Brazilian Conservation Under the Light of Historical Materialism

Brazilian biodiversity is being target of many scientific efforts to preserve it. However, there is an enormous contradiction in the country between what is discussed in scientific theory and what government measures are actually doing in practice. In this work, we discuss Brazil's conservationist aspirations under a human and social aspect, which the scientific view of natural scientists seldom explores: the historical materialist conception. From this analysis, we argue that current scientific efforts are important, but merely palliative, because at the heart of capitalist society the logic of value precedes any political decision making of the state. Therefore, the analysis of Brazilian biodiversity conservation under the premises of historical materialism elucidates with more clarity the forces that are at play in the country to inform the practice of conservation. This is a way of understanding the relatively ineffective role that science and technology has had in the permanent control of environmental destruction in Brazil.