultivation at this micro region can result in new impacts as increase the use of water for irrigation, soil compaction and monoculture. It's necessary therefore, an environmental regulation that covers the specific situation of the sector and consider the situations experienced by local actors in order to preserve environmental quality.
