ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the early and conventional models of environmental statehood that were in place during most of the twentieth century. It is argued that environmental statehood progressed in a way that largely replicated the organisation of the capitalist state more than a century earlier. The main pillars of conventional environmental statehood can be found in the ideas of Hobbes, especially his elaboration on authority and containment of natural brutality. That is followed by a case study in Rio de Janeiro, which shows how conventional environmental statehood was inadequate and meant further conflict.
