O paraíso do gado: a dinâmica geoeconômica do Município de São Félix do Xingu na atualidade

Abstract

In 2019, a record increase in deforestation was recorded in relation to previous years in the Legal Amazon. The municipality of São Felix do Xingu, located in Southeast Pará, stands out in this context, with two protected areas with the highest rates of deforestation. São Félix do Xingu, located in the Eastern Amazon, is among the six largest municipalities in the country. Of the total territorial extension of 84,000 km², 50% of it is made up of indigenous lands which, together with the conservation units, make up more than 70% of its entire territorial extension. Located in the Middle Xingu Basin, the municipal seat is reached by land via a single state road, even though the municipality is home to the largest cattle herd in Brazil, 2.5 million head. If, on the one hand, most of the territorial extension is constituted by areas dedicated to the conservation of nature, of indigenous usufruct and owned by the Union, on the other hand, the cattle herd demands new pastures, which makes the municipality an economic frontier, and territorial in permanent update. Among the allegories associated with São Félix do Xingu, one of them is the capital of deforestation. Seeking to present and discuss the current geoeconomic dynamics of the municipality of SFX, this research was developed in two large parts and in two moments. The first, “the outward journey”, where the theoretical and historical foundation is elaborated, starting from the regional framework where the municipality is inserted. The second, the journey back from the “concrete”, through the relationship between public data and field research data, carried out in June 2022 in São Félix do Xingu, leads to the third moment: the synthesis. The relationship between land use and appropriation with the restructuring of livestock production was identified. If in the first decade of the 2000s production was concentrated on farms, today production is decentralized, both in the distribution of the production chain and in its territorial distribution up to the scale of trade and export. Contrary to the image of an exotic “deep Brazil”, the geoeconomic study of São Félix do Xingu today led to its mirroring with Brazil. Its role in a central business network in the contemporary Brazilian economy demonstrates that, instead of being the exception, the Municipality should be the rule.