Environmentalism and the Globalization of the Oil Industry in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

Environmental Activism in Guanabara Bay at the End of the Twentieth Century

In 1986, at the height of the redemocratization process in Brazil, activists returned from exile founded the Partido Verde (Green Party) in Rio de Janeiro. The Green Party and social and environmental rights think thanks in Brazil’s South and Southeast mounted a successful campaign to guarantee environmental protections in the 1988 Constitution (Silva, n.d.). The constitution also decentralized environmental mandates, distributing specific competences among federal, state, and municipal agencies. Green Party activists were also instrumental in the creation of the Assembléia Permanente das Organizações em Defesa do Meio Ambiente (Permanent Assembly of Entities in Defense of the Environment—APEDEMA) in the mid-1980s. For the first time APEDEMA brought under the same environmental banner activists with very different histories of involvement in political and social struggles in Rio de Janeiro. This was no small feat; deep divisions have historically plagued the state’s environmental movement (Berna, 2010). APEDEMA focused on the Guanabara Bay ecosystem and contributed to the creation of conservation areas such as the Guapimirim area of environmental protection and the Tingua biological reserve, respectively in 1984 and 1986 (Elmo Amador, geographer, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 10, 2002; Dora Negreiros, Instituto Baia da Guanabara, interview, Niteroi, July 17, 2002; Ricardo Portugal, journalist and cofounder of the NGO Grupo de Defesa da Natureza, interview, Nova Iguaçu, April 8, 2008). Both efforts had the federal government as their major interlocutor, since they occurred before the 1988 administrative decentralization (Helio V. Coelho, NGO Onda Verde, interview, Nova Iguaçu, June 7, 2008; and Portugal, interview, 2008).

In the 1990s, environmental activism began to engage with state environmental agencies, which had assumed responsibility for local environmental issues. The NGO Os Verdes ⁴ led the movement Baia Viva, which coordinated more than 60 grassroots organizations to pressure state agencies for stakeholder participation in the highly controversial Guanabara Bay Pollution Management Program and eventually gained access to a small participatory component of the program (Teixeira and Bessa, 2009: 9; Amador, interview, 2002). More important, Baia Viva criticized the technically narrow and segmented (based on individual districts) approach to water and sanitation policies and proposed a multisector, ecosystemwide policy. ⁵ This critique would later influence, at least conceptually, efforts to revitalize the bay’s ecosystem after the 2000 oil spill. ⁶

Despite environmentalists’ efforts, both the monitoring of illegal activities in the Guapimirim and Tingua protected areas and the sanitation initiatives of the Pollution Management Program have been abysmal failures. To a large extent, these results have been attributed to the administrative decentralization promoted by the 1988 Constitution, which increased the responsibilities of state and municipal environmental agencies without adding to their resources or capacity (CIDS/EBAP/FGV, 2000: 9; IBASE, 2001: 45; World Bank, 1996: 1–5; Mauricio Castello Branco, NGO Instituto Terra, interview, Rio de Janeiro, March 25, 2008; Isaura Fraga, state deputy secretary for the environment, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 17, 2002; Neuza Vital, Petrobras staff member, interview, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2002). In 1998, environmental activism contributed to the passage of legislation on environmental crimes (Law 9.605). Though the law represents “uncontested progress” in protecting the environment through the creation of a framework for compensation (Loures, Miranda, and Oliveira, 1998), it still has gray areas with regard to procedures for prosecution of environmental crimes that have hindered environmental protection (Santana and Carvalho, n.d.).

One unintended consequence of the combined pressures of administrative decentralization without capacity building and increased social pressures for proactive state management of environment goods was the near-implosion of local environmental bureaucracies. In the face of low salaries and diminishing public resources, qualified staff left the public service. Many founded NGOs, which then became priority candidates for partnerships with state agencies (and later with corporations), indirectly supplying the state with the planning and implementation capacity that it sorely lacked (Lara Moutinho, superintendent of environmental education, State Environmental Secretariat, interview, Rio de Janeiro, March 29, 2008).

In this political and administrative context, in the early hours of January 18, 2000, an oil refinery owned by Petrobras spilled 1.3 million liters of crude oil into Guanabara Bay. The spill generated a 40-square-kilometer-wide oil slick. ⁷ The consequences for the ecosystem and populations directly dependent on it, such as fishing communities and crab collectors, were devastating. Fish, crustaceans, and birds died either immediately or in a few weeks. Beaches in major touristic destinations and important breeding grounds for native species such as marshes were covered in oil (Burgierman, 2000; Época, 2000; Isto É, 2000). The accident triggered an intense reaction from civil society and unprecedented responses from both the environmental agencies and Petrobras.

Environmental Activism in Guanabara Bay Since 2000

At the time of the accident, Petrobras was in the midst of an institutional change unlike any since its inception. The liberal economic reforms implemented during the Cardoso administrations (1994–1998 and 1998–2002) broke the monopoly that Petrobras had had over Brazilian oil operations since 1953. They allowed the sale of Petrobras’s shares on international markets and the creation of joint ventures with international companies. They also opened oil prospecting and drilling operations in Brazil to foreign companies, forcing Petrobras to face competition. In response, Petrobras prepared for a major restructuring of its operations (Elizabeth Calazans, Petrobras’s Environmental Safety Department, interview, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2002; Erasmo (no last name provided), Petrobras’s Environmental Safety Department, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 9, 2002; Vital, interview, 2002). Yet resistance was intense both within and outside the company. The oil spill in the bay, caused by an aging pipeline and the company’s lack of compliance with environmental regulations, eventually became the catalyst for change. Administrators committed to modernization used civil society’s anger at the accident to revamp an outdated managing model (Jornal do Brasil, January 2, 2002). Among the proposed “best practices” were the establishment of a positive environmental corporate image and compliance with Brazilian legislation on corporate environmental responsibility. The accident generated momentum for two programs. The first, the Program for Excellence in Environmental and Operational Safety Management, answered to requirements for international accreditation such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. The second, Petrobras Environmental, made unprecedented financial resources available to environmental NGOs (Petrobras, n.d.).

Breaking the resistance of powerful corporate interests to transforming the crown jewel of Brazil’s state-owned companies into a corporation operating with a private profile in everything except its majority shareholder required, in the words of one activist, a “stupendous” reaction from civil society, one that generated “absolute consensus that the oil spill was a tragedy!” (José L. Kevorkian, director of a cultural center in one of the communities most affected by the accident, interview, Paquetá, Rio de Janeiro, July 24, 2002). An indication of the strength of the mobilization is found in the variety of strategies that it deployed. Civil society organizations mobilized media outlets to focus on the disaster, ⁸ initiated a lawsuit against Petrobras, ⁹ mobilized volunteers for cleanup efforts, ¹⁰ and demanded that Petrobras engage in a formal dialogue with civil society about its role in Guanabara Bay.

This dialogue led to the highly controversial environmental pact between Petrobras and civil society. The history of events leading up to the pact reflects the challenges faced by NGOs and grassroots movements when they confront the opportunity to collaborate with corporations. Influential national politicians positioned the NGO Onda Azul to recruit other civil society organizations to participate in a “dialogue” with Petrobras. The goal was to create partnership projects funded by the company and implemented by NGOs. For many activists, this was an attempt at co-optation (de Lima, interview, 2008). ¹¹

Among Petrobras’s commitments in the environmental pact were some that merit special attention. Items 1 and 2 refer to the company’s pursuit of ISO 14000 certification in environmental excellence and compliance with environmental licensing requirements—as required by law—in all its facilities. The company had already considered these initiatives as it prepared to enter the global oil market (Calazans, interview, 2002; Elizabeth da Rocha Lima, director of the department of environmental control of the State Foundation for Environmental Engineering, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 15, 2002). Item 4 would have created an accountability mechanism, the Commission of Social Control, composed of civil society organizations, environmental agencies, members of the Attorney General’s office, and company staff, with the mandate of monitoring the impact of Petrobras’s operations on the environment, but it was never implemented. Finally, in item 7 the company committed itself to becoming a permanent partner of environmental NGOs, universities, and community associations in projects to recover degraded areas and to generate income for the affected communities in the Guanabara Bay region (Petrobras, 2000). It led to the creation of Petrobras Environmental, a funding mechanism that has significantly transformed the local (and national) environmental movement.

With the signing of the environmental pact, Onda Azul was commissioned to form a consortium to work on mangrove recovery, environmental education, income generation, and community mobilization. Six NGOs participated in the consortium. Some, such as the Instituto Baia da Guanabara and Univerde, had a long tradition of working on the bay’s socio-environmental issues. Others, like Onda Azul itself, were newcomers with political clout. Still others, such as Roda Viva, were well established in the community but had not historically focused on environmental issues. In all my interviews and research it never became clear how and why these six organizations were the ones selected to join the consortium. The brief history of the consortium, however, is a poignant illustration of the challenges that have plagued the environmental movement in Rio de Janeiro and, I venture to say, in most developing countries experiencing democratization, administrative decentralization, and the impacts of economic globalization at the turn of the millennium. The initiative was an unmitigated failure, leading to divisions in the environmental movement, the erosion of legitimacy of some NGOs vis-à-vis their beneficiary populations, and the depletion of the institutional capacities of already fragile organizations. This legacy continues to affect significant sectors of the Rio de Janeiro environmental movement today.

Controversy over whether environmental NGOs should cooperate with Petrobras and environmental agencies was intense. Though not the cause of the rift in the local environmental movement, it certainly accentuated it. When Petrobras and the federal and state environmental agencies reached out to NGOs, many refused to participate. They perceived the environmental pact and its initiatives as something not negotiated with but imposed by Petrobras as a bargaining tool (according to Amador [interview, 2002], “Only if the NGO signs it can it receive funding”). Others, however, saw partnerships with governmental agencies and with Petrobras as opportunities for transformation both for the NGOs and for the populations and the ecosystems they served. The executive director of the highly regarded Instituto Terra reflected on the dilemma faced by NGOs (Castello Branco, interview, 2008):

There came a time when we questioned our mission, asking whether the confrontational approach, the “head-on” collision course, was the best alternative to achieve our goals. We then decided to change the profile of the organization toward something more proactive. While we would still confront the status quo we would also propose solutions. . . . It was then that we joined the program for the revitalization of Guanabara Bay and focused most of our institutional energy there. . . . We gave up dealing geographically with the entire state and limited our action to a few small municipalities. . . . It produces many more results than dealing with the state and the national levels.

[On the other hand,] when there is an oil spill of the scale of the one in the bay in 2000 there is no chance that we would abstain from fiercely criticizing Petrobras, with or without receiving funding for our projects. Now, my criticism can be of a different nature. Rather than simply beating the company up while the oil continues to spill, I can criticize and offer a solution.

In addition to accentuating cleavages within the environmental movement, the Baia Azul consortium experienced serious capacity and legitimacy issues. Within two years of its inception, it had already lost one of its members. The NGO in charge of recovering mangroves withdrew because it was unable to meet the schedule of activities and disburse resources. In the rush of signing partnership contracts, NGOs made mistakes in both project design and project accounting. ¹² The volume of resources that Petrobras made available to NGOs and state and municipal environmental agencies in the aftermath of the oil spill was far beyond anything they had ever experienced before. Few of them had the structure to manage such resources. For civil society organizations, however, a serious consequence of this challenge was a loss of legitimacy among their beneficiary populations. The coordinator of the consortium remembers (Rogério Rocco, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 9, 2002):

Today we [NGOs in the consortium] are dealing with debt; workers in [one of the affected districts] have already occupied our office three times thinking that we are hiding the money in a safe. . . . [Another example] is the NGO Roda Viva, which facilitated an idea from the community itself—to form a cooperative of crab collectors. The community is mobilized to begin work in restoring the area and forming the cooperative. But this initiative has been paralyzed due to the bureaucracy constraining the disbursement of funds.

The consortium was not the only institutional arrangement attempting to promote the revitalization of the Guanabara Bay ecosystem. Petrobras also signed an agreement with the Attorney General and the Rio de Janeiro environmental agency. In addition to environmental safety infrastructure investments in the refinery responsible for the spill, the agreement involved Petrobras funding for a series of revitalization initiatives in the affected communities ranging from impact studies of Petrobras’s operations in the bay to the restoration of cultural assets, environmental education, and income generation. The involvement of NGOs and of the local scientific community in studies commissioned by the Petrobras agreement reduced their advocacy impetus, at times also affecting their credibility vis-à-vis their grassroots and the society at large.

By all accounts, the studies commissioned were neither completed nor used to determine reparations (Fraga, interview, 2002; Calazans, interview, 2002; and Napoleão Miranda, researcher of the Instituto Superior de Estudos da Religião, interview, Rio de Janeiro, July 2, 2002). The entire process lacked transparency. Petrobras opposed a public process, and no environmental agency had the power to alter this decision. The studies in question have “disappeared.” ¹³ Similarly, research conducted by the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analyses never obtained any visibility. ¹⁴

While lack of transparency never benefits a public advocacy organization, the opacity surrounding the impact studies fueled further controversy in the context of the fishing communities’ lawsuit. Fishing union representatives initially monitored the studies, but as tensions escalated the process was interrupted. In the absence of publicly available scientific data, the affected populations were left to rely on perceptions, individual experiences, and anecdotal evidence (José da Silva “Barriga,” fisherman from the fishing colony Z 11, interview, Ilha do Governador, Rio de Janeiro, July 5, 2002): “Shrimp have disappeared from the bay because of the oil spill; since the accident, fisher folk have had to go out in the open ocean to catch anything; Petrobras did not honor its commitment to pay reparations for the promised six months; environmental agencies took the money from Petrobras and there was nothing left for those affected.”

The final set of institutional arrangements relates to a fine in the amount of US$20 million (at the conversion rate of the time) that Petrobras paid to federal environmental agencies. The resources were to fund infrastructure improvements in the Tingua and Guapimirim conservation areas, training of municipal environmental agents, and solid waste treatment initiatives in the districts around the bay. Both federal and local environmental agencies lacked the capacity to implement these initiatives. One public administrator remembers: “Nobody knew how to spend [the money]! And I am talking about competent people, intellectuals, academics, and yet, nobody had any idea of what to do with it!” (Vicente Loureiro, state secretary of urban projects, interview, Rio de Janeiro, March 18, 2008).

Even when recommendations long voiced by the environmental movement were incorporated into the revitalization program, agencies remained limited in their capacity to produce meaningful results. For instance, two former managers of the Tingua reserve acknowledged that resources were used for infrastructure improvements such as repairs to the reserve’s headquarters and researchers’ lodgings and for the purchase of vehicles. No resources were ever systematically channeled toward increasing institutional capacity to patrol the reserve and thus prevent hunters’ invasions and the illegal extraction of natural resources (anonymous, interview, Rio de Janeiro, April 2, 2008; Luiz Henrique Teixeira, interview, Nova Iguaçu, March 19, 2008). A portion of the fine was used to strengthen local environmental agencies in the 15 municipalities that surround the bay. Again, the focus was on acquiring computers, vehicles, and even a gadget to measure noise pollution. There were scattered initiatives to promote environmental education, sometimes even in partnership with local NGOs, but it is unclear how effective they were (Renato Guima, deputy environmental secretary of Niteroi, interview, Niteroi, July 16, 2002). The bulk of the resources, however, went to municipal administrations for solid waste collection and treatment. The rationale here, advocated by local administrations of the towns surrounding the bay, was to highlight the role of local environmental agencies in revitalizing the regional ecosystem. Five years after the disbursement of funds, an audit found that “there are expenditures without invoices, public works that did not follow procurement regulations, projects that were either not completed or that were done without an environmental license; there is also, pure and simply, the disappearance of funds; some towns have no idea where the resources were invested” (Rocha and Marqueiro, 2005: 20). More recently, an investigation by the Brazilian Association for Public Waste Management revealed an unacceptable amount of waste still being dumped into the bay, which explains myriad concerns about the bay as a 2016 Olympics venue (Extra, 2015).

The end of contractual obligations between Petrobras and Baia Azul coincided with the launching of the funding mechanism Petrobras Environmental. In the following year, Petrobras detected signs of gigantic offshore oil reserves that would enter Brazil into the roster of oil-exporting countries (D’Arede, 2013). Since 2004, Petrobras Environmental has disbursed more than US$100 million to NGOs for the implementation of environmental projects. This amount does not include the US$100 million allocated for social development projects since 2010. ¹⁵ For all the gains Petrobras Environmental funding may have produced, its impact on the advocacy of environmental NGOs around Guanabara Bay and on the local environmental movement has been troubling.

The risk of co-optation has already been mentioned and remains a constant criticism among certain activists and environmental managers (anonymous, interview, 2008; Moutinho, interview, 2008; Portugal, interview, 2008). It must be balanced, however, against Brazil’s specific historical and political moment. In 2002 the PT seized the country’s presidency. Many environmental activists and organizations were sympathetic to a PT administration and its inclusive social agenda. The discovery of immense oil reserves during President Lula’s second term and their control by Petrobras opened up unique opportunities for development and socio-environmental funding. Perversely or ironically, the increased availability of resources, combined with the growing receptiveness of state agencies to working with environmental organizations, encouraged the multiplication of NGOs and popular associations, thus fragmenting the sector. Fragmentation reached unprecedented levels at the beginning of the 2000s. Between 2002 and 2005, while the number of NGOs increased by 22 percent, the number of environmental NGOs increased by 61 percent (G1.Globo, August 27, 2008). Whereas Brazil had 22,000 NGOs in 2002, in 2006 that number had grown to 260,000 (O Globo Online, November 22, 2006).

For this reason it would be simplistic to use co-optation as the sole explanation for the reduced advocacy impetus of local environmental NGOs in the aftermath of the oil spill. The effort to maintain their economic viability in a highly competitive universe enhanced the appeal of resources deriving from cooperation with private corporations. The enabling political climate encouraged participation of civil society groups in environmental policy making and co-implementation of socio-environmental initiatives with local environmental agencies. Given their volume, resources from Petrobras Environmental, while not a cause of the technical and political problems that project funding eventually created for local and national environmental movements, greatly amplified them.

Project funding (from both state agencies and Petrobras) has affected NGOs’ technical capacity as well as their mission. Many NGOs have become consulting businesses (Portugal, interview, 2008; Moutinho, interview, 2008; and Marcos Domingues, staff member of the NGO Campo, interview, Rio Janeiro, February 18, 2008). Tasks and priorities are often determined as a function of projects’ funding cycles. Domingues explains:

Petrobras issues a request for proposals and that leads to a race against time among NGOs. . . . Projects have created a market and the mission of NGOs has changed to meet the demands of that market. . . . It also has led to the emergence of an industry of courses and workshops aiming at training individuals to write and manage projects.

These tasks often consume staff time and organizational energy, leading organizations to focus on whichever activity is being prioritized by donors while often neglecting their original mandate or focus.

Politically, project funding has dimmed the already limited prospects for the formation of advocacy networks and other collaborative initiatives among NGOs. Requests for proposals have led to competition between organizations that were once partners. Information, once shared among organizations with similar missions, now is jealously guarded. Often, if a company such as Petrobras has already established its “green” reputation through a partnership with a renowned environmental NGO it has no incentive to do so with other organizations (Domingues, interview, 2008). Finally, tasks related to policy advocacy and networking on behalf of structural change make intense demands on NGOs’ staff time and energy. Many organizations have opted instead to divert resources from long-term goals and focus on medium- and short-term initiatives, a strategic decision more in line with the project funding model (Castello Branco, interview, 2008). Dispersion has also occurred thematically, as environmental organizations have scrambled to acquire expertise in the latest area for which funding and strategic opportunities have emerged. One consequence of this trend has been the growing difficulty environmental NGOs have had in addressing environmental problems structurally and making policy recommendations.

One of the founders of APEDEMA longs for an organization—which he no longer believes can be either APEDEMA or Os Verdes—that could become a catalyst for structural proposals on local and regional environmental public policy (Coelho, interview, 2008). A major obstacle is the lack of qualified staff, as many individuals with the necessary technical expertise and political will have either moved to positions in the public administration (thus weakening the NGOs they once led), sought elective positions in party politics (in the Green Party or others), or gone to work in environmental consulting businesses (Rocco, interview, 2008). Yet, training alone cannot guarantee the quality of policy proposals. Qualified individuals must have incentives to work in public advocacy. Today, the incentives structure favors the focus on individual projects, not on sectorial policies.

Finally, it is important to consider the institutional and regulatory context within which partnerships between Petrobras (and other corporations) and environmental organizations have unfolded since 2000. In the months immediately following the Guanabara Bay accident, the Brazilian congress approved Law 9.985/2000, which established the National System of Conservation Areas. Two aspects of that law are particularly relevant here. First, development initiatives causing significant negative environmental impacts must provide funding for conservation areas. Second, directors of conservation areas are to be advised by collegiate councils composed of representatives of public agencies, civil society organizations, and local populations.

The creation of advisory councils was among the many haphazard responses of state agencies to the oil spill (Araujo, 2011). In light of the state environmental agencies’ evident lack of managerial and implementation capacity, it comes as no surprise that they were open to collaboration with civil society organizations. In April 2000 the governor of Rio de Janeiro created a deliberative body composed of representatives of NGOs and governmental officials to coordinate initiatives for Guanabara Bay. In the following years, civil society organizations were also invited to participate in advisory councils for conservation areas. With the exponential growth of oil-related infrastructure impacting the Guanabara Bay ecosystem, there has been a corresponding increase in the resources available to its conservation areas, providing further incentives for participation in these councils. These opportunities, while strengthening the dialogue between state and civil society, quickly imposed extra burdens on NGOs’ capacity, whose staff struggled to attend meetings and present technically sound proposals. Over the years, these collaborative arrangements have produced limited results. As NGOs have shared managerial and implementation responsibilities, their capacity to propose and monitor ecosystemwide policy has decreased. In a meeting of the advisory council for the Tingua biological reserve that I attended ¹⁶ the agenda focused exclusively on circulating information about how to draft project proposals that could tap into such resources.

The increase in development initiatives in Guanabara Bay and, consequently, of funds available for piecemeal environmental interventions has unfolded in parallel with the fragmentation of environmental bureaucracies and regulatory frameworks between state and federal levels (Faustino and Furtado, 2013). Though Guanabara Bay is a paradigmatic example of a single ecosystem managed by multiple bureaucracies, it is by no means unique in Brazil. The rise of Brazil and Petrobras as significant players in the global oil market has imposed enormous pressures on different ecosystems and on the environmental agencies responsible for managing them. In the absence of a coordinated regulatory and licensing framework and in the face of the fragmentation and limited capacity of environmental bureaucracies, environmental NGOs are left without leverage to balance the power of corporations both in the context of partnerships with the latter and in the larger political and policy-making arena.

Staff members of both the Rio de Janeiro state environmental agency and the state’s branch of the federal environmental bureaucracy stress their agencies’ institutional fragility and difficulty in enforcing environmental regulations. ¹⁷ The environmental licensing process requires approval from an array of agencies despite an effort to increase efficiency with the creation of the Instituto Estadual do Ambiente (State Environmental Institute—INEA). In the case of Guanabara Bay, every licensing process must include opinions and studies from the state agency for water resources and sanitation, the Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources and the Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity, the Navy, and the environmental secretariats of the affected municipalities, to mention only a few. This fragmentation of competencies creates a tendency toward “defaulting” environmental licensing to the INEA, thus diminishing the role of the federal environmental agency (which, at least in theory, would be more insulated from the economic interests of the state) (Faustino and Furtado, 2013: 15). But even the federal environmental agency has struggled to impose its environmental agenda on corporations. More often than not, a corporation determines which interventions it wants to fund and the state follows along, rather than the other way around (Moutinho, interview, 2008; Rocco, interview, 2008). Finally, effective environmental monitoring and oversight of development initiatives result from mutually reinforcing cooperation between state bureaucracies and the affected communities. Yet, as Moutinho (interview, 2008) concludes, “In conceding the environmental license to the corporation the state imposes a series of restrictions . . . but civil society lacks the necessary qualification to monitor company compliance [with the regulatory framework].”

Conclusion

Environmental activism on behalf of Guanabara Bay in the last decades of the twentieth century was characterized, on the one hand, by pressures on the state to prevent economic actors from gaining access to particularly fragile areas of the bay’s ecosystem and, on the other, by attempts at influencing development policies for the bay toward integrated, multisectorial, and environmentally sustainable approaches. Environmentalism in the region after the 2000 oil spill, however, has been radically transformed. It is now characterized by fragmentation and intense competition for the unprecedented volume of financial resources made available to civil society by Petrobras and other corporations as Guanabara Bay emerges as the hub of the Brazilian oil industry.

Increasing opportunities for partnerships between corporations, environmental organizations, and state agencies coincided with the consolidation of democracy in Brazil and the opening of the state to civil society participation. This produced the twin effects of siphoning off qualified staff from environmental NGOs while demanding that these organizations deploy their already limited resources toward the co-management of ecosystems with public and private agencies. For all the advantages of participatory policies, in this case they have imposed technical and logistical burdens on environmental organizations that few are able to shoulder. The unprecedented amount of resources Petrobras has made available to environmental organizations has weakened them. Competition for project-specific funding has often led NGOs to stray from their original missions. It has also made cooperation and coordination among activists more difficult.

Since 2014, a corruption scandal involving Petrobras has unveiled a vast scheme of illegal financial transactions between company officials, civil engineering conglomerates, and political parties, chief among them the PT. Without claiming that civil society organizations, individually or collectively, could have prevented corruption within Petrobras, it is still likely that the combined effects of democratization, administrative decentralization, and the expansion of Petrobras’s funding for socio-environmental organizations and grassroots groups had some impact on their limited impetus toward monitoring the company. The exponential growth of the company’s funding for environmental and social projects was an opportunity for NGOs both to pragmatically embrace aspects of the PT social agenda and to remain viable in a highly competitive context. Praise of Petrobras’s socio-environmental mission was widespread within Rio de Janeiro’s civil society, from large research institutes and universities to small grassroots organizations. Furthermore, administrative decentralization and the many demands of a highly fragmented regulatory structure have created insurmountable hurdles for civil society organizations in monitoring Petrobras’s compliance with socio-environmental requirements, budget allocations, and level of transparency in decision making.

The goal here is not to vilify what some critics consider a self-serving and co-opted Rio de Janeiro environmental movement or to create a nostalgic—and false—image of its combative and principled activism at the end of the twentieth century. Instead, it is to reveal the way structural weaknesses of the environmental movement have been intensified by political decentralization, the weakening of state environmental bureaucracies and environmental regulatory frameworks, and a structure of incentives that favors collaborative arrangements with business interests. Attempting to answer the original research question about hindrances to environmental mobilization, one must consider the political and regulatory contexts in which environmental organizations operate and the incentives structures available to them. For any given environmental organization, the threat of co-optation by powerful economic actors and their allies in the state looms large. A refusal to engage in environmental governance initiatives (through project-based partnerships with corporations or in state–civil society co-management structures) is likely to lead to its marginalization and eventual irrelevance. Bureaucratic survival and the chance to advance even a small aspect of its environmental mission have been important motivators for organizations to seek partnerships with corporations. Unfortunately, for an environmental organization to achieve parity or symmetry with corporations in collaborative arrangements on behalf of the environment it must rely on the leverage that environmental agencies and regulations provide. This is an unlikely prospect, at least for the time being, in societies experiencing the combined pressures of democratization, administrative decentralization, and economic globalization.