Hydroelectric Development and Road Paving in Brazil's Transamazon Area

Carvalho, Georgia O.

Hydroelectric Development and Road Paving in Brazil's Transamazon Area

1999

Carvalho, Georgia O.

There are renewed signs that the Brazilian government has retaken the path of large-scale development in the Amazon and that the strategy has been defined with practically no input from society. Among many other development projects for the region, the federal government recently announced two new projects that will profoundly affect the Transamazon Highway area around the town of Altamira. One of the projects is the development of a major hydroelectric power plant on the Xingú River (Belo Monte) and the other is the paving of the Transamazon between the towns of Marabá and Altamira in eastern Amazonia. The evidence suggests that although these projects are not outright environmental disasters, they will have considerable environmental and social consequences for the area. In addition, the decision-making process that has brought about these projects was practically devoid of public participation.

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