The grieving forest; the social-environmental degradation in Amazonian Rainforest

Sammanfattning: The Amazonia is the biggest rainforest in the world, home also to probably the largest amount of different bio diversity species in our planet. Notwithstanding these incredible attributes, it is also one of the most threatened regions earth that extends to the whole planet. This thesis analyzes just a small segment of the interrelation of different human actors reacting to environmental problems. Theoretical frame works of different nature are used in this thesis in an effort to combine with synergy the strengths and potential benefits of political ecology, the stakeholder model, local institutionalisms, and the political and economical role of persons just to mention the most significant. This combination of these different scientific and empirical disciplines offers us a chance to apply the full potential for the analysis of the environmental problems related to human actions in the regional settings with the capability of gaining in depth knowledge that can be applied later in the design and implementation of potential alternatives seeking s the welfare of all human and biological stakeholders as our knowledge allows us currently. The thesis is structured on three study cases that cover a vast area of the Amazonia: the first case is located in Bolivia where we analyze the situation of Santa Maria de Maravilla, regarding the problems of land property and land use; the second case is located in Brazil in the Santarém region, where an important intensive production of soybean is affecting the environment as well as confronting the local communities; the third case is located in Ecuador analyzing the situation of the Block 15 region; an area deeply affected by the petroleum companies and the generic concepts of investment in extractive industries as a tool for regional and national development. Local actors are of the highest importance despite the different nature of the case studies, in order find commonalities which might allow us to make hypothetical counteracting models to decrease the devastating of environmental degradation in the Amazonia; some of the external actors (like the NGOs) can play an influential role in order to improve the collaboration and trust with local members.