Environmental justice and the new constitutional rights: the socioenvironmental function of the State Park Pedra Branca´s quilombo territories

Abstract

The social imaginary of Rio de Janeiro’s west zone as a "business desk" hides the plurality of the existing social fabric of space, as well as the unsustainability of promoting a social and political arrangement permeated by environmental racism. Existing quilombo territories within the limits of the State Park Pedra Branca, protected by constitutional legal frameworks, have a pressing social and environmental legitimacy to exercise their sustainable sociocultural practices. This article analyses the social and environmental functions performed by the quilombo groups. Such an analysis is essential to characterize both the legitimacy or opportunism of the social category adopted by traditional groups in the search for social function of urban property, such as the ecological, economic, phytosanitary and political functions, which entangle each perpetuated cultural archetype, despite the pressures of local mega-events and poor real estate development in a sustainable cosmography.

Keywords:
right to the city; participatory urban planning; environmental law; urban inclusion; quilombo territory; quilombo self-determination; environmental racism; environmental justice