Tag: Brazil

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A third dam in last 5 years is about to rupture in Brazil

Dams are often talked about as a fantastic way to cut carbon emissions. Aside from the fact that many dams in the world are more like a battery (water is pumped up when electricity is cheap and then flows down when it is expensive creating electricity) dams built in rainforests have such a huge initial carbon footprint from the destruction of the rainforest that sat on the land that in some cases the carbon savings will never make up for the carbon loss.

Communities downstream of a dam are hit twice. Not only does their water supply reduce, if the dam collapses their homes are often destroyed
Copyright: Rogério Alves/TV Senado

I am not saying that dams are useless. Far from it. However, if your dam is there to cut carbon emissions, it is in the wrong place.

Brazil has gone into dams in a large way. Unfortunately, these are so poorly constructed that they are collapsing. This means that land downstream gets hit twice – firstly loosing most of their water supply as the dam fills and then again as they are deluged with months or years of water in one go. What is worse here, is that many dams here are holding back toxic mud, left over after mining work. As such even after the flood of water has gone down, much of the land it has touched will be less productive.

It is not an either or choice for countries like brazil. They aim to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, however 28-33% of that will come from non-hydropower sources (70%). Indeed in Brazil wind power is generating increasing amounts of their power. Indeed, in terms of installed wind power, Brazil now ranks just 8th in the world. Also given it is a country lying in the tropics, it gets a great deal of sun – there are currently 8.5GW of solar installed meeting 1.5% of Brazils needs. However 3.4GW were added just in 2020. It is therefore highly likely that assuming this acceleration continues perhaps 20% of Brazils electricity needs could come from solar by this date.

We need to cut our emissions dramatically in the next 10 years, however political pressure is often meaning that these efforts are going in the wrong direction.

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Bolsonaro has decided to open up 38000 square miles of Amazon rain forest indigenous reserves to outsiders

The latest move by Brazil’s president, while expected, goes against all of Brazil’s past agreements. Indigenous lands were given back- they are not a gift from the Brazilian government. Indigenous people have lived in the Brazilian rainforest for millennia longer than Europeans have been in South America. 

Continue reading “Bolsonaro has decided to open up 38000 square miles of Amazon rain forest indigenous reserves to outsiders”
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Increased concern for damage to indigenous communities from covid 19

Brazil has changed its tack under bolsonaro. He has been astoundingly derogatory about the indigenous Brazilian people ( indeed the way he talks you would only think he wanted the rule for the Descendants of European settlers) and this has been shown by his increasing support and push for invasion of their lands either forgiveness afterwards or promises beforehand that nothing will happen.

Continue reading “Increased concern for damage to indigenous communities from covid 19”
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The attack on the Brazilian rainforest by Bolsonaro continues – On to indigenous lands

As European settlers moved around the world, they often treated the local population badly. In a significant portion of the world this bad behaviour took the form of small parts of the land being given to the the local population and the rest of the country being taken by the Settlers.

In some places such as America, Many of these tribes have since used their land to run casinos and other things not allowed, outside the reserve. In other words these Reserves are less like the land would have been without the Europeans than if it was not tribal land.

There are similarly huge areas of tribal Or indigenous land around much of the Land that European settled, be that in Canada or Africa or or Australia. In parts of Africa and Australia those indigenous people who wish to continue to live as they always have, can choose to do so. Giving this land to the indigenous people was considered only fair, given how much land that they were losing. However in many of these places this indigenous land was also expected to remain in its wild state. Brazil still has a huge number of indigenous people, living in their tribes as they have done for millennia. Not only have many of these tribes thrived under this system, but they have also been far better at managing the forest within their reserves than outside their control.

For bolsonaro, these indigenous reserves are totally unacceptable. Being huge areas that are often totally outside the control of the Brazilian government and with the current rules unavailable for any of the Descendants of settlers to use.

Around the world it is not unusual when a road is built through a protected Forest that the area is rapidly deforested and often settled within several years. It would appear that this is what is wanted on this occasion to- forget simply building roads bolsonaro is giving permission for farms to be set up on these lands, As well as mining, and fossil fuel extraction. Not only with the indigenous people get no money for the land that is being stolen, but also they would gain nothing from the resources extracted.

In theory the bill does give the people a chance to give their feedback, but they have no veto to stop things done to their land.

Interestingly this also talks about the land being used for tourism. However any tourist worth their salt should be looking to do their trips that benefit the indigenous people and not help steal their land.

This is not the first time that bolsonaro has try something like this. Last year he tried to move control over. What is done with the land from the indigenous people to the agricultural ministry.

Yet, this was blocked by the most senior judges in Brazil who said it was not allowed.

Given that this latest move appears to be identical but done in a different way it should also be blocked. However Given that it is led by the president. We cannot be confident that the damage he is trying to do will be stopped until he can be removed from office.

If you visit Brazil on on a holiday, you must make sure that you do not compound to the damage being done but Instead visit places that will benefit the local indigenous people and the protection of the rainforest.

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Update: bolsonaro behaviour has got so bad that 67 British firms and 70 American firms are complaining about it

67 British firms have written to bolsonaro to complain about what he’s doing in the Amazon rainforest. Some of these firms are big name companies such as Asda and Tesco’s, well as the UK’s largest asset manager. Separately 70 American firms have signed a similar letter ( this list includes Microsoft and Google)

The letters talk about the world’s concern over his destruction of the Amazon rainforest, talk about various agreements including the soy moratorium from 10 years ago.

Whether these letters have any impact will be interesting to see. However from companies point of view it would seem that the only way to ramp up pressure on Brazil behind on this point is to start boycotting their products. These companies are in theory capable, in most instances, to stop buying products from Brazil and instead get them elsewhere. As such customers must keep up the pressure on these companies, so that if Bolsonaro continues without changing course- the companies feel they must move suppliers from within Brazilian borders. Just a few of these companies doing this publicly, may well force the Brazilian government to change direction.

Whether these companies customers care enough to force them to take this extreme action will be something we will find out in the next year.

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Have you seen the YouTube adverts put out by the Brazilian government? – Brazil by Brasil

I was quite a startled by what they felt they could put in to their advert and felt the need therefore to write a response. I cannot find any statistics to tell me how many people have watched this video but for some reason I have been shown it many times over the last few days (it is easy to find on YouTube).

It is very like any advert for wild places that many countries will put out a different times. It talks about it’s forests, clean rivers and it’s wildlife. Late in the video with specifically lists the advantages of doing business with Brazil and the first of these is that it is ‘environmentally aware and sustainable”.

The current president Bolsorano has promised to do away with all this, he is granting amnesty to people who have illegally cleared land has given the title deeds for that land to those people, and is in every other way undoing what protections Brazil has for its natural world including destroying non-governmental and government bodies that fight for the protection of the forest.

Indeed one of his first moves was to merge Forestry with farming under his government. Given that these two directly compete for land and that the Predators living in the forests are killed off so they wont predate domestic animals placed nearby, this does not work well.

Do not be hoodwinked!

I almost feel that the only way to hit Brazil hard enough off is to boycott the country. It is unlikely that we will be able to have a big enough impact, however regular called the lungs of the world, Brazil rain forests are of incredible importance for all of us. It should also be noted that while Bolsonaro came to power talking about improving the living standards of everyone he has also been very clear who he includes in everyone. His Brazil is for the Descendants of Europeans, all other people do not matter. 

Indeed one of his first moves is to attempt to remove the rights for all indigenous Forest people of Brazil. Apart from the incredible damage that will be done TO these peoples who have often lived in the forests for millennia, the removal of these people will allow the land to be deforested and wildlife destroyed.

We must stand up and make it clear that we will not stay quiet and watch the Brazilian rain forest be destroyed. Bolsonaro models himself after Trump, but in his country attempt to stay in power against democracy are likely to be far easier. The opposition in Brazil must know that they are supported, if the president is not kicked out of office at the very latest at the end of his first term it is likely there will be little Brazilian rain forest left ( and 70 to 80% of the amazonian rain forest is contained within in the Brazilian countries border).

Seeing a Jaguar deep in the Brazilian rain forest is one of the dreams for many wildlife enthusiasts. It also has the potential to add billions to the Brazilian economy, and due to the reliance on wild places this money will go to parts of the country that has got little else. This is aside from the benefits it gives the economy, by controlling the environment and causing rain. I for one I want the Jaguar to survive in the forests of South America, helping to protect one of the last great ecosystems in the world.

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An official in Brazil is shot for trying to protect indigenous people

As well as fires, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro approach’s to protecting the Amazon has been shown to lead to problems. His stance of supporting farmers and loggers in their theft of land, both from national parks or indigenous tribal land has reached its ultimate and some would say obvious conclusion.

Continue reading “An official in Brazil is shot for trying to protect indigenous people”
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