Brazil's national integration minister, Pedro Brito, announced Feb.14 that after Carnival the government will take bids for projects to transfer water from the Sao Francisco River to supply the country's dry northeastern region. The federal government hoped to begin construction in 2005 on a mega-project it says will benefit 12 million people. But environmental standards and legal actions — now overturned — prevented work.

New protests are expected. “This 'new threat' from the government will not advance, because new legal obstacles will come up, and it will run into resistance from social movements and from state government in the watershed,” Apolo Heringuer, coordinator of a university project for the recovery of the Velhas River, a tributary of the Sao Francisco.

“The real cost is four times more than the estimated 2.1 billion dollars, and climate change is adding uncertainty,” he said.