ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on objective processes of deforestation and on conceptual shifts regarding the value and status of tropical forests in Brazilian political culture. It deals with important cultural-political shifts that are contributing to a new tendency, and new consensus within Brazilian political culture. The national authorities sponsored a version of the romantic culture that took the subject of the magnitude of the Brazilian forests and the value of the indigenous people as the primitive inhabitants. The increasingly integrated initiatives embody the rise of the conservation imperative in Brazilian political culture. The economic relation with the forests was very destructive based on the practical consideration of the hindrance to civilization. The situation in Brazil, which contains the largest reserves of forests, has become a major change in political culture with respect to forests, promoting real results for the conservation. The political options connected to deforestation as a form of endangerment infuses with values based upon ecological, economic and political considerations.
