The "green cities" program: Strategies for enhancing space in the municipalities of pará

Abstract

In recent decades, the environmental issue has led to greater flexibility of spatial scales, using an environmental discourse to intervene on the ground. The State has been organising this space, using the environmental issue as justification, with specific laws containing spatial planning objectives, as well as allowing municipalities to carry out direct action in their territories to deal with the most urgent issues relating to land management. At the same time, as has happened with policy changes since the 1990s, public power has established territorial strategic alliances with the private sector in a way which has mainly favoured the latter. This article aims to show how this issue is dealt with in the Green Municipalities Program, which began in Southeast Pará in 2008. The results show a process of re-harnessing the economic value of the space using the discourse of "sustainable development".