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Brazil’s ravaged forests are taking their revenge Updated for 2026

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Imagine this scenario: “The following is a Public Service Announcement by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Water, July 4, 2015:

“Because of low water levels in state reservoirs, the Division of Water proclaims a statewide water-rationing program. Starting next month, on August 1st 2015, water service will turn off at 1:00 pm on a daily basis for an indeterminate period of time. Service will return the following morning.”

Now, imagine a city the size of the State of New York with its 20 million people subjected to the same water-rationing plan. As it happens, São Paulo, de facto capital city of Brazil, home to 20 million, is such a city. The water is turned off every day at 1:00pm, as reported by Donna Bowater, The Telegraph‘s São Paulo correspondent, a week ago.

Brazil contains an estimated 12% of the world’s fresh water, but São Paulo is running dry. Fatally, the city’s Cantareira Water Reservoir (water resource for 6.2 million of the city’s 20 million) is down to 6% of capacity! The city’s other reservoirs are also dangerously low.

Perilously, São Paulo’s days of water supply are numbered.

What’s the problem?

Deforestation, the nearly complete disappearance of the Atlantic Forest and continuing deforestation of the Amazon, that’s the problem. Forests have an innate ability to import moisture and to cool down and to favor rain, which is what makes ‘regional climates’ so unique.

According to one of Brazil’s leading earth scientist and climatologist, Dr. Antonio Nobre, Earth System Science Centre and Chief Science Advisor, National Institute for Research in the Amazon, Brazil:

Or as Wyre Davies, the BBC’s Rio de Janeiro correspondent reported from São Paulo last November: “There is a hot dry air mass sitting down here like an elephant and nothing can move it … If deforestation in the Amazon continues, São Paulo will probably dry up.”

And according to Dr. Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science Centre (reported by the Guardian‘s Jonathan Watts last October): “Vegetation-climate equilibrium is teetering on the brink of the abyss …

“Studies more than 20 years ago predicted what is happening with lowering rainfall. Amazon deforestation is altering climate. It is no longer about models. It is about observation. The connection with the event in São Paulo is important because finally people are paying attention.”

Deforestation alters the climate – and not just via CO2 emissions!

São Paulo is Brazil’s richest state as well as its principal economic region. Sorrowfully, it may ‘dry up’. It could really truly happen because it’s already mostly there, right now, as of today. Where will its 20 million inhabitants go? Nobody knows!

The Atlantic Forest stretches along the eastern coastline of the country. A few hundred years ago, the forest was twice the size of Texas. Today, it is maybe 15% of its former self and what remains is highly fragmented. The forest harbors 5% of the world’s vertebrates and 8% of Earth’s plants.

Illegal logging, land conversion to pasture, and expansion of urban areas have put extreme stress on the Atlantic Forest. The same holds true for the giant Amazon rainforest.

Brazil holds one-third of the world’s remaining rainforests. In the past, deforestation was the result of poor subsistence farmers, but times change, today, large landowners and corporate interests have cleared the rainforest at an unprecedented rate. At the current rate, the Amazon rainforest will be further reduced by 40% by 2030.

Rainforests are the oldest ecosystem on earth and arguably one of the most critical resources for sustainability of life, dubbed ‘the lungs of the planet’.

In this month’s National Geographic magazine, Scott Wallace summarizes the plight of rainforests: “In the time it takes to read this article, an area of Brazil’s rainforest larger than 200 football fields will have been destroyed. The market forces of globalization are invading the Amazon.”

Yes, within 20 minutes, only 20, the Amazon rainforest loses the equivalent of 200 football fields. Americans connect with football. It is one of the biggest revenue-producing sports in history. And, that’s not all; football fields provide a good descriptive tool of dimensions.

In fact, 200 football fields are equivalent to the space required for 1,000 stand alone single-family homes, which means the Amazon rainforest loses equivalent to 72,000 stand alone single-family homes, or a small city, per day, everyday, gone forever. That’s a lot of rainforest gone day-in day-out, which ironically provides timber for building houses, but, in point of fact, most of it is burned away. Poof it’s gone, big puffs of smoke into the atmosphere.

“During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down-more than in all the previous 450 years since European colonization began”, Wallace continues. “Scientists fear that an additional 20 percent of the trees will be lost over the next two decades into the atmosphere.

“If that happens, the forest’s ecology will begin to unravel. In fact, the Amazon produces half its own rainfall through the moisture it releases into the atmosphere. Eliminate enough of that rain through clearing, and the remaining trees dry out and die.”

Editor’s note: in fact, it maybe far worse than that – in the Amazon interior, new findings published today on The Ecologist – ‘Without its rainforest, the Amazon will turn to desert‘ – suggest that 99% of the rain is generated by the forest itself.

Rainforests are the world’s most valuable natural resource

Nature at work:

  1. The Amazon produces half of its own rainfall and most of the rain south of the Amazon and east of the Andes,
  2. rainforests sequester carbon by holding and absorbing carbon dioxide, thus, controlling global warming as it actually cleanses the atmosphere.
  3. rainforests maintain remarkable panoply of life with species not found anywhere else and provide medicinal products, like cancer treatment, and
  4. these spectacular forests produce 20% of the planet’s oxygen, every 5th breath murmurs “thank you rainforests.”

Rainforests cover less than 2% of Earth’s total surface area but are home to 50% of the plants and animals. That’s a lot of ‘bang for the buck’. Moreover, critical for survival, the rainforests act as the world’s thermostat by regulating temperatures and weather patterns, and they are absolutely necessary in maintaining Earth’s supply of drinking and fresh water.

For confirmation of the significance of that necessity, ask the residents of São Paulo.

As for the size of the world’s rainforests, “the original untouched resource of six million square miles of rainforests” has already been chopped down by 60%. Only 2.4 million square miles remains today.

Regrettably, according to Watts’s Guardian article: “Forest clearance has accelerated under Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff [since 2011] after efforts to protect the Amazon were weakened … satellite data indicated a 190% surge in deforestation in August and September [2014].”

Is the problem bigger than solutions?

“A paradox of chance”, claims Dr. Antonio Nobre: “Remarkably, there is a quadrangle of land in South America that should be desert. It’s on line with the deserts, but it is not a desert. It’s the Amazon rainforest.”

Based upon studies of the Amazon’s impact on climate, Dr. Antonio Nobre offers a solution to climate change / global warming, Rebuild Forests, yes, Rebuild’em! Here’s what he had to say in a TEDx talk back in 2010:

“We can save planet Earth. I’m not talking about only the Amazon. The Amazon teaches us a lesson on how pristine nature works … We can save other areas, including deserts, if we could establish forests in those areas, we can reverse climate change, including global warming.”

For example, fighting back, China is building a giant green wall, a tree belt, hoping to stop the Kubuqi Desert from spreading east along the front line of the huge Chinese Dust Bowl, the world’s largest dust bowl.

Fifty years ago, portions of this same eastern desert area were grasslands, growing crops, raising cattle and sheep. Today, windstorms from the Kubuqi send plumes all the way across the Pacific to the US West Coast.

Ergo, proof positive people do not need to stand by idly twiddling thumbs, watching human-caused climate change ravage countryside. Things can be done!

However, as for China, it may already be too late. In August 2013 Lester R. Brown wrote in the New York Times:

“Whereas the United States has 8 million sheep and goats, China has 298 million. Concentrated in the western and northern provinces, sheep and goats are destroying the land’s protective vegetation. The wind then does the rest, removing the soil and converting productive rangeland into desert. Northwestern China is on the verge of a massive ecological meltdown.

“The fallout from the dust storms is social as well as economic. Millions of rural Chinese may be uprooted and forced to migrate eastward as the drifting sand covers their land. Expanding deserts are driving villagers from their homes in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia provinces. An Asian Development Bank assessment of desertification in Gansu Province reports that 4,000 villages risk being overrun by drifting sands.”

Thus, the most provocative question surrounding the global warming issue is: When is the problem bigger than solutions?

The global warming / climate change issue is much, much deeper and considerably more robust than this short essay depicts. It is a gargantuan monster that is likely already out of control with CO2 in the atmosphere at levels flashing warning signals going back hundreds of thousands of years, frightening real scientists but not enough to frighten the US Congress into instituting a nationwide renewables initiative. In fact, Congress is stiff and lifeless.

As it goes, the overriding climate change quandary consists of

  1. ‘fossil fuels ruling the world’
  2. COP’s (Conference of Parties aka; UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) ineffective endless meetings, ho-hum; and
  3. frankly, most of the people in the world don’t give a damn. End of story.

Meanwhile, with deforestation in the Amazon once again accelerating, hapless São Paulo may morph into a real life version of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Warner Bros. 1981) – a dusty, dirty vision of the future where resources are hard to find and decent people turn nasty as desperate marauding groups battle for survival in the desert.

Maybe that’ll wake people up!

 

 

Also on The Ecologist:

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com

This article was originally published by CounterPunch.

 




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‘It’s war!’ Peru-Brazil indigenous people pledge to fight Amazon oil exploration Updated for 2026

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Members of an indigenous people living on both sides of the Brazil-Peru border in the remote Amazon say they are prepared to fight with spears, bows and arrows if companies enter their territories to explore for oil.

The Matsés have publicly opposed operations by Canada-based firm Pacific Rubiales Energy for at least five years, but they say that neither the company nor Perupetro, the government body which granted the licences to two oil concessions in Peru, are taking any notice.

“It seems that the [Peruvian] state is a child”, says Dora Canë from the most remote Matsés village on the Peruvian side of the border, Puerto Alegre. “It doesn’t listen. We say no, but it just carries on. It wants to extinguish us.”

“We have told the company no, but it isn’t listening”, says Nestor Binan Waki, another Puerto Alegre resident. “Our patience is running out. We have nothing more to say. The only thing we have is our spears.”

“They should respect indigenous peoples’ rights, but in my view they’re not doing so”, says Lorenzo Tumi, also from Puerto Alegre. “We’ve been saying no for many years. The only weapon we have is to kill one of them. We could kill one of the company.”

Support promised from over the border in Brazil

The Matsés based in Brazil are equally concerned about the concessions – partly because they consider the Peruvian side of the border their territory too and partly because of the potential impacts on the Brazilian side where they live in the protected Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.

“We don’t want the oil company”, says Waki Mayoruna, the head of the remotest Matsés village, Lobo, in Brazil. “If they don’t listen to us, if they don’t understand our no means no, there’ll be conflict that’ll lead to people being killed. That will always be my position.”

“We’ll always fight against the invasion of our territories”, says José Tumi, from Sao Meireles in Brazil. “If they don’t listen, we could fight like we have done in the past, with bows and arrows. We could attack anyone who invades our territory. We’re not afraid of dying.”

“The government is not listening, not respecting, our decision”, says Juan Bai, another Sao Meireles resident. “One day our patience could run out. We have our limits. If they invade the only thing to do will be this [to fight].”

A violent past

Many Matsés stress that previous generations were forced to fight against rubber-tappers, loggers, road-builders and soldiers invading their territories, and that they could do the same again now.

“Before contact [in the late 1960s] there was always conflict in this region”, says Romulo Teca from Puerto Alegre in Peru. “It could come to that again. We are the sons of those fighters. We can defend ourselves with arms like they did. I’ll always fight to ensure no oil companies enter.”

“Our fathers had to defend our territories and fought with other tribes, mestizos and soldiers”, Felipe Reyna Regijo, from Remoyacu village in Peru, told a bi-national meeting held by the Matsés last month. “Why don’t we continue that position, given that we are the sons of fighting fathers?”

The bi-national meeting concluded with the “total rejection” by the Matsés of both oil concessions, and the signing of a statement saying the decision was “unanimous” and stressing the social and environmental impacts of oil operations elsewhere in Peru.

Raimundo Mean Mayoruna, from Soles village in Brazil and president of the General Mayoruna Organization (OGM), says that the Matsés don’t want conflict, but it is possible if their rights are not respected.

“We don’t want this, but if there is a lot of anger it could happen”, he says. “My message to the companies is that they respect our decision and understand we’ve lived here for a long time and want to live in peace. We didn’t come from any other place. We’re from here.”

Empty threats? Or are the Matsés for real?

Many of the most aggressive statements were made by Matsés men wielding and thrusting long spears or carrying bows and arrows – leading one man, Rafael Shaba Maya, a teacher in Puerto Alegre, to remark, “It’s true they will fight. When they say something, they do it.”

That opinion is shared by the former president of the Matsés community in Peru, Ángel Uaqui Dunu Maya, who stresses the potential environmental impacts and the Matsés’s past experience of oil operations in the 1970s when “many people died of illnesses” as a result.

“Yes, in my opinion, it’s certain that [this] is going to create a lot of conflict between the Matsés and the state”, he says. “Why? Because the Matsés don’t want hydrocarbon activities in their territories but the state wants to explore.”

Brazilian anthropologist Beatriz de Almeida Matos, who has worked with the Matsés for 10 years, says that “without a doubt” they will do “whatever it takes to defend their territory” from anything threatening their way of life and existence.

“It wasn’t so long ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were conflicts between Matsés and non-indigenous people in their territories, with deaths on both sides”, she says. “If they’re not consulted and their decisions not respected, they’ll understand dialogue is over and defend themselves by taking up arms again, rather than using the law.”

The Matsés say they were not consulted by Peru’s government before the two concessions were established in 2007 – as is their right under a legally-binding agreement ratified by Peru in 1994 – but Pacific Rubiales claims this right has only applied since 2012.

Billion barrel oil concessions overlap indigenous territories, protected areas

According to Peruvian NGO CEDIA, one of the concessions, Lot 137, includes 49% of the Matsés’s titled community land in Peru and 36% of a supposedly ‘protected natural area’ called the Matsés National Reserve, which they consider their territory too.

The other concession, Lot 135, also includes community land, the reserve, and other areas considered Matsés territory, as well as a huge chunk of a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in what Peruvian law and indigenous organizations call ‘isolation’ or ‘voluntary isolation’.

The eastern boundary of Lot 135 and part of Lot 137 is the River Yaquerana – which acts as the Brazil-Peru border and many Matsés from both countries rely on for drinking water, cooking, washing, bathing and fishing.

Together the two concessions cover almost 1.5 million hectares and have been estimated to hold almost one billion barrels of oil. Some exploration has already been done by Pacific Rubiales in Lot 135, starting in late 2012, which involved conducting seismic tests and drilling wells.

Pacific Rubiales says it “fully respects” the Matsés’s position and is therefore not currently “performing any exploration activities” in Lot 135 and Lot 137, but declined to respond to a question from The Ecologist why it still holds the licences to both concessions.

According to Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental, there are almost 3,500 Matsés – 1,700 of whom live on the Peruvian side and almost 1,600 on the Brazilian side, although movement across the borders is common.

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets

 

 




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‘It’s war!’ Peru-Brazil indigenous people pledge to fight Amazon oil exploration Updated for 2026

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Members of an indigenous people living on both sides of the Brazil-Peru border in the remote Amazon say they are prepared to fight with spears, bows and arrows if companies enter their territories to explore for oil.

The Matsés have publicly opposed operations by Canada-based firm Pacific Rubiales Energy for at least five years, but they say that neither the company nor Perupetro, the government body which granted the licences to two oil concessions in Peru, are taking any notice.

“It seems that the [Peruvian] state is a child”, says Dora Canë from the most remote Matsés village on the Peruvian side of the border, Puerto Alegre. “It doesn’t listen. We say no, but it just carries on. It wants to extinguish us.”

“We have told the company no, but it isn’t listening”, says Nestor Binan Waki, another Puerto Alegre resident. “Our patience is running out. We have nothing more to say. The only thing we have is our spears.”

“They should respect indigenous peoples’ rights, but in my view they’re not doing so”, says Lorenzo Tumi, also from Puerto Alegre. “We’ve been saying no for many years. The only weapon we have is to kill one of them. We could kill one of the company.”

Support promised from over the border in Brazil

The Matsés based in Brazil are equally concerned about the concessions – partly because they consider the Peruvian side of the border their territory too and partly because of the potential impacts on the Brazilian side where they live in the protected Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.

“We don’t want the oil company”, says Waki Mayoruna, the head of the remotest Matsés village, Lobo, in Brazil. “If they don’t listen to us, if they don’t understand our no means no, there’ll be conflict that’ll lead to people being killed. That will always be my position.”

“We’ll always fight against the invasion of our territories”, says José Tumi, from Sao Meireles in Brazil. “If they don’t listen, we could fight like we have done in the past, with bows and arrows. We could attack anyone who invades our territory. We’re not afraid of dying.”

“The government is not listening, not respecting, our decision”, says Juan Bai, another Sao Meireles resident. “One day our patience could run out. We have our limits. If they invade the only thing to do will be this [to fight].”

A violent past

Many Matsés stress that previous generations were forced to fight against rubber-tappers, loggers, road-builders and soldiers invading their territories, and that they could do the same again now.

“Before contact [in the late 1960s] there was always conflict in this region”, says Romulo Teca from Puerto Alegre in Peru. “It could come to that again. We are the sons of those fighters. We can defend ourselves with arms like they did. I’ll always fight to ensure no oil companies enter.”

“Our fathers had to defend our territories and fought with other tribes, mestizos and soldiers”, Felipe Reyna Regijo, from Remoyacu village in Peru, told a bi-national meeting held by the Matsés last month. “Why don’t we continue that position, given that we are the sons of fighting fathers?”

The bi-national meeting concluded with the “total rejection” by the Matsés of both oil concessions, and the signing of a statement saying the decision was “unanimous” and stressing the social and environmental impacts of oil operations elsewhere in Peru.

Raimundo Mean Mayoruna, from Soles village in Brazil and president of the General Mayoruna Organization (OGM), says that the Matsés don’t want conflict, but it is possible if their rights are not respected.

“We don’t want this, but if there is a lot of anger it could happen”, he says. “My message to the companies is that they respect our decision and understand we’ve lived here for a long time and want to live in peace. We didn’t come from any other place. We’re from here.”

Empty threats? Or are the Matsés for real?

Many of the most aggressive statements were made by Matsés men wielding and thrusting long spears or carrying bows and arrows – leading one man, Rafael Shaba Maya, a teacher in Puerto Alegre, to remark, “It’s true they will fight. When they say something, they do it.”

That opinion is shared by the former president of the Matsés community in Peru, Ángel Uaqui Dunu Maya, who stresses the potential environmental impacts and the Matsés’s past experience of oil operations in the 1970s when “many people died of illnesses” as a result.

“Yes, in my opinion, it’s certain that [this] is going to create a lot of conflict between the Matsés and the state”, he says. “Why? Because the Matsés don’t want hydrocarbon activities in their territories but the state wants to explore.”

Brazilian anthropologist Beatriz de Almeida Matos, who has worked with the Matsés for 10 years, says that “without a doubt” they will do “whatever it takes to defend their territory” from anything threatening their way of life and existence.

“It wasn’t so long ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were conflicts between Matsés and non-indigenous people in their territories, with deaths on both sides”, she says. “If they’re not consulted and their decisions not respected, they’ll understand dialogue is over and defend themselves by taking up arms again, rather than using the law.”

The Matsés say they were not consulted by Peru’s government before the two concessions were established in 2007 – as is their right under a legally-binding agreement ratified by Peru in 1994 – but Pacific Rubiales claims this right has only applied since 2012.

Billion barrel oil concessions overlap indigenous territories, protected areas

According to Peruvian NGO CEDIA, one of the concessions, Lot 137, includes 49% of the Matsés’s titled community land in Peru and 36% of a supposedly ‘protected natural area’ called the Matsés National Reserve, which they consider their territory too.

The other concession, Lot 135, also includes community land, the reserve, and other areas considered Matsés territory, as well as a huge chunk of a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in what Peruvian law and indigenous organizations call ‘isolation’ or ‘voluntary isolation’.

The eastern boundary of Lot 135 and part of Lot 137 is the River Yaquerana – which acts as the Brazil-Peru border and many Matsés from both countries rely on for drinking water, cooking, washing, bathing and fishing.

Together the two concessions cover almost 1.5 million hectares and have been estimated to hold almost one billion barrels of oil. Some exploration has already been done by Pacific Rubiales in Lot 135, starting in late 2012, which involved conducting seismic tests and drilling wells.

Pacific Rubiales says it “fully respects” the Matsés’s position and is therefore not currently “performing any exploration activities” in Lot 135 and Lot 137, but declined to respond to a question from The Ecologist why it still holds the licences to both concessions.

According to Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental, there are almost 3,500 Matsés – 1,700 of whom live on the Peruvian side and almost 1,600 on the Brazilian side, although movement across the borders is common.

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets

 

 




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Brazil – 10% of national parks and indigenous lands face mining threat Updated for 2026

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All eyes are on Brazil following the re-election of Dilma Rousseff as president after an eventful campaign in which the strongly pro-environment candidate Marina Silva was squarely defeated.

Now, the country’s green credentials are seriously at risk. In a new report in the journal Science, researchers from Brazil and the UK (including myself) highlight the danger of new plans to allow mining and dams in protected areas and indigenous lands.

Congressional debates to approve or reject proposed legislation will decide if Brazil will retain its hard-won status as what The Economist calls “the world leader in reducing environmental degradation”.

The new government is at a crossroads: either maintain the integrity and long-term future of its globally significant ecosystems – or favour industrial interests by allowing 10% of even strictly protected areas to be mined.

While the proposals include mitigation measures (protecting land elsewhere) these are unrealistic and also inadequate because they fail to account for the indirect impacts of mines.

Developing mines and hydropower dams in protected areas would represent a reversal for Brazilian law-makers and a body blow to environmental agencies, credited with drastically reducing Amazonian deforestation over the past decade.

The gruesome twosome – damming and mining

Mega-projects have mega-impacts and in the Amazon, mining and damming go hand in hand. Mining is energy intensive and is one of the underlying reasons for Brazil developing dozens of large hydropower plants in Amazonia.

Hydroelectric dams can harm both society and the environment. For example, I was alarmed to see how severe flooding in Rondônia state this year led to economic paralysis and the spread of water-borne diseases in towns and countryside along the Madeira River.

The flooding of the Madeira in both Brazil and upriver in Bolivia was suspected to have been caused by the recently completed Jirau hydropower dam. Under current plans, very few protected areas will remain free from the influence of hydroelectric dams.

Mining projects such as the enormous Carajás iron ore mine in eastern Amazonia (see photo), powered by construction of the controversial Tucuruí dam in the 1970s, are only the tip of the iceberg. Mineral extraction in Brazil is poised to expand into what were previously considered no-go areas for industrial development.

Protected lands are a essential safeguard

Our research found that in the Amazon alone 34,117km2 of strictly protected areas and 281,443km2 of indigenous lands are in areas of registered mining interest. Forget football fields, this is an area larger than the whole of the UK.

The direct impacts of mines and dams are eclipsed by the indirect effects, as thousands of workers follow mega-development projects into protected areas. Rapid population growth in service towns causes urban areas, roads and farmland to expand into surrounding forests.

By 2000, Brazil had created the world’s largest protected area network, covering an enormous 2.2m km2 – an area the size of Greenland.

These parks have been highly effective. For example, by reducing deforestation rates to only 10-15% of those in surrounding areas, Brazil’s protected areas contribute to mitigating future climate change.

The beneficiaries of climate mitigation range from farmers in the south of Brazil who depend on Amazonia for their rainfall, to the poorest people in developing countries who stand to bear the brunt of global warming, sea-level rise and extreme climatic events.

Brazil’s protected areas go far beyond just saving the forests themselves and support traditional peoples, including rubber-tappers and Brazil-nut harvesters.

In addition, indigenous lands provide a safe space to maintain the traditions and cultures of the country’s 305 indigenous ethnic groups, including 69 uncontacted groups.

Brazil gets richer, but protected areas remain under-funded and under-staffed

Get-rich-quick mining is not a new threat to Brazil’s unique ecosystems. I have witnessed the decade-long struggle of a strictly protected area, the Jari Ecological Station in Pará, to remove illegal gold-mining from within its borders.

However, it is harrowing to now see 71% of the park (an area larger than Greater London) being under official consideration for mining operations. Even if ‘only’ 10% of the park is used for mining, indirect effects will change it for ever.

Relevant federal departments need adequate resources to ensure government decisions are made democratically and with reliable impact assessments. Chronic under-staffing in Brazil’s protected areas means that many lack basic information on baseline environmental conditions and diversity of plants and animals.

Buffer areas designed to protect parks from external threats are put at risk, and a lack of staffing and data puts ICMBio (the agency responsible for protecting parks) in a weak position from which to assess the potential impacts of dams or mining on the integrity of a park.

Brazil’s population is growing and increasingly wealthy, which means higher demands for energy and food. Some difficult decisions will have to be made.

However, environmental impact assessments and mitigation measures (in some cases impossible to achieve and in most cases not implemented anyway) surrounding proposed mega-projects have fallen short of international best practice and largely ignore indirect impacts.

I hope that Brazil reasserts its status as a leader of green development and does not legislate against her national treasures.

 

 

Luke Parry is Lecturer in Ecosystem Services, Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




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Drought hits São Paulo – what drought? Updated for 2026

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Outside the semi-arid area of the north-east, Brazilians have never had to worry about conserving water. Year in, year out, the summer has always brought rain.

But that has changed dramatically. São Paulo, the biggest metropolis in South America, with a population of almost 20 million, is now in the grip of its worst drought in more than a century – a water crisis of such proportions that reports on the daily level of the main reservoir arefollowed as closely as the football results.

The lack of rain is also affecting the dams that produce most of Brazil’s energy, highlighting the urgent need to diversify power sources.

And yet the state governor, wary of the effects on his prospects in forthcoming elections, has refused to introduce measures to ration, or even conserve, water.

Mighty rivers are running dry

Brazil is blessed not only with the mighty Amazon and all its huge tributaries, but also with dozens of other lengthy, broad rivers – once the highways for trade and slaving expeditions, but now providing waterways for cargo, power for dams, and water for reservoirs. It has at least 12% of the world’s fresh water supply.

But five of the principal rivers – the Tiete, Grande, Piracicaba, Mogi-Guaçu and Paraiba do Sul – that cross or border São Paulo, Brazil’s wealthiest state, have less than 30% of the water they should have at this time of year, according to data from the regional Hydrographic Basin Committee and from the National Electric System Operator (ONS).

Other major water sources – such as the Paraná, South America’s second biggest river, and the Paranapanema – are also suffering from the long dry period. The ruins of towns flooded for dam reservoirs have reappeared, fishermen’s boats are beached because the fish have disappeared, and navigation is at a standstill.

The transport of grain and other cargos to the port of Santos, via the river network, had to be suspended after the water level fell by up to eight metres. The equivalent of 10,000 lorryloads of cargo have been transferred by road so far.

Many industries have suspended their activities because of lack of water, and the drought has resulted in the loss of part of the coffee, sugar cane and wheat crops in one of Brazil’s most important agricultural states.

The hydrological period lasting from October 2013 to March 2014 was the driest for 123 years, according to the Agronomic Institute of Campinas, the oldest institute of its kind in Latin America.

Lowest water volumes since the 1930s

The federal government’s energy research company, EPE, found that in the first three months of 2014 the volume of rain was the third lowest since the 1930s.

It was the third consecutive year of reduction for the reservoirs of the hydroelectric dams that make up the South-east / Centre-West System, where many of Brazil’s biggest cities are located. From 88% in 2011, the volume of water in them had fallen to 38% by April 2014 – the month in which the dry season begins in this region.

By mid-August, the reservoirs of the Cantareira system, which supplies the water for almost 8.5 million of São Paulo’s inhabitants, had fallen to just 13.5% of capacity.

Yet the state government of São Paulo has so far refused even to admit that there is a crisis. The problem is the October elections, when Governor Geraldo Alkmim is running for re-election. Like most politicians, he does not want to be associated with a crisis. The word ‘rationing’ is taboo.

Instead, unofficial rationing – what might be called rationing by stealth – is in operation. At night, the São Paulo Water Company, Sabesp, is reducing the pressure in the water system by 75%, leaving residents in higher areas of the city with dry taps.

People before power? Electricity generation under threat

Over 80% of the country’s energy comes from hydroelectric power, and dozens more giant dams are under construction or planned, mostly in the Amazon basin. The government has been strangely reluctant to invest in, or even encourage, other sources of abundant renewable energy, such as wind, solar and biomass.

The over-reliance on hydropower has already led to a distortion. The back-up system of thermo-electric plants, run on gas and diesel, and designed for emergencies, has had to increase production from 8% in 2012 to cover 25% of energy demand this year – thus contributing to higher carbon emissions.

Politics have also interfered with the special crisis committee set up to monitor the drought situation, with representatives from local and federal agencies unable to agree on what to do.

The Sao Paulo energy company, CESP, unilaterally decided this month to reduce the volume of water released from the shared Jaguari reservoir to the neighbouring state of Rio de Janeiro for electricity generation, in order to keep more for its own water needs.

Dangerous precedent

For Marcio Zimmerman, executive secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, CESP’s action creates a dangerous precedent. “There will be chaos if everyone decides to rebel against the ONS”, he said.

The realisation that climate change is already leading to major changes in weather patterns has sounded alarm bells among the business community about the need to diversify energy sources and conserve water.

Early this month, at a seminar organised by the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development, the chief executives of more than 20 top companies drew up a list of 22 crisis-related proposals to be put to the presidential candidates in October’s election.

Newspaper editorials are now urging the politicians to take their heads out of the sand and involve the population in a serious discussion on the crisis and its effects on the water supply, energy generation, and food production .

The Rio newspaper O Globo declared: “They belittle the potential for efficiency available in a society accustomed to waste. When they act, it might be too late.”

 

 

Jan Rocha is a journalist living in São Paulo. She writes for Climate News Network, where this article originates.

 

 




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