A decolonial approach to Brazilian environmental policy since 1972

The aim of this article is to discuss the neoliberal project as a colonial determinant of the environmental policy in Brazil since 1972. The 1972 Stockholm Conference is used as a milestone for analysis. The results show that, since the military regime in the 1970s and through successive elected governments, whether right- or left-wing, federal policies have consistently aimed to boost the country’s economic growth. Even the few socio-environmental advances identified during the first administrations of the Labour Party (2003–2010) resulted from processes focused on the ‘deterritorialisation’ of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities. The ultra-liberal project adopted by the Bolsonaro administration (2019–2022) accelerated these processes and promoted an aggressive denialist, anti-environmental and anti-Indigenous agenda. Given the current political scenario (Lula administration 2023–2026), this study makes the following main contributions: it offers a new orientation for the environmental and Indigenous agendas developed by the progressive sector in Brazil and advocates for a science orientated towards contributing to a new environmental and Indigenous agenda in the country.