Letter from Brazil - Stories by Mario Osava / IPS Inter Press Service

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Wednesday, May 16, 2012 20:25 GMT

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Worker Revolts Delay Mega-Projects in Brazil
By Mario Osava
PORTO VELHO, Brazil - In Grenoble, France, there is a 40-metre-long scale model of the Jirau dam that is being built in Brazil’s Amazon jungle. The exact replica of the project makes is possible to foresee and analyse possible risks, such as the heavy flow of sediment in the Madeira River.
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Conditions for Construction Workers Improving in Brazil
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - A year after workers' riots that brought work on the Jirau hydroelectric dam to a halt for months and forced the government and companies to engage in national negotiations to improve labour conditions in the construction industry, another strike has caused tension again in the dam construction project in northwest Brazil.
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Integration Can Help Amazon's Post-Megaproject Blues
By Mario Osava
PORTO VELHO, Brazil - Trade with the rapidly expanding market in Peru will aid Porto Velho, in northwest Brazil, to cushion the blow of job and business losses in the wake of the construction of two hydroelectric plants on the Madeira river.
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Green Economy Seeks to Maintain Growth Threatened by Disasters
By Mario Osava *
RIO DE JANEIRO - There is every indication that major disasters could be the new midwives of history. Seeking to prevent them, the green economy aims to reduce "environmental risks" and "ecological scarcities" while improving human well-being and social equity.
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A Curse on Hydropower Projects in the Amazon?
By Mario Osava
PORTO VELHO, Brazil - "Perhaps it's the curse of Rondônia," joked Ari Ott, referring to teething troubles with the first turbine of the Santo Antônio hydroelectric plant which was intended to kick off a new cycle of huge power projects in Brazil's Amazon jungle region.
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Brazil’s Construction Boom Eases Integration of Haitians
By Mario Osava
PORTO VELHO, Brazil - Pierre was in the next-door country of Dominican Republic when the January 2010 earthquake destroyed half of Port-au-Prince and killed at least 200,000 of his fellow Haitians, including his wife and his mother.
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Only Civil Society Can Save Rio+20, Say Activists
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO - Large-scale social mobilisation, including street protests and parallel activities, is the only thing can save the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from ending in nothing but frustration, according to activists and analysts.
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Growing Pains in a Country Under Construction
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - Major infrastructure works are sprouting like mushrooms in Brazil, generating millions of jobs and drawing more than 60 billion dollars in foreign investment in 2011. But this thrust has failed to sustain economic growth, which according to the latest projections is below three percent.
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Miracle Mileage from a Hobbled Economy
Analysis by Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - In 2011, Brazil's economy grew by less than half the 7.5 percent it attained in 2010. However, this result would be miraculous in any other country with the barriers to productivity and competitiveness that prevail in Brazil.
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The Unsustainable Political Deficiencies of Environmentalism
Analysis by Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - The environmental movement won the ideological battle with the growth of awareness on climate change. Environmentalists are no longer seen as "loonies" or granola-eating hippies: the people seen as on the fringe" now are the climate sceptics who deny that global warming is caused by human activity.
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Amazon Turtles - Illegal Protein for the Poor, Delicacy for the Rich
By Mario Osava
BAJO XINGU, Brazil - "Many people lie" about the common practice of poaching turtles to eat or sell, said a man renowned for his fishing skills who lives on the banks of the Xingu river in Brazil's eastern Amazon jungle region.
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Contradictory Goals in Agriculture
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil aims to meet its climate change targets in agriculture by stimulating techniques that have been proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but which may increase the use of toxic agrochemicals, activists say.
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Global Warming Threatens Future of Amazon Turtles
By Mario Osava *
BAJO XINGÚ, Brazil - The more data she gathered for her Master’s thesis, the more alarmed the young Brazilian biologist became. The Amazon turtles born in the dozens of nests examined in 2008 and 2010 were all female. And only eight percent of the hatchlings studied in 2007 had been male.
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Mario Osava, IPS's Brazil correspondent, covers political, economic and social issues, including human rights, labour, environment, poverty, indigenous issues, and sustainable development. He has travelled the corners of Latin America's largest country to bring you these stories.