ABSTRACT
This chapter argues on the basis of a case study on the expansion of palm oil in the Brazilian state of Para, that palm oil production in so-called degraded areas is a form of green grabbing. Green grabbing as an expression of continuous primitive accumulation enables to differentiate new capitalist appropriation dynamics from already existing ones and to develop a differentiated analytical perspective for the political ecology of social change in connection with strategies for dealing with the socio-ecological crisis. Agro-ecological zoning is not only an instrument of legitimation for the palm oil sector. In Para, it produces for the first time the natural resource 'degraded land' for renewed development by the agroindustrial palm oil complex. The African oil palm was brought to Brazil by African slaves. It was introduced into the Amazon basin for the first time by researchers in 1942 and from the 1970s onward was promoted by the military dictatorship as part of its Amazon development policy.
