The author offers a critical reading of environmental policies in Brazil, arguing that the country represents an emblematic case of ecological counter-transformation. Far from advancing towards a sustainable transition, Brazil has experienced a process of systemic regression, marked by normative disintegration, the criminalization of activists and the corporate capture of regulation. Through the analysis of the federal structure of the State, the fragility of socio-environmental governance and the emblematic cases of Mariana and Brumadinho, the author highlights the tensions between ecological rhetoric and extractivist rationality. He calls for relocating the debate on global ecological transitions starting from the peripheries of capitalism, where sustainability is contested, politically situated and historically conditioned.
