Araripe under siege: the advance of capital in the Chapada do Araripe

Abstract

The objective of this work is to discuss the process of commodification and nature control in Chapada do Araripe by the capital that is besieging its natural assets such as water, soil, landscape, vegetation and wind. Within a historical-materialist perspective, we performed a qualitative analysis with the support of some quantitative data, critically observing the researched phenomena. We prioritize the processes and not simply the search for objective data, and we found that the capital intertwined with state policies is entangled at different scales, and it seems to be in different ways in Chapada do Araripe territories, which generates a large number of conflicts with the local populations. Chapada do Araripe is an expressive geological formation that is extended throughout three northeastern states: Ceará, Pernambuco and Piauí. By performing an empirical analysis, we verified that the political and ideological offensive of commodification and privatization process of nature focuses in large water infrastructure constructions, such as the Projeto de Integração do Rio São Francisco (PISF) and the Cinturão das Águas do Ceará (CAC), as well as the transportation like the Ferrovia Transnordestina; on the private appropriation of wind by power generation companies; on the expansion of agricultural monocultures over large land tracts for growing, for example, banana’s cultivation; on the monopoly of urban land through large condominiums and urban subdivisions, especially on the slopes of the Chapada; and on the private appropriation of the landscape by tourism enterprises.