{"id":3514,"date":"2017-10-05T12:56:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazoniasocioambiental.org\/radar\/brazils-mega-hydro-plan-foreshadows-chinas-growing-impact-on-the-amazon\/"},"modified":"2018-01-26T17:16:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T19:16:36","slug":"brazils-mega-hydro-plan-foreshadows-chinas-growing-impact-on-the-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/radar\/brazils-mega-hydro-plan-foreshadows-chinas-growing-impact-on-the-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s mega hydro plan foreshadows China\u2019s growing impact on the Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Jonathan Watts<\/strong><\/h5>\n
5 October 2017\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
The Guardian<\/strong><\/h5>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2370″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeIn”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

The government wants to open up the Tapaj\u00f3s basin \u2013 an area the size of France \u2013 for trade with China. But the indigenous Munduruku won\u2019t let it happen without a fight<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Crashing upstream through the S\u00e3o Luiz rapids, the churning river throws the speedboat around like a child\u2019s toy. There is first a moment of fear, then relief and finally wonder at crossing a natural boundary that has held back the destruction of this corner of the Amazon for almost five centuries.<\/p>\n

This is the gateway to a land that indigenous inhabitants call Mundurukania, after their tribe, the Munduruku, which has settled the middle and upper reaches of the Rio Tapaj\u00f3s since ancient times. The thickly vegetated shores, misty hills and untamed waters \u2013 breached at one point by a dolphin \u2013 mark it out as one of the few regions of the planet still to be explored and exploited by industrial commerce.<\/p>\n

The tranquillity is breathtaking, but misleading. These rapids are now on the frontline of one of the world\u2019s most important struggles for indigenous rights and environmental protection. Long ignored, they are suddenly seen as a stategically crucial step between the nations with the world\u2019s biggest farms \u2013\u00a0Brazil\u00a0\u2013 and the world\u2019s most numerous dining tables \u2013\u00a0China. Longer term, the changes now being planned could bring this waterway closer to the industrialised, traffic-filled Yangtze in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

Over the coming years, the Brazilian government \u2013 backed by Chinese and European finance and engineering \u2013 wants to turn this river into the world\u2019s biggest grain canal by building 49 major dams on the Tapaj\u00f3s and its tributaries.<\/p>\n

This would make the rapids navigable by barges carrying produce from the deforested\u00a0cerrado<\/em>\u00a0savanna of Mato Grosso \u2013 which produces a third of the world\u2019s soya \u2013 up to the giant container port being planned in the closest city of Santar\u00e9m and then out to global markets, particularly in Asia.<\/p>\n

The network of dams would also produce 29gW of electricity, increasing Brazil\u2019s current supply by 25%. A consortium headed by Furnas \u2013 a subsidiary of the state-run energy utility Electrobras \u2013 plans to sell the power to distant cities and to local mining companies that want to unearth the mineral riches under the forest.<\/p>\n

For the Brazilian government, this mega-scheme to open up the Tapaj\u00f3s basin \u2013 which is roughly the area of France \u2013 is a linchpin of national economic development and trade with China. For local politicians, it is an opportunity to industrialise, expand and enrich the business of nearby cities, which expect their populations to double in size over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

For opponents, however, the \u201chydrovia\u201d \u2013 as the river transport scheme is known \u2013 and related projects are the biggest threat ever posed to the native inhabitants, traditional riverine communities, waters and wildlife. By one estimate,\u00a0950,000 hectares of forest would be cleared, releasing significant amounts of carbon dioxide.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2371″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” title=”The Brazilian government plans to turn the river into the world\u2019s biggest grain canal by building 49 dams on the Tapaj\u00f3s and its tributaries”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\u201cThe hydrovia is part of a set of other projects \u2013 dams, ports, roads and railways \u2013 that aim to industrialise this region. Energy companies, agribusinesses and mining companies are all pushing for it,\u201d said Fernanda Moreira, of the Indigenous Missionary Council, a Catholic NGO that works with local communities.<\/p>\n

Campaigners \u2013 including International Rivers, Amazon Watch and Greenpeace \u2013 oppose the project because they say there has not been adequate study of the impacts \u2013 including accelerated deforestation, habitat loss and social problems \u2013 or the alternatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a historic moment for the Amazon. We have seen previous economic booms \u2013 rubber, logging and mining \u2013 that caused social conflict and environmental damage, but the proposed development along the Tapaj\u00f3s covers a much wider area and would have a much more profound impact,\u201d said Alcilene Cardoso of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute.<\/p>\n

Opponents claimed a partial victory last year when the Brazilian environmental agency\u00a0suspended a licence for the S\u00e3o Luiz do Tapaj\u00f3s dam, one of the three biggest hydroelectric plants in the project that would together flood 198,400 hectares, including large parts of national parks, nature reserves and territory claimed by indigenous groups.<\/p>\n

The battle is anything but over, however. The damming of the rapids \u2013 which would require a 7km-wide concrete barrier and a reservoir eight times the area of Manhattan \u2013 remains a priority of the powerful mines and energy ministry and Electrobras. Three other dams are already under construction on the Teles Pires, a tributary of the Tapaj\u00f3s.<\/p>\n

Munduruku efforts to assert their territorial rights through a self-demarcation campaign have been ignored by the centre-right government of President Michel Temer and his Workers\u2019 party predecessor, Dilma Rousseff.<\/p>\n

Half an hour above the rapids is the Munduruku village of Dace Watpu, which would be flooded if the S\u00e3o Luiz dam were built. Despite the suspension of the licence, they remain vigilant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be back. That is our constant concern,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>said village chief Juarez Saw Munduruku, as residents gathered in the small wooden hall to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the community school. As the school, the two-way radio and array of solar panels demonstrate, the villagers are not opposed to development \u2013 but they want it to be on their terms. Dams, mines and river traffic, they say, are a threat to their homes and way of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Brazilian government may call hydroelectric dams clean energy, but it isn\u2019t. It is dirty. It is mixed with our blood and our misery,\u201d he says. \u201cThe government will have to kill us if they want to push ahead with these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Images of Munduruku protests usually show them in traditional costume, with warpaint and feather headdresses. But their strategy is more sophisticated than these images suggest.<\/p>\n

Recognising that foreign investment and consumption are part of the issue, they have taken their campaign overseas, presenting their grievances last month at the United Nations. They have also worked with environmental NGOs, foreign media and archaeologists.<\/p>\n

The latter have verified\u00a0the long history of settlement in the region, which is crucial to Munduruku ownership claims and also important to rebut the widely held idea that this region can be dammed because it is empty. The first written record of \u201cMundrukania\u201d dates back to 1742, though habitation by indigenous groups goes back much further.<\/p>\n

When Bruna Rocha, of the Federal University of Western Par\u00e1, first excavated sites near the proposed dams in 2010, she found pottery, stone tools and dark earth, suggesting cultivation of the land had occurred intermittently for many centuries. \u201cStudies of the area showed it wasn\u2019t just an empty space that can be flooded. It has history and a culture,\u201d she said.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2372″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

The Munduruku tribe protest in front of the Palace of Justice in Bras\u00edlia last year. Photograph: Andressa Anholete\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/em><\/h5>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The image of the Amazon as a wilderness was a construct of 19th-century Europeans, which has been adopted on several occasions by Brazilian governments: first during the dictatorship era to justify a land distribution and road-building policy, and most recently by successive administrations to back up the argument that dams will not have much of a social impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prevailing view is that the Amazon is a provider of raw materials rather than a centre of culture. That is wrong,\u201d Rocha said. \u201cIn the 16th century, several million indigenous people lived in the Amazon and they had a standard of living that was higher than in Europe at the time. But about 90% were wiped out by the guns and diseases of the colonisers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Munduruku survived thanks to the rapids \u2013 which prevented steamships from entering their territory \u2013 and temporary alliances with European settlers against other tribes.<\/p>\n

Now, they are changing strategy, linking up with the nearby riverine community of Montanha e Mangabal \u2013 most of whose inhabitants are former rubber tappers – to oppose the project. \u201cIn the past, we used to fight one another. But that is finished. Now we must unite against a common and powerful enemy: the government,\u201d says Juarez Saw Munduruku. \u201cThe more people are involved in the struggle the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maur\u00edcio Torres, a geography professor at Federal University of Western Par\u00e1, said the alliance marked a turning point. \u201cTwo generations ago, the indigenous communities and the rubber tappers were fighting one another. Now they are united against the dam and have delayed the process of approval. That is remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they are up against enormous geostrategic pressures. To lift\u00a0Brazil\u00a0out of recession, the government wants to ramp up exports of soya and meat, particularly to Asia. Currently China accounts for 57% of Brazil\u2019s overseas soya sales and production and demand are expected to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have opened the biggest food frontier in the world,\u201d said Roberto Jaguaribe, a former Brazilian ambassador to Beijing who is now head of the state\u2019s export promotion body Apex-Brasil. \u201cThe Food and Agricultural Organisation expects global demand for food to rise by 30% over the next 20 years. To cope, Brazil needs to increase production by at least double that average.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to environmental pressures in China \u2013 particularly water shortages \u2013 Jaguaribe says it will become \u201crational\u201d for Beijing to import more meat and grain from the farms and ranches of Mato Grosso. A Tapaj\u00f3s hydrovia would facilitate this. Little wonder, then, that among the construction companies aiming to provide finance and support to Furnas for dams on the Tapaj\u00f3s and Teles Pires is the Three Gorges Development Corporation,\u00a0which built the world\u2019s biggest hydroelectric plant on the Yangtze. French, Spanish and Italian energy firms are also involved.<\/p>\n

Politicians in the Amazon go further, saying they hope the hydrovia will act as a catalyst for industrialisation. \u201cWe are in the midst of several huge projects of national strategic importance, but we don\u2019t want to be a mere corridor for soya to reach the world market. We want to build food factories here. We want more fish farms in our rivers,\u201d said N\u00e9lio Aguiar, the mayor of Santar\u00e9m. \u201cWe hope the Chinese investment is important for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to a surge of development, this city \u2013 which sits on the confluence of the clear Tapaj\u00f3s and cloudy Amazon \u2013 is thriving. Last year, it bucked the recession that afflicted the rest of Brazil to rack up impressive growth. The world\u2019s biggest agricultural company \u2013 Cargill of the United States \u2013 recently built a huge new grain terminal here. The municipal government is planning an even bigger container port.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany investors want to come here. We are the last frontier,\u201d said the mayor. \u201cIn the next 10 years, we project Santar\u00e9m will double its population from 300,000 to 600,000 and the city will be more prosperous and offer a better quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has support from the Nature Conservancy, which backs plans for a dam cascade to provide energy and food to a growing global population. \u201cThe Tapaj\u00f3s river is important to not only its surrounding lands, wildlife and people, but also to the entire Brazilian population and to the world,\u201d\u00a0the US-based group notes.<\/p>\n

Certainly, an infrastructure upgrade is essential. The main road between Mato Grosso and Santar\u00e9m \u2013 the BR163 \u2013 has recently become so choked with soya trucks that it has begun to challenge China\u2019s worst coal transport routes for the unwelcome title of \u201cworld\u2019s worst traffic jam\u201d. Earlier this year, after rains turned the dirt into mud, trucks were snarled up for 10 days over a stretch of more than 50km, forcing the authorities to organise emergency provisions of food and water to trapped drivers.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2377″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

The S\u00e3o Manoel dam site on the Teles Pires, a tributary of the Tapaj\u00f3s river in the Amazon. <\/em>Photograph: International Rivers<\/em><\/h5>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]How to ease this bottleneck is a question of global importance. There are three approaches: an upgrade of the BR163 (which would make it wider and paved in asphalt), a parallel Ferrogr\u00e3o grain railway (also financed by China and supported by many environmentalists as a lesser evil in terms of pollution and traffic), and the Tapaj\u00f3s hydrovia (which is preferred by grain companies, construction firms and electricity utilities). Rather than choosing one of these options, the national government is pushing all three at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the fastest development I\u2019ve seen since I arrived in Santar\u00e9m 30 years ago,\u201d said Caetano Scannavino of the Sa\u00fade and Alegria (Health and Happiness) NGO. \u201cBut it\u2019s not planned. They are repeating the errors of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some fear that this will lead to the industrialisation of the Amazon as forests are cleared, traffic increases, factories move in and the population surges to the point where the Tapaj\u00f3s begins to resemble the stressed and polluted Yangtze. Adding to these fears, the Temer government recently submitted a bill to congress that would reduce the size of the nearby Jamanxim national park by 350,000 hectares, or 40 times the area of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

The Amazon Watch NGO recently urged the government in Beijing to rethink its use of the Brazil-China Cooperation Fund to finance destructive transport projects in sensitive ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupport of projects that result in rainforest destruction undermines China\u2019s efforts to position itself as a leader in the global fight against climate change,\u201d\u00a0the group\u2019s program director noted.<\/p>\n

In Itaituba, the town closest to the proposed site of the S\u00e3o Luiz dam, officials express similar concerns. The town \u2013 which has previously seen booms of gold mining, logging and timber \u2013 is in the midst of a new expansion due to its location as the first port below the rapids. Cargill, Bunge and four other companies have built huge terminals, which transfer grain from trucks on the BR163 to barges on the Tapajos. More are expected. On a recent afternoon, a group of Chinese businessmen \u2013 all wearing black suits and lapel pins showing the flags of the two countries – were visiting the town to look into a possible purchase of land for a port.<\/p>\n

Bruno Rolim, secretary of the environment in the municipal government, was wary. \u201cChina has lots of pollution accidents. It suggests they put much more of a priority on the economy than the environment,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a very sensitive area. The Amazon has the greatest freshwater assets in the world. We don\u2019t want what happened [in China] to happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Domestic precedents also give him cause for concern. The last huge Amazonian dam \u2013 at Belo Monte \u2013 has caused enormous social and environmental problems since it was completed in 2015.<\/p>\n

The population of nearby Altamira has surged without adequate provision of sanitation, hospitals and education. Crime, suicide rates and deforestation level are among the highest in Brazil. The project has also been a focus of\u00a0a massive corruption scandal involving construction companies and politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw what happened in Altamira,\u201d Rolin said. \u201cBig projects in the Amazon have not benefited local people. They extract power or commodities for other regions and countries and leave problems behind. The negatives are greater than the positives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given its history as a centre of illegal mining and logging, however, Itaituba is probably not a city that environmentalists or indigenous campaigners can rely on.<\/p>\n

At the municipal museum, the curator and founder, Regina Lucirene Macedo d\u2019Oliveira, said this was a region where people have always just taken what they can rather than investing in making it a better place. \u201cThe local government turned a blind eye when rubber tappers destroyed the forest. They did the same when the gold miners contaminated the rivers. With each economic boom, they promise to regulate and protect, but they do nothing. Why should it be any different this time with the big hydro projects?\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the dire state of Brazilian public finances and local opposition are holding up plans to dam the S\u00e3o Luiz rapids. But in the long term, it will be hard to resist Chinese money, the politically powerful agribusiness lobby and a global economic system geared towards consumption growth. The Yangzification of the Tapaj\u00f3s is a distant but entirely possible prospect.<\/p>\n

The Munduruku are under no illusions, but they say they will fight to preserve the rapids that have kept them secure until now. For them, it is about conserving their home \u2013 a lesson, they say, the rest of the world should learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe protect the gateway. If they build the dam, it will kill the Munduruku,\u201d said Valto Dace, the head of the Dace Watpu village. \u201cWe will not move. God gave us this land. Where would we go?\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Fonte: www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/oct\/05\/brazil-amazon-tapajos-hydrovia-scheme#img-2<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Jonathan Watts 5 October 2017\u00a0 The Guardian [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2370″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeIn”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The government wants to open up the Tapaj\u00f3s basin \u2013 an area the size of France \u2013 for trade with China. But the indigenous Munduruku won\u2019t let it happen without a fight [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Crashing upstream through the S\u00e3o Luiz rapids, the churning river…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radar","category-1","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}