Accumulation by dispossession and green grabbing: wind farms, lease agreements, land appropriation in the Brazilian semiarid

Acumulación por desposesión y acaparamiento verde: parques eólicos, arrendamiento y acaparamiento de tierras en el semiárido brasileño

Abstract

Wind power presents itself as an alternative to fossil fuels, playing an important role in fighting climate change. In that context, the Brazilian semiarid inland emerges as a new frontier for the wind industry given its high potential. Since being the landowner also means being the wind owner, we sought to understand how the processes of wind and land appropriation to produce wind power occur in the light of two concepts, ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and ‘green grabbing’. To that end, fourteen wind lease agreements were analyzed. It was concluded that: the wind lease contracts are the legal instrument that enables the appropriation of wind and land; that the appropriation of the wind is a process of ‘accumulation by dispossession, in which there is the privatization of a common good; and that this process only happens because of the land appropriation, understood as being a green grabbing process.

Keywords:
Wind power; Brazilian semiarid inland; accumulation by dispossession and green grabbing