Violence and public health in the Altamira region: The construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant

Marín, Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo; Oliveira, Assis da Costa

doi:10.3167/reco.2015.060106

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In the case of Belo Monte, Altamira, the host city that received the newcomers, relied heavily upon septic systems for human waste disposal and the growth of these systems in a dense, urban environment led to ground water contamination (Gauthier and Moran 2018). In line with the boomtown literature, Marin and Oliveira (2016) report significant increases in violence due to the construction of the Belo Monte dam.…”

Section: Background Energy Boomtowns and Hydropower Impactsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Hydropower, Social Capital, Community Impacts, and Self‐Rated Health in the Amazon*

et al. 2021

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Nations in the global South have developed hydropower projects at a rapid pace in recent decades, most notably Brazil and China. These projects have longdocumented impacts on social and ecological systems, yet the implications of hydropower for human well-being and health are not fully understood. In this paper, we examine eight Brazilian Amazon communities in the Madeira river basin, near the Jirau and Santo Antônio dams (sample size: 536 households). We evaluate how impacts on community resources, social capital, and the experience of resettlement influence self-rated health in these communities. Results suggest that the dams strained community resources and social capital, which were associated with reductions in self-rated health. In particular, cognitive social capital (i.e., trust) is lower after the dams' construction. The effect of resettlement and compensation is more nuanced and qualified. This work suggests that hydropower projects have broad deleterious impacts on well-being and health of human populations in hosting regions and that better directed efforts are required on the part of dam developers to reduce these negative outcomes. *The authors wish to thank the National Science Foundation, which through grants 1639115 and 2020790 have provided financial support for this research. They also wish to thank their colleagues at the Federal University of Rondonia (UNIR) who provided local support and expert advice that made survey question formulation and its field collection possible. Numerous students from this university served as enumerators and their local knowledge was very important to this work. They also wish to thank postdocs Juliana Laffer, Amanda Silvino, and Jynessa Dutka-Gianelli, who were in charge of the field survey; Carolina Doria, Mariluce Paes, and other faculty at UNIR were always ready to support the work and we are grateful. Finally, Laura Castro-Diaz and Maria Alejandra Garcia provided inmense support on the survey design. The people in the eight communities were patient in answering our numerous questions and we hope the results herein can lead to improved livelihoods in the future. Despite all this, the authors wish to declare that any errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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Section: Background Energy Boomtowns and Hydropower Impactsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Hydropower, Social Capital, Community Impacts, and Self‐Rated Health in the Amazon*

et al. 2021

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“…It was not until “the second half of the 1990s,” however, that “the government was determined to put in place a consistent macroeconomic policy framework supporting a new cycle of growth under neoliberalism (Saad-Filho and Morais 2018 , p. 70).” Even more progressive administrations—namely former president Lula’s (2003–2010) and Dilma Roussef’s (2011–2016)—under the Workers’ Party ( Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) ended up adjusting their initially ambitious goals in accordance with the rising neoliberal wave, limiting the scope of their economic and environmental agenda. In fact, “the looseness of the PT alliance, and Lula’s concessions to neoliberalism, imposed strict limits to his administration, implying that his government would maintain the institutional architecture of mature neoliberalism and follow Cardoso’s economic policies (Saad-Filho and Morais 2018 , p. 85).” As an example, the construction of Belo Monte Dam in the Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon leading to serious negative environmental consequences and displacement of many indigenous population groups (Marin and Da Costa Oliveira 2016 ) was advanced by Lula’s and accomplished during Roussef’s administration. As another example, it is widely believed that the institutionalization of rural social movements from 2003 to 2016 hindered effective and sustainable land reform in Brazil (Nogueira 2018 ) while natural land destruction for agribusiness and cropland expansion has always been a main driver of deforestation in the country (Morton et al 2006 ).…”

Section: Environmental Policy and Conservative Movementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, "the looseness of the PT alliance, and Lula's concessions to neoliberalism, imposed strict limits to his administration, implying that his government would maintain the institutional architecture of mature neoliberalism and follow Cardoso's economic policies (Saad-Filho and Morais 2018, p. 85). " As an example, the construction of Belo Monte Dam in the Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon leading to serious negative environmental consequences and displacement of many indigenous population groups (Marin and Da Costa Oliveira 2016) was advanced by Lula's and accomplished during Roussef's administration. As another example, it is widely believed that the institutionalization of rural social movements from 2003 to 2016 hindered effective and sustainable land reform in Brazil (Nogueira 2018) while natural land destruction for agribusiness and cropland expansion has always been a main driver of deforestation in the country (Morton et al 2006).…”

Section: The Case Of Brazilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience of environmental policy amidst the rise of conservative populism

et al. 2021

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Sustainability has for long been promoted as a medium for social and economic development, one that focuses on constant availability of natural assets and ecological amenities. By questioning the possibility of reaching a balanced and sustainable state of functioning for social-ecological systems, resilience improves the static framework of sustainability by acknowledging non-linear behavior of complex systems, inevitability of change, and consistent presence of uncertainty. At the core of sustainable development, environmental policy is embedded in the socio-spatial structures that constantly re-organize and breed uncertainty, such as political, economic, and climate uncertainty. These uncertainties create episodes of instability that shock the entire system including the structures of environmental protection. In this article, focusing on the aftermath of 2016 US presidential election and 2018 general election in Brazil, both broadly recognized as political shocks, we highlight the vulnerabilities of environmental protection structures to the rise of conservative populist movements. We attribute these vulnerabilities, partially, to the superiority of market-based instruments, as well as apolitical understandings of resilience under neoliberalism that overlook political instabilities and socio-spatial outcomes of neoliberal restructuring projects. In our assessment, political unpreparedness of sustainability against the right-wing onslaught in the US and Brazil further underlines the need for resilience theory to incorporate sources of political instability in order to protect the environment.

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Violence and public health in the Altamira region: The construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant

Cited by 2 publications

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Hydropower, Social Capital, Community Impacts, and Self‐Rated Health in the Amazon*

Hydropower, Social Capital, Community Impacts, and Self‐Rated Health in the Amazon*

Resilience of environmental policy amidst the rise of conservative populism

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