The Belo Monte Dam - Part 1

As I discussed in my previous post, Amazon Watch discusses a number of current campaigns it is backing to help the indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest. Until this point, my blog entries have been mainly focused on smaller scale companies amounting to a larger problem, such as deforestation, but as outlined by Amazon Watch's campaign to stop the Belo Monte Dam, indigenous people also face pressure to survive from the governments of the countries they inhabit.

The Belo Monte Dam is seen as a green answer to stop Brazil's reliance on fossil fuels, and to reduce the periodic blackouts it has been suffering from for many years. In order to create the world's 3rd largest dam, up to 80% of the Xingu River's course will be changed - with some areas permanently in drought -  having major effects on areas inhabited by indigenous tribes such as the Juruna and Arara indigenous peoples. To divert the Xingu, two 75km long and 500m wide canals will be excavated, causing major problems for the ecosystems of the river. To store enough water to produce 11,000 megawatts of electricity, two reservoirs will be created totalling 668 km² - in which there is 400km² of natural rainforest.

Proposed site of the Belo Monte Dam

Taken from coastalcare.org

There are clearly many issues to be considered when taking this dam into consideration, but one of the most obvious and earliest effects of the dam’s construction is displacement and the future of those living in the area. In a 2011 article for Environmental Law and Policy, da Fonseca and Bourgoignie highlight the problems faced; noting that around 20,000 indigenous people will be forced to move on. While the dam itself might bring prosperity to a few people in the area with 40,000 jobs created, this is nowhere near enough to satisfy the 100,000 migrants expected to flood the area (this is not counting the 20,000 already displaced), and with them brings an increase in crime, prostitution and housing problems (da Fonseca and Bourgoignie, 2011) and even greater problems for the environment, with increased deforestation as a result of the remaining labour pool of migrants falling back on agriculture and illegal logging techniques, encroaching once again on the indigenous people’s land.

This is only scratching the surface, however, but for now I don’t want to bombard you with endless facts and figures. For that reason, this will not be the last you hear about the Belo Monte Dam as I will delve more in depth into the environmental issues resulting from the possible construction of the dam.   

da Fonseca, P.G. and A. Bourgoignie. (2011), The Belo Monte Dam Case, Environmental Law and Policy, 41/2: 104-107

Amazon Watch

On my trawl of the internet to find interesting articles and facts to keep you lovely people informed about the lives of indigenous people of the Amazon, I have found many, many campaigns improving awareness of the troubles faced. Yesterday, however, one caught my eye for the sheer volume and quality of work dedicated to indigenous Amazon tribes.


Amazon Watch is an organisation focused on 'working directly with indigenous communities to build local capacity and advance the long-term protection of their lands' and a mine of incredibly useful information when it comes to keeping up to date with the fight for the rights of indigenous people.


If you have any time, take a look at the website and read about the work they do, and the current campaigns they are backing at the moment. I have found it to be extremely useful, and if you don't have any time to take a gander now, you can rest assure that I will be looking in depth into a number of their current activities in the coming weeks!

An Amazon culture withers as food dries up

Just a quick post today.

I recently stumbled across an excellent article published in the New York Times - 'An Amazon culture withers as food dries up'.

A woman and a child of the Kamayurá tribe in the Amazon, a tribe discussed in the article.

I urge you to read this article if you want to gain a deeper understanding of the trials of the indigenous people in the changing world. I found it extremely informative and found it gave me an excellent insight into the day to day struggles of the people, rather than just the major changes such as deforestation I have discussed so far.

This article caught my eye in particular, as it directly echoes the sentiment I was trying to get across by writing this blog;

- “As they see it, they didn't cause the problem, and their lifestyle is being threatened by pollution from industrial nations. The message is that this [climate change] is about people, not just about polar bears and wildlife.” -

If you do happen to have any interest in what I have written about so far, and have not just stumbled here by accident, then give it ago. It says all that really needs to be said, and I don't feel the need to add anything else at this moment. If you want to find out more, however, the ideas discussed in it I will no doubt be examining in a greater depth in the coming weeks.

Hope for the future

In the last two entries I discussed the shocking levels of deforestation in the Amazon basin and the effects this could have not only on the people of the rainforest, but on the world as a whole. Today, however, an article caught my eye that made me think that, perhaps, it wasn't all doom and gloom.

Before today I had never heard of ‘indigenous lands’, but a 2005 journal entry by Schwartzman and Zimmerman changed all this. Indigenous lands are areas of designated conservation initiatives in which conservation groups work closely with indigenous people’s vast wealth of knowledge about the complex workings of the Amazon basin’s rich biodiversity and resource base in order to manage the land as they see fit. In some cases, this means selectively allow certain mining and logging activities to be carried out with little damage to the environment. These lands totally nearly 1,000,000km² in 2005.

By investigating one particular reserve totaling more than 100,000km², belonging to the Kayapó tribe, Schwartzman and Zimmerman conclude that the management strategies in place, as detailed in the article, are producing a form of barrier against the onslaught on deforestation. Glance at the picture below and you will immediately appreciate the level of success these initiative are having, as the four black rimmed areas of conservation are clearly distinguishable from areas allowed to be “freely” illegally deforested.

Figure 1. Forest-cover change in the region of Kayapo and Panara indigenous territories between 2000 and 2003.

Black lines delimit one Panara and four Kayapo ratified indigenous territories 

(Taken with from Schwartzman and Zimmerman (2005), produced by D. Juhn, M. Steininger, T. Christie,

and L. Miller, Conservation International).

However, my one concern with reading this article was that if tribes are getting involved with big business and activities that they would otherwise never be a part of, surely the cultural aspects of tribal life which are so precious to their identity be lost? This appears to be the case with the Kayapó tribe, who witnessed an increase in tribe warfare due to the new influx of goods into the land, and the area has become more assimilated with modern day culture as we know it, yet they gained a fair amount of economic stability. On the other hand, another tribe profiled – the various tribes in the Xingu Indigenous Park refused any kind of activity to be carried out, and while they have kept their vast wealth of knowledge and culture alive, it was detrimental to their well-being for a period of time. They, however, have had the last laugh economically as initiatives and incentives to help the plight of these people have meant that they are now producing certified organic honey. But even this is not without its problems, as land in the reserve is now becoming degraded and cleared from poor management.

You can see what a complex idea this indigenous land initiative is. Pros and cons are appearing left, right and centre. I can’t help feeling, however, that this is merely a stop gap and that “progress” will prevail, allowing precious land and culture to be lost. While I feel this is a good idea in principle, it will be a long while until conservation and the livelihood of the tribes are in harmony.

Schwartzman, S. and Zimmerman, B. (2005), Conservation Alliances with Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon. Conservation Biology, 19: 721–727

A drier rainforest?

When researching the possible effects of climate change to the Amazon Rainforest one issue keeps coming up time and again. The possibility of the Amazon experiencing a drying out is discussed in many academic journals, but one article by Mahli et al (2008) caught my eye.

In my research into the Amazon I assumed that if there was to be any drying of the Amazon basin then this would be linked to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. However, Mahli et al. discusses the fact that rather than climate change, the current deforestation of the Amazon is one of the main reasons behind the potential reduction in rainfall, which is something I had not yet considered.

Mahli et al. highlights that nearly 25-50% of rainfall that falls in the Amazon basin is recycled from the basin itself. This is largely a result of trees extracting water from the soil and, through the process of transpiration, returning it to the atmosphere to fall once again as rain. The article highlights that while small scale forest loss can in some cases enhance convection and rainfall, this is only one of 2 stable states the forest can exist in. With the removal of 30-40% of the Amazons trees the basin (or specific areas of it) could shift to a permanently drier state.

Clearly this could spell disaster for not only the indigenous people reliant on the land, but also the general economy for the area as a whole as numerous farms and pastures could be affected by the potential lowering of precipitation.

Another point to Malhi et al.’s article is the great lack of certainty in the figures surrounding such a major issue such as this. Although they put forward solid mechanisms for why there could be a reduction in rainfall, when trying to calculate the actual possibility of a decrease in precipitation, the figures used to calculate this are ‘crude’ and produce much uncertainty. Even more alarming is that these figures do not even take into account the potential reduction in rainfall due to the afore mentioned deforestation.  To me, this level of uncertainty is a cause for concern. With this in mind and a pinch of scepticism, take a look at the spatial reduction in precipitation maps produced.

The probability of a decrease in precipitation of more than 0%, 20% and 50% using moderate greenhouse gas emission models.

Taken from Mahli et al. (2008)

If these projected figures do indeed amount to a reduction of rainfall in the Amazon this could be disastrous. These figures demonstrate that there will be significantly more drying in the dry season (which starts in June) and it is in fact this season that is most critical for vegetation patterns, and are therefore most important to the tribe people tending the land.

If there is one thing this article has highlighted to me, it is the great level of uncertainty that comes with predictions of climate and changes that come with the Amazon, and it is something I will carry with me and remember when researching future issues.

Malhi, Y., J. T. Roberts, R. A. Betts, T. J. Killeen, W. Li and C. A. Nobr (2008) Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Fate   of the Amazon.  Science. 319 pp. 169-172

Space at a premium?

After my short introduction, I felt it was time for a more detailed insight into the lives of ingenious tribe people and the challenges they face. The focus of this blog will look closely at the changes experienced by forest tribes throughout the world, with a particular interest in the people of the Amazon Rainforest. One of the biggest challenges currently facing the Amazionians is a fight solely for space.

Nearly 400 separate indigenous groups live in the Amazon Rainforest alone. These people rely solely on the land they call their home, with little to no contact with the outside world. But this is changing. As the world continues to expand, society looks more and more to the vast resources the Amazon has to offer and this is threatening the way of life of the people who are now fighting to keep their physical and cultural traditions alive.

One of the greatest problems facing the people of the Amazon today is space and the threat from large companies, but also the sheer scale of smaller agricultural activities. Activities such as logging, cattle grazing, oil use, farming (particularly of Soybeans) are just some of the major uses of the Amazon rainforest. From 1991 to 2000 the area of deforested Amazon Rainforest rose from 415,000 to 587,000 km² - to put this in a comprehendible context, an area comparable to the size of Spain. This rapid deforestation continues to occur throughout the heartland of the Rainforest, as highlighted below.

Taken from Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest

This had led to a rapid decrease in number of indigenous tribe people. Park (1992), estimates that there may have been as many as 5 million people living in the Amazon basin in 1500, a number which rapidly decreased to 1 million by 1900, and to a lowly 250,000 by the 1980s. While many of these people may have migrated due to the sheer lure of a better metropolis life as contact with the outside world increased, an article in the Guardian highlights just some of the dangers facing indigenous tribes as the modern world looks to expand.

To summarise this article (for those who don’t have time to read it!!) the current situation in the Amazon and the fight for space more closely resembles a war. Large logging corporations have been seen to have little problem with fighting those protecting their land – in this case the only 355 people strong  Awá tribe. The Awá are now a rarity in that it is estimated nearly 100 of them have had no contact with the outside world. However, they are now facing extinction. Illegal logging and farming industries are pouring onto their land and has led to a situation of which a Brazilian judge labelled ‘genocide’.

- Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros– are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. 

The fears for this tribe and the level of their plight has led to a worldwide campaign. Details on how to get involved in Survival International can be found here.

Clearly the issue of space and the fight against corporations is a truly major issue facing the people of the Amazon, but for now I will say goodbye without a shadow of a doubt that this blog entry will become merely an introduction to this problem and will be one I will revisit time and time again. 

Park, C., 1993. Tropical Rainforests. New York: Routledge. 

The voice of the people

The world is now waking up to climate change and its possible effects.

But what about those people who did little to contribute to the current state of the world? In the coming months, this blog will focus on the people whose lives may be altered beyond recognition and a culture lost, without any fault of their own. Indigenous tribes around the world are starting to feel the effects of climate change and our constant changing of the world, and face an uncertain future with changes in temperature, weather patterns and rising sea levels as well as destruction of their territory, as the modern world continues to expand, pollute the environment and destroy their habitat, and the entries will reflect this with a mixture of issues that directly relate to these people, and issues that will have a knock on effect.

As an introduction to the topic of this blog, I will look to a short video to show the already increasing effects of climate change on the indigenous tribes of South America. In his own words, Davi Kopenawa, leader of one of the largest groups of indigenous people in Brazil - the Yanomami - explains the effects being felt by his tribe and explains why the need for a voice of the indigenous people is so key when the world around them is being destroyed.

While anecdotal, this video highlights the plight of indigenous tribes in South America. Over the course of this blog the effects currently and potentially felt by these people and the changes to their lifestyle will be explored in depth. Stay tuned.