Dam the Rivers, Damn the People


Book Description

The Brazilian Amazon is the largest area of tropical rainforest in Latin America. Brazil is that continent's most rapidly developing country. The Amazon is at the heart of the conflict between conservation and development, between people and power, and between heritage and modernisation. In the name of development, the powerful are colonizing the forest. The greatest new threat comes from the massive hydro-electric schemes which are being pushed ahead with little regard to efficacy, the rights of the people, or the survival of the forest. Dam the Rivers, Damn the People is about two of the most affected areas, Balbina in Amazonas and the Xingu River in Para. Barbara Cummings describes the plans which the state attempted to keep secret, the extent to which these projects will destroy the forest, the consequent dispossession of the people of the forest and, above all, their growing resistance. She shows how the outcome of their fight affects us all. Originally published in 1990




Dams and Development


Book Description

Includes statistics.




Waters of Brazil


Book Description

This book is a product of Brazilian Academy of Sciences Study Group about water issue. The water cycle was addressed based on an integrated point of view, aiming at joining technological and ecological solutions and integrating quantitative and qualitative aspects of this important environmental asset. Issues such as the water resources management and irrigated agriculture, water and health, water and economy, conservation and reuse as management tools, water in the Brazilian semi arid, water in Amazon, urbanization and water resources, education for the sustainability of water resources, groundwater, availability, pollution and eutrophication of water and science, technology and innovation are of the utmost importance for this exact moment in Brazil, and particularly to the State of Sao Paulo. Addressing these issues will undoubtedly contribute towards a sustainable management of water resources trough the coordinated work of different fields of science, progressing a systemic view about water, that would then finally allow management professionals the possibility of an integral action in anticipating problems and thus anticipate solutions.




Flooded


Book Description

Flooded provides insights into the little-known effects of dam building through a close examination of Brazil's Belo Monte hydroelectric facility, the fourth largest dam in the world. Klein tells the stories of dam-affected communities, such as fishermen and displaced urban residents, as well as their advocates, including activists, social movements, public defenders, and public prosecutors. This ground-level perspective shows how local democracy is at once strengthened and weakened by a rapid influx of government resources. In the midst of today's climate crisis, Flooded showcases the challenges and opportunities of meeting increasing demands for energy in equitable ways.




Evolution of Dam Policies


Book Description

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) report (2000) “Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making” set a landmark in the ongoing controversy over large dams. Now that more than ten years have passed, one has to realize that the WCD norms matter. However, their real chance of becoming implemented relies on whether their core values, strategic priorities and guidelines are accepted by national decision-makers and are translated into official policies and practices. The book’s major concern is whether the big hydropower states have improved their standards for environment and resettlement, and whether international standards are applied or exist only on paper. The introductory and synthesis chapters present the methodological approach and discuss the findings. Other chapters analyze changes in dam policies in the big hydropower states Brazil, China, India and Turkey; the role of non-governmental organizations in advocating against the Turkish Ilisu Dam project on the Tigris River; the strategies of International Rivers and World Wildlife Fund for Nature in the global hydropower game; the policies of the German government and its positioning in the dam debate, and the engagement of Chinese actors in building the Bui Dam (Ghana) and the Kamchay Dam (Cambodia).




Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon


Book Description

In Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon, Ed Atkins focuses on how local, national, and international civil society groups have resisted the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric projects in Brazil. In doing so, Atkins explores how contemporary opposition to hydropower projects demonstrate a form of 'contested sustainability' that highlights the need for sustainable energy transitions to take more into account than merely greenhouse gas emissions. The assertion that society must look to successfully transition away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy sources often appears assured in contemporary environmental governance. However, what is less certain is who decides which forms of energy are deemed 'sustainable.' Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon explores one process in which the sustainability of a 'green' energy source is contested. It focuses on how civil society actors have both challenged and reconfigured dominant pro-dam assertions that present the hydropower schemes studied as renewable energy projects that contribute to sustainable development agendas. The volume also examines in detail how anti-dam actors act to render visible the political interests behind a project, whilst at the same time linking the resistance movement to wider questions of contemporary environmental politics. This interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, sustainable energy transitions, environmental justice, environmental governance, and development studies.




Dams in Brazil


Book Description

The book focuses on the human and social effects of the construction of hydroelectric dams in Brazil. It discusses themes such as forced migrations, how the families of the victims of the dams adapt to new living areas, the struggle of families with the relocation of their homes and the fact that they are neglected by builders and government. These discussions are carried out in a comparative perspective between Southern and Northern Brazil, where contexts and living conditions are quite different. The book's main objective is to analyze the movements, adaptations and life changes in families suffering from the effects of dams throughout Brazil. This is the first book that analyzes the relationship dam-space with the intent to understand how dams affect the territory. The book is organized in three chapters: the dams’ effects in Brazil and the territorial impacts; human and social consequences of dam construction; a regional comparison of the effects of dams between the South and the North of the country.







Sustainable Freedom?


Book Description

This book, conceived in the 2010s, demonstrates that the thesis of renewable energy prevailed. Despite still having a long way to go, after the epic battle between the forces of maintaining fossil fuels in the energy market in Brazil and in the U.S. and the favorable winds of energy and renewable energy infrastructure projects, renewables advanced quickly and are here to stay, whether we like it or not. Renewable energy developments that have taken place in the past decade (from 2010 when this book was conceived to 2020) shaped the way we humans function in society. In this book, the author highlights the beginning of the history of the oil industry in Brazil and oil in the US and the bold and baby steps towards renewables. The rest is history validating itself in the daily life of the third decade of the 21st century until we reach the massive scale of the electric vehicle industry already represented by Tesla, Li Auto, NIO, Lucid Motors, Rivian, among others. Indeed, we see a great change and orientation towards sustainability. In this case, the direction became more important than the speed of implementation of the green, global, diversified future. The question in the current chapter of humanity is whether the concept of sustainability will be expanded to reach the political dimension through the current weakening of Western democracies in the modern world facing massive challenges such as global pandemics, the emergence and rapid expansion in all economic sectors and industries of artificial intelligence, robotics, not to mention the threats of nuclear wars and cyber-attacks between nations and global environmental devastation.