Tracking Amazon Deforestation from Above. © NASA

Professor Paul Martin’s research on the governance and metagovernance systems for the Amazon saw UNE’s AgLaw Centre continue international collaboration with researchers Professor Solange Teles Da Silva, Dr Carolina Dutra and Dr Mauricio Duarte dos Santos from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil. 

This article examines the existing governance of the Amazon and the potential for more robust collaborative governance involving the countries of the Amazon region (the region encompasses six of the world’s 12 megadiverse countries) and other stakeholders. The pivot is the metagovernance of the (multilevel and fragmented) national governance systems that have proven incapable of controlling the region’s environmental and social harms. Next, the transnational analysis examines the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO) and the intranational analysis on Brazil (which has sovereignty over the most significant part of the Amazon). Finally, it explores the governance challenges. The focal point is to present structures and guidance to nourish the collaborative governance of the Amazon to improve its effectiveness on the health of the Amazon. Published in the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law Journal, access the article here: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12425.

Professor Paul Martin, Director UNE’s Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law