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During the Colonial period in Brazil, the first economic activities developed were the exploitation of wood through the extraction of the Pau-Brazil by indigenous labor, where they were exploited by the barter system (trade of merchandises) and sugar production through slave labor, about 4 million Africans were brought to Brazil, and just as Indigenous people were sold, enslaved, and forced to labor. All this so that the merchandise was bought at a cheap price for Portugal and resold at a much higher price to other territories.
It was centuries of exploration that shaped Brazil's culture, politics, and economy and instigated the degradation of its territory. Currently our economy consists of a compound that is nothing more than the reproduction of the system of environmental exploration introduced in Brazil by Colonialism. Responsible for about 22% of Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP), agribusiness is also considered to be a major agent that causes environmental impacts and degradation of our territory. As a consequence of agribusiness, we have the clearing of areas for grazing and cultivation, which facilitates the process of soil erosion, exacerbated consumption and contamination of water, through the disposal of pesticides, resulting in eutrophication and rendering it unfeasible for consumption, the pollution of the air behind the burning of fossil resources for its use as fuel in industrial processes, the destruction of fauna and flora and their habitat,
The production that prioritizes the profit without thinking of the consequences harms not only the environment but also the consumer who in search of the easiest and accustomed to this way of life contributes indirectly to its degradation through its actions either as a consumer or as a member of that retrograde economic system.
That is why industrialized countries tend to suffer more from climate change because of the damage their economic activities cause to the environment, and that is why government agencies are increasingly prioritizing sustainable economic growth, which can lead to conflicts with other agencies or even in their own country to the detriment of the actions that must be taken, since this change would mean the reform of the means of production generating expenses, stopping unsustainable activities and difficult the easy profit.
