BRAZIL: Amazon Dams Mean Progress for Some, Lost Livelihoods for Others
The Amazonian town of Mutum-Paraná, in the northern Brazilian state of Rondônia, is disappearing. Its last remaining buildings must be dismantled before it is flooded by the construction of the Jirau hydroelectric dam on the Madeira River.
Francislei Araujo da Silva, a part-time resident of Mutum-Paraná, symbolises a local way of life that will also disappear due to the radical and abrupt changes brought by the construction of two hydroelectric dams on the same river just 120 kilometers apart - the Jirau and Santo Antônio dams - in northwestern Brazil.
'I’ve lived in this area since 1989,' Silva told Tierramérica. He earns a living from mining, fishing and gathering Amazonian fruit, such as açaí and cashews, when he is not providing taxi service between cities and towns in western Rondônia.
Mutum-Paraná was founded a century ago during the Amazon rubber boom. Over the last three decades, it has grown alongside the development in the area of 'garimpo', the informal mining of gold and cassiterite, used to make tin. This activity supplied a steady flow of passengers for Silva’s taxi service.
In preparation for the flooding of the area, many of the town’s 2,000 inhabitants were resettled in Nova Mutum (literally, 'New Mutum'), a collection of 1,600 homes and public and commercial buildings constructed by Energia Sustentável do Brasil (ESBR), the consortium specifically created to build and operate the Jirau hydroelectric plant. The majority of shares in ESBR are held by the French corporation GDF Suez.
Silva, however, was not recognised as a resident of the town, and was consequently denied the right to choose between monetary compensation and a new house, because during the days when the population was being registered, 'I was out of town, driving my taxi in Porto Velho,' the capital of Rondônia, 168 kilometers from Mutum-Paraná.
Silva acknowledges that he did not have a permanent residence in the town, explaining that 'sometimes I slept in my car, or in a guesthouse.' But he has gone to court to demand the same compensation as the other inhabitants, because he spent more than 20 years of his life here. He also wants to be compensated for a plot of land he claims to own on the other side of the river which will also be flooded, as well as for the loss of passengers and resulting loss of income from his taxi business.
Once the dam is built and the area is flooded as part of its reservoir, 'garimpo' activity will only be possible through the use of new technologies and larger dredges, said Luiz Medeiros da Silva, the ESBR socio-economic director, who is coordinating programmes to compensate the displaced population and miners, promote environmental education, and implement projects that will be left behind as a legacy for the future.
The Jirau and Santo Antônio dams represent technological innovations in Brazil. Their bulb turbines require a smaller water flow volume to operate, which means smaller reservoirs. Some 258 square kilometers will be flooded for the Jirau dam, a small area compared to similar dams, since it will have a power generation capacity of 3,300 to 3,750 megawatts.
Rural displacement to make way for the Jirau dam involved only 316 cases, given the low population density. The majority opted for compensation, while 30 chose resettlement. The Foz do Chapecó hydroelectric plant, which led to the flooding of 79.2 square kilometers in southern Brazil, provoked the displacement of almost 2,500 families, stressed Anderson Imolesi, the head of rural resettlement for Jirau.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service