Green Grabbing in the Matopiba Agricultural Frontier

Abstract

This article discusses grilagem (land grabbing) in the Cerrado, particularly in Matopiba territory, which is seen as the newest and largest global agricultural frontier. It examines how the Rural Environmental Cadastre (CAR), created in 2012, has become an instrument for land and green grabbing. The analysis draws on empirical evidence on overlapping land cadastres and conflict in Piauí. The CAR has favoured green grabbing due to weak land governance, allowing the appropriation of land and nature through claims of environmental protection. The article highlights resource appropriations on the frontier that reflect the ‘unequal ecological exchange’, and the ‘metabolic rift’, that characterises the global capitalist system. It contributes to a highly topical debate on green grabbing, in the context of climate change and environmental sustainability. Crucially, it offers a perspective of the global South, on how the green agenda is being used through legal tools as a mechanism of resource appropriation.