Special issue - Agribusiness in times of planetary collapse: critical approaches Vol. 57, p. 16-54, jun. 2021. DOI: 10.5380/dma.v56i0.76212. e-ISSN 2176-9109 Ecocide in the Cerrados (Brazilian Savanna): agribusiness, water spoliation and pesticide contamination Ecocídio nos Cerrados: agronegócio, espoliação das águas e contaminação por agrotóxicos Daniela da Silva EGGER1, Raquel Maria RIGOTTO2*, Francco Antonio Neri de Souza e LIMA3, André Monteiro COSTA4, Ada Cristina Pontes AGUIAR2,5 1 Gemap – Study Group on Social Changes, Agribusiness and Public Policies, Social Sciences Graduate Program in Development, Agriculture and Society (Cpda), Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Seropédica, RJ, Brazil. 2 Núcleo Tramas – Work, Environment and Health, Graduate Program in Public Health, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. 3 Sérgio Arouca National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. 4 Laboratory of Health, Environment and Work (Lasat), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Recife, PE, Brazil. 5 School of Medicine, Federal University of Cariri (UFCA), Juazeiro do Norte, CE, Brazil. * E-mail of contact:
[email protected] Article received on August 31, 2020, final version accepted on March 3, 2021, published on June 30, 2021. ABSTRACT: At 65 million years old, the Cerrados biome is constituted of wide biodiversity related to its water’s abundance and hydrological cycle’s dynamics, perpetuating rivers in six of eight Brazilian river basins and overflowing its waters to other countries of the South American subcontinent. The biome hosts a diverse set of traditional communities that constituted livelihoods based on their ancestral knowledge. In recent decades, the Brazilian State has been implementing development policies in these territories that are subordinated to neo-extractivism and accumulation by the plunder of large corporations.