**2.3 Foreign policy, South-South cooperation, and IIRSA**

Latin American cooperation started with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT). The ACT started after the meeting of Brazil and Peru heads of state, who committed to elaborating the initial outline for the cooperation. Since its elaboration in 1978, the ACT was enforced under the premise of preservation and the development of the Amazon region, within the context of territoriality - not the environmental sense. In the same period, the priority sectors were defined for establishing cooperation: Territorial occupation, the development of technology, and scientific knowledge [25].

In 2002, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) creation reinforced the integration purposes initiated with the ACT, emphasizing the environmental dimension. In this context, the ACTO Executive Secretariat - based in Brasilia and disconnected with the Amazonian reality - is now another body that has intensified regional inequalities, emphasizing the competitive dimension between signatories of projects funded by multilateral agencies for the Amazon [22].

This observation is relevant as the IIRSA operated within this context. The neo-developmental legacy that remained in some Brazilian sectoral bureaucracies

**191**

2005 [30].

**3. Conclusion**

strategy in the Pan Amazon Region.

*Neo-Developmentalism and Regional Integration: IIRSA Impact in the Environmental Agenda…*

influenced foreign policy towards the Latin American neighbors [26], making the Brazilian Amazon a region where sectoral policies were defined with a high degree of concentration when considering the federative pact. In the other signatory countries of the ACTO, the distance dynamics grows more and more from the centers

Within this context, the IIRSA actions and the course of the South-South cooperation in the Amazon were materialized by the left government's administrations until 2016 through ACTO's coordination. This organization's role was redefined, leaving it as a standard of regional sustainability associated with a change of political agenda that included development from a different perspective from the one

The development assumptions in the agenda of IIRSA's priority projects in execution and the lack of related licenses also attest that the Brazilian foreign policy indicates to its Amazonian neighbors the extent to which the environmental arena must be included in the South-South cooperation. Against this trend were the social movements emerging from Latin American political institutions. These movements rely on the defense of the environment and on the Amazon's environmental asset [29], where new information and communication technologies gave voice to the groups affected by the actions of IIRSA. The case of the Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre (Xingu Lives Forever movement) illustrates the activism of social movements in the environmental arena. For instance, the Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre – opposing the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex installation qualifies itself as "for the awareness of the Brazilian society in defense of the Xingu River and against the hydroelectric of Belo Monte." Through its activism, the Xingu Vivo Movement put pressure on the Public Ministry of the Union, and 13 sentences to stop the works were issued. However, the judicial sentence succumbed to the power that companies that funded the candidates of the turn-left in Latin America. Many decisions were taken by different judges over ten years to stop licenses due to demonstrate illegalities. However, they were all suspended by the Federal Regional Court of Brasilia in the years of ruling left-wing Latin American candidates from

The imbalance and the profound differences between Brazilian government developmentalism goals and the actions to promote sustainability in amazon areas can be understood by the place given to the environmental agenda during the IIRSA implementation. The proposal for regional integration resulted in the process of deregulation and systematic deconstruction of policies for sustainability in the areas of influence of IIRSA. In this perspective, the implementation of IIRSA made evident severe institutional weaknesses, such as independent institutions' existence, as COSIPLAN, enforcing the authorization to implement unsustainable projects. Out of the global environmental regulation, these organizations conducted the rupture of Brazil's environmental legislation - and the IIRSA region in general. The flexibilization and environmental deregulation resulting from the influence of IIRSA contractors and government agents interested in its implementation made the project an example of an environmentally unsustainable regional integration

The dimension of the environmental impacts of the projects carried out are of an intensity never before experienced in the region. The consequences resemble the scenario described by [31] regarding the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the English fields and society. The intensity and frequency of the changes imposed

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93983*

that originated its creation in the ACT.

where the decision-making processes took place [27, 28].

*Neo-Developmentalism and Regional Integration: IIRSA Impact in the Environmental Agenda… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93983*

influenced foreign policy towards the Latin American neighbors [26], making the Brazilian Amazon a region where sectoral policies were defined with a high degree of concentration when considering the federative pact. In the other signatory countries of the ACTO, the distance dynamics grows more and more from the centers where the decision-making processes took place [27, 28].

Within this context, the IIRSA actions and the course of the South-South cooperation in the Amazon were materialized by the left government's administrations until 2016 through ACTO's coordination. This organization's role was redefined, leaving it as a standard of regional sustainability associated with a change of political agenda that included development from a different perspective from the one that originated its creation in the ACT.

The development assumptions in the agenda of IIRSA's priority projects in execution and the lack of related licenses also attest that the Brazilian foreign policy indicates to its Amazonian neighbors the extent to which the environmental arena must be included in the South-South cooperation. Against this trend were the social movements emerging from Latin American political institutions. These movements rely on the defense of the environment and on the Amazon's environmental asset [29], where new information and communication technologies gave voice to the groups affected by the actions of IIRSA. The case of the Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre (Xingu Lives Forever movement) illustrates the activism of social movements in the environmental arena. For instance, the Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre – opposing the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex installation qualifies itself as "for the awareness of the Brazilian society in defense of the Xingu River and against the hydroelectric of Belo Monte." Through its activism, the Xingu Vivo Movement put pressure on the Public Ministry of the Union, and 13 sentences to stop the works were issued. However, the judicial sentence succumbed to the power that companies that funded the candidates of the turn-left in Latin America. Many decisions were taken by different judges over ten years to stop licenses due to demonstrate illegalities. However, they were all suspended by the Federal Regional Court of Brasilia in the years of ruling left-wing Latin American candidates from 2005 [30].

#### **3. Conclusion**

*Ecosystem and Biodiversity of Amazonia*

Companies such as Vale, Gerdau, Camargo Correa, Votorantim, Petrobras, and Braskem made acquisitions in the iron ore, steel, food, cement, chemicals, and oil refining sectors, as well as other industries in Latin American countries [24]. From a domestic perspective in Brazil, Brazilian companies have met their demands through the association between the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), a developmental program, and IIRSA actions. In this sense, hydroelectricity gains momentum, given its centrality as a structuring element of regional integration,

Latin American cooperation started with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT). The ACT started after the meeting of Brazil and Peru heads of state, who committed to elaborating the initial outline for the cooperation. Since its elaboration in 1978, the ACT was enforced under the premise of preservation and the development of the Amazon region, within the context of territoriality - not the environmental sense. In the same period, the priority sectors were defined for establishing cooperation: Territorial occupation, the development of technology,

In 2002, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) creation reinforced the integration purposes initiated with the ACT, emphasizing the environmental dimension. In this context, the ACTO Executive Secretariat - based in Brasilia and disconnected with the Amazonian reality - is now another body that has intensified regional inequalities, emphasizing the competitive dimension between signatories of projects funded by multilateral agencies for the

This observation is relevant as the IIRSA operated within this context. The neo-developmental legacy that remained in some Brazilian sectoral bureaucracies

simultaneously with the violation of environmental sustainability.

**2.3 Foreign policy, South-South cooperation, and IIRSA**

*Map of the IIRSA area of influence in the Amazon. Source: IIRSA, 2014.*

and scientific knowledge [25].

**190**

Amazon [22].

**Figure 3.**

The imbalance and the profound differences between Brazilian government developmentalism goals and the actions to promote sustainability in amazon areas can be understood by the place given to the environmental agenda during the IIRSA implementation. The proposal for regional integration resulted in the process of deregulation and systematic deconstruction of policies for sustainability in the areas of influence of IIRSA. In this perspective, the implementation of IIRSA made evident severe institutional weaknesses, such as independent institutions' existence, as COSIPLAN, enforcing the authorization to implement unsustainable projects. Out of the global environmental regulation, these organizations conducted the rupture of Brazil's environmental legislation - and the IIRSA region in general. The flexibilization and environmental deregulation resulting from the influence of IIRSA contractors and government agents interested in its implementation made the project an example of an environmentally unsustainable regional integration strategy in the Pan Amazon Region.

The dimension of the environmental impacts of the projects carried out are of an intensity never before experienced in the region. The consequences resemble the scenario described by [31] regarding the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the English fields and society. The intensity and frequency of the changes imposed

by the submission of peasant social logics to the market have profound similarities with the impacts promoted by IIRSA in the Amazon region: Traditional communities, responsible for protecting and maintaining forest integrity, were submitted to lose their autonomy and being pushed to urban areas, with the negative social and economic consequences that such kind of migration brings to both, the forest and the cities; displacement and desolation.

The use of regional institutional arrangements biased towards interest groups promoted the environmental agenda's deconstruction. In this context, regional integration operates as a neo-developmentalist strategy in which the state acts as a coordinator of the market actions and simultaneously works in the regulatory arena by deregulating sectors in which the current and forthcoming projects are not in compliance with the environmental law. Instead of creating synergies between sustainability and regional integration, the Brazilian government began to induce actions at the regional level that bypassed regulatory incompatibilities between pan-amazon countries. The general consequence for the region was the generalization of a shared approach to environmental legislation to facilitate the integration in the supranational perspective, but blind towards the many international commitments made towards the amazon and its global environmental importance. IIRSA lost its fundamental principles and was converted into a framework to carry out environmentally unsustainable projects, with negative consequences for the governability of the amazon countries where it was implemented.
