ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Energy Demands Threaten Indigenous Groups

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 16 1998 (IPS) - Amid much fanfare, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso inaugurated the Serra da Mesa hydroelectric centre in central Brazil last week which underscored the conflict between energy needs and the environment.

The Ava-Canoeros indigenous community, whose known population has been reduced to a family of six people, suffered the flooding of 10 percent of their 30,000 hectares land area because of the dam. But there were indications other isolated groups of indigenous people also would be affected by the rising waters, said Roberto Liebgott, assistant secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Roman catholic agency dedicated to indigenous people.

The dam, located in Minazu, has caused several environmental problems such as the proliferation of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and of bats, the most serious problem, which can transmit rabies has been blamed for the death of thousands of cattle as well as some people, said Leibgott.

So far there has been no compensation for peasants whose lands and homes were flooded, he added.

Leibgott demanded that authorities implement measures to eliminate the negative environmental effects and to protect indigenous territory, and to prevent invasions such as those that have occurred in the past.

The region, some 200 kilometers from Brasilia, has many caves which were flooded, which caused the expulsion of the bats and huge holes, said the leader of CIMI. Such problems will get only worse because another hydroelectric dam is slated to be built nearby on the Tocantins River. President Cardoso signed a decree last Friday authorizing the concession of the Cana Brava central to a private company.

The consumption of electricity in Brazil grows at a more rapid pace than the economy. In the past several years, it increased by an average of nearly seven percent annually, more than double the gross national product.

Since little investment has been made in the energy sector over the past 15 years due to the economic crisis, the external debt and high inflation, the country presently faced the possibility of electricity shortages.

Blackouts have occurred more frewemntly in the southeast, the most developed and populated region of the country. Electrobras, the state company that coordinates the entire energy sector, estimated that the risk of interruption of the energy supply, currently at five percent, could increase to 16 percent next year.

Brazil needed to increase its generating capacity by 3,600 megawatts each year in order to keep pace with growing rates of energy use, said Benedito Carraro, director of planning of Electrobras.

The privatization of the generation and distribution of electricity seems like a viable alternative to increase investment and finish the construction of several hydroelectric centers that were never completed.

Natural gas, which will be imported from Bolivia and Argentina via gas ducts, offers an alternative source of energy. The advantage of natural gas is that it does not cause the kind of environmental damage that hydroelectric dams do.

In addition, gas opens other possibilities of supplying energy to areas of high energy use, such as the central and southern regions of the country, where the potential of the rivers as energy sources has been depleted.

This was responsible for the multiplication of projects to build gas centrals. Electrobras and the state company Petrobras alone participate in 19 such projects, while the private sector is preparing to initiate a similar number of projects.

There wont be enough gas for so many thermoelectric centrals, warned Carraro in an interview to the daily Gazeta Mercantil. National production is at 30 million cubic meters daily, and imports from Bolivia and Argentina could surpass this number but only in the long term.