Brazilian territory,
112 as do also challenges to assert of sovereignty and public power
in Brazil’s terrestrial boundaries. Still, public authorities, decision-makers and armed
forces have also come to realize that the attention dedicated to the land territory had
rendered another border “neglected”, and it is not an irrelevant one. Brazil’s international efforts to assert jurisdiction seaward and to protect riches adjacent to the
shore met a timid effort domestically to create legal and institutional conditions for
such arduously acquired rights and duties in the international sphere to be
implemented.
That scenario slowly began to change in the late 1980s, upon the domestic
ratification of UNCLOS in 1988, as well as the decision to kickstart LEPLAC.
Internationally, the country negotiated with fellow states sharing the South Atlantic
Ocean the transformation of the area into a nuclear free and peaceful-uses only
ocean, and creating an organization and military alliance, the so-called South
Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (ZOPACAS) in 1986.
113 Subsequently, in
the 1990s, public policies and acts aimed at governing the oceans were enacted, such
as the Ocean Act no. 8.617/1993; the 1994 National Maritime Policy; the Marine
Scientific Research Decree no. 96.000/1988, among others.
Despite those steps, not enough attention had been dedicated to reverse the
context of decades of overlook of the oceans and the Brazilian Navy—unable to
secure and protect the vastness of the Brazilian marine spaces. In parallel, some
authors warned to the possible “race to carve up the seabed”
114 upon the adoption of
UNCLOS, a move which steered national measures worldwide towards increased
investments in ocean exploration and exploitation technologies, namely in the field
of biogenetic resources and deep-sea mining.
In this context, Navy Admiral Roberto de Guimarães Carvalho coined the phrase
“Brazilian Blue Amazon” in 2004, not per coincidence in the same year of the first
Brazilian submission for an outer continental shelf before the CLCS.
115 By creating
and spreading the idea of a “Blue Amazon”, with its slight poetic touch, the Brazilian
Navy placed itself as an actor to be heard in the domestic political debate, thus
proposing policies and highlighting the need for a well-equipped naval force to
safeguard not only the country’s interests in the adjacent waters but also the “ocean
destiny” neglected by Brazil for decades, according to doctrines fed within the
Navy.
116 As the future of humanity is expected to depend on the riches of the sea,
112 According to the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation rate of
the Brazilian Legal Amazon was 9762 km
2
, from August 2018 to July 2019. This value represents
an increase of 29.5% in relation to the deforestation rate of the previous year, which was 7536 km
2
.
That is the highest rate since 2008, and may well represent a trend for the Jair Bolsonaro presidency,
for reasons explained below. Available at: http://www.inpe.br/ Accessed 12 April 2020.
113 UNGA Resolution A/RES/41/11, Declaration of a Zone of Peace and Co-operation in the South
Atlantic (ZOPACAS), 16 October 1986.
114 Cavnar (2009), p. 391.
115 Carvalho (2004), online.
116 The 2012 CEMBRA Report emphasizes, in a rather grandiloquent fashion, that “Brazil’s
maritime destiny is a birthmark”. See CEMBRA (2012), p. 174.
278
9 The Environmental Dimension of the “Brazilian Blue...
112 as do also challenges to assert of sovereignty and public power
in Brazil’s terrestrial boundaries. Still, public authorities, decision-makers and armed
forces have also come to realize that the attention dedicated to the land territory had
rendered another border “neglected”, and it is not an irrelevant one. Brazil’s international efforts to assert jurisdiction seaward and to protect riches adjacent to the
shore met a timid effort domestically to create legal and institutional conditions for
such arduously acquired rights and duties in the international sphere to be
implemented.
That scenario slowly began to change in the late 1980s, upon the domestic
ratification of UNCLOS in 1988, as well as the decision to kickstart LEPLAC.
Internationally, the country negotiated with fellow states sharing the South Atlantic
Ocean the transformation of the area into a nuclear free and peaceful-uses only
ocean, and creating an organization and military alliance, the so-called South
Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (ZOPACAS) in 1986.
113 Subsequently, in
the 1990s, public policies and acts aimed at governing the oceans were enacted, such
as the Ocean Act no. 8.617/1993; the 1994 National Maritime Policy; the Marine
Scientific Research Decree no. 96.000/1988, among others.
Despite those steps, not enough attention had been dedicated to reverse the
context of decades of overlook of the oceans and the Brazilian Navy—unable to
secure and protect the vastness of the Brazilian marine spaces. In parallel, some
authors warned to the possible “race to carve up the seabed”
114 upon the adoption of
UNCLOS, a move which steered national measures worldwide towards increased
investments in ocean exploration and exploitation technologies, namely in the field
of biogenetic resources and deep-sea mining.
In this context, Navy Admiral Roberto de Guimarães Carvalho coined the phrase
“Brazilian Blue Amazon” in 2004, not per coincidence in the same year of the first
Brazilian submission for an outer continental shelf before the CLCS.
115 By creating
and spreading the idea of a “Blue Amazon”, with its slight poetic touch, the Brazilian
Navy placed itself as an actor to be heard in the domestic political debate, thus
proposing policies and highlighting the need for a well-equipped naval force to
safeguard not only the country’s interests in the adjacent waters but also the “ocean
destiny” neglected by Brazil for decades, according to doctrines fed within the
Navy.
116 As the future of humanity is expected to depend on the riches of the sea,
112 According to the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation rate of
the Brazilian Legal Amazon was 9762 km
2
, from August 2018 to July 2019. This value represents
an increase of 29.5% in relation to the deforestation rate of the previous year, which was 7536 km
2
.
That is the highest rate since 2008, and may well represent a trend for the Jair Bolsonaro presidency,
for reasons explained below. Available at: http://www.inpe.br/ Accessed 12 April 2020.
113 UNGA Resolution A/RES/41/11, Declaration of a Zone of Peace and Co-operation in the South
Atlantic (ZOPACAS), 16 October 1986.
114 Cavnar (2009), p. 391.
115 Carvalho (2004), online.
116 The 2012 CEMBRA Report emphasizes, in a rather grandiloquent fashion, that “Brazil’s
maritime destiny is a birthmark”. See CEMBRA (2012), p. 174.
278
9 The Environmental Dimension of the “Brazilian Blue...