All posts by Nathan Thanki

Posted:
April 28, 2012
Author:
Nathan Thanki

Somali ‘climate refugees’ in Kenya: a consideration and a suggestion

by nathan thanki

There is a Somali proverb that asserts; “Sorrow is like rice in the store; if a basketful is removed every day, it will come to an end at last.” In a case of tragic irony, circumstances in Somalia have conspired to add two baskets of sorrow for every one removed. Regarding rice the proverb has proved only too poignant, especially since the devastating drought of early 2011. The resulting famine has meant that food production will remain below average until at least 2012 (Weir, Blätter, & Gabaudan, 2011). A staggering 13 million people in the Horn of Africa region were affected (Weir, Blätter, & Gabaudan, 2011). The 2011 drought, flood, and famine were the frontline of humanity’s interaction with a warming world and a changing climate.

This post will examine the plight of a specific group—Somalis displaced by these environmental factors—within the larger complex web of displacement in the region. After contextualising in the human cost of this situation and the specific needs of these people, we will overview the academic debate around terminology and policy. Some hints at policy recommendations include: making Somalia governable, establishing guiding principles on environmentally displaced people, ensuring adequate financial support for increased humanitarian efforts, pursuing a more official status, investigating the possibility of return, and promoting sustainable development and environmental awareness through various forms of education. Throughout, the terms “environmentally displaced,” “environmental refugee,” and “climate refugee” are used somewhat interchangeably. Acknowledging the contentiousness around these definitions, no legal or official meaning is implied by this.

A third section begins to outline a project plan that aims to foster environmental and social harmony through education. I contend that any long term strategy to cope with the effects of environmental change on refugee situations will only be successful if accompanied by well-planned education policies and projects.

The front lines of climate change

While issues around climate change and refugees are extremely contentious in academic and policy circles, we must first consider the human face of climate change in Somalia. Forced to leave their land due to years of insufficient rains and changes in the El Nino system, many Somalis (and others in the Horn) gathered up what little possessions they had and set off in search of relief (Dahir & Perry, 2011). Somalia has always been arid, but half a century ago droughts were rare and famine rarer. Now Somalia is the front line of humanities encounter with climate change. It is a cruel irony that when the much needed rains did come, they came with a vengeance. A desertified land cannot cope with the heavy rains, and the result is flooding. Many drought-affected Somalis were forced to flee yet again, becoming internally displaced for a second time, by the floods which brought with them increased risks of malaria, acute water diarrhoea and the contamination of drinking aquifers (OCHA, 2011). The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated there were some 4 million food insecure Somalis, 450,000 of them malnourished children, and at least 3.3 million in need of emergency water and sanitation (OCHA, 2011).

To make matters worse, insecurity and general lawlessness in Somalia have hampered local resilience as well as the humanitarian response. The militant group (terrorists in US parlance) al-Shabaab were reportedly forcibly returning displaced people to their lands (OCHA, 2011). US government sanctions impeded the aid response by refusing funding to agencies which interacted with al-Shabaab in order to gain access (Dahir & Perry, 2011). To this political instability, climate change adds its own tensions, as “demand for precious and scarce resources such as water and grazing land is leading to conflict, followed by displacement, more environmental degradation and more conflict” (Needham, 2009, p. 1). Indeed, wars in the region are usually rooted in competition for resources. Climate change serves to intensify that fighting. Food prices will increase with temperature, violent competition will increase and with no other choice but to stay and suffer, people will leave. After all, “unliveable places produce refugees” (Perry, 2010, p. 1)

With the situation rapidly becoming a living hell, thousands of Somalis left once again. Many went to northern Kenya, where the refugee complex Dadaab (3 camps together) awaited. This exodus was horrific, with parents forced to choose which dying child to carry (Dahir & Perry, 2011). And Dadaab was no sanctuary, even after such a journey. Built some 20 years ago, with a capacity of 90,000, it was at the time home to roughly 300,000 (mostly Somali) refugees (Weir, Blätter, & Gabaudan, 2011). In the aftermath of the drought, famine, and flooding, another 152,000 Somali refugees made their way to Dadaab (OCHA, 2011), by now the world’s biggest refugee camp (European Commission, 2011). Conditions in Dadaab have never been far away from desperate, but the surge of refugees fleeing drought in Somalia added even further to the milieu of difficulties that life in Dadaab entails.

Case in point: Dadaab complex

Problems common to many refugee camps are also present in Dadaab: widespread thefts, increased threat of violence and rape, malnutrition, lack of water, lack of education, lack of mobility, and increased threat of disease (Weir, Blätter, & Gabaudan, 2011). Dadaab is close to the border with southern Somalia. This means that the entire area it is in is also vulnerable to the same impacts of climate change as the Horn. The 2011 drought contributed to the malnourishment of 3.8 million Kenyans. Indeed, Dadaab has seen intense flooding before—in 1997, 2003, and 2006—which caused devastation and more movement of people (Needham, 2009). The population of Kenyans in the surrounding area are mostly pastoral and therefore vulnerable to any climate change and environmental degradation (European Commission, 2011). Many (up to 1 million ) have been forced to abandon pastoralism, instead fleeing to wherever there is food aid (Adow, 2008). Inevitably, the presence of a large and growing refugee population creates tensions. This has manifested in competition for firewood, but is prevalent wherever one vulnerable group is afforded aid while another suffers. Despite their long history of assisting their northern neighbours, Kenyans are growing frustrated with the current refugee situation (Herlinger, 2012). Increasingly, host communities and refugees are coming into conflict over trees for firewood and building poles (European Commission, 2011).

The fresh refugees in Dadaab have many of the same problems as those who have been there for twenty years, the familiar trauma, hunger, meaninglessness, and health issues, but with the additional burden of not being legally considered refugees at all. Many are extremely malnourished after their long walk to Kenya. Many have totally lost their ability to feed themselves—with their livestock dead and their crops failed they have nothing to trade or sell. The new refugees have no hope of being whisked away to the safety of some Western country, and nor can they hope for integration into Kenya: the Kenyan government has made it clear this option is off the table (European Commission, 2011). As they add to the gargantuan numbers of Dadaab—which has no significant outflow mechanism—so too do they add to the pressure on that already fragile environment. This singles them out for animosity from the host population and the established refugee population. It also reduces their (and everyone else’s) ability to meet their needs in their new ‘home’. The needs of the new refugees in Dadaab cannot be addressed separately from the old refugees, or even the host population. Whole region strategies have to be considered. That said, they present some specific opportunities for environmental education. As people who have suffered directly from environmental change in their own homes, they have a special need to learn and/or share good environmental management strategies. Whether they return to Somalia or stay in Dadaab—they will need these strategies.

The difficulty of definitions

But how can we deal with a problem that doesn’t officially exist? As was previously mentioned, the concept and term “environmental/climate refugees” is contentious at both the civil society and government levels. Although in use as a term since the 1970s, it was Norman Myer who made it popular (Boano, Zetter, & Morris, 2008). Myers defines them as “people who no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, and other environmental problems, together with the associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty” (Myers, 2002, p. 609). However, predictions about what impacts environmental change will have on migration range from dismissive to sensational, but a mid-range guess is around 200 million by 2050 (Warner, 2011). More worryingly, estimates for the Horn of Africa are not good: approximately 4 million people were displaced by environmental factors in the region in 1995 (Myers, 2002), their numbers adding—as in Dadaab—to the masses of Conventional refugees.

The arguments over definitions and predictions do not appear to be abating.  Briefly, we should survey the landscape of this disaccord in general. Then we can see what policies should be adopted in order to work towards solutions for the environmentally displaced Somalis in Dadaab: how to best cope with their plight in its current context (mixed up in a broader humanitarian disaster), and how to empower them so that should the political conditions be right, they are able to return to their lives and livelihoods.

Much of the tension around the definition lies in the challenge of separating environmental factors from other drivers of migration. This cannot be done easily as environmental degradation is usually a slow onset process that affects people who are directly dependent on natural resources for their livelihood (Dun & Gemenne, 2008). Although they have clearly left because of environmental factors, the new Somalis in Dadaab don’t fit neatly into the Convention. Other factors often weigh in to force “environmental refugees” to leave: landlessness, homelessness, unemployment, rapid urbanization, extensive government corruption or failure, ethnic violence, conventional conflict (as in Somalia), and increased rate of disease (Myers, 2002). But even if environmental degradation is the primary ‘push’ factor, how can we officially determine that it’s not the economic incentive—the ‘pull’ factor—that is the most important factor in determining migration? Further problematizing the policy response to climate change in the context of refugee studies is the lack of a base of empirical evidence (Black, et al., 2008). It is widely agreed that applied research is badly needed into how climate change will influence economic drivers of migration along traditional migration routes (such as Somalis to Kenya (Black, et al., 2008; Warner, 2011; Myers, 2002).

Many argue that giving environmentally displaced people some kind of official home under the refugee umbrella is counter-productive: although the attention to the plight of refugees generally would be welcomed, no actual good would come. Either too wide a definition will result in a net loss of assistance to those in need, or it would play into the hands of governments who wish to classify everyone as an environmental, and therefore economic, migrant to whom they have no responsibility (Dun & Gemenne, 2008) (Stavropolou, 2008). I am of the opinion that as a matter of compassion, environmentally displaced people should be thought of at the very least conceptually as equally vulnerable compared to Conventional refugees. However, given the current situation in Dadaab and the speed at which international policy making progresses, I would rather not put too many eggs in that basket. Besides the very slim possibility of getting resettled to the US or Canada—which in itself is not ideal, nor an easy process—what benefits come with a broader legal definition? We should not rule out an approach that gives (some kind of) legal status, for although one can say it is impossible to determine if climate change is the determining factor, it is certainly as valid as any other (Myers, 2002) and even under the Convention it suffices to prove that one of the conditions (discrimination based on race, religion, political belief etc.) is present, not that it is the primary condition (Dun & Gemenne, 2008). Given that the world has not dealt with the root causes of climate change and environmental destruction, we can unfortunately assume that they will occur at an increasingly rapid rate, even if we don’t know exactly how this will play out regarding displacement. The circular relationship between conflict and environmental degradation—competition over scarce resources causes conflict, which degrades the environment further, which increases tensions—needs to be understood within broader political and social contexts (Myers, 2002).

What’s to be done?

It is perhaps more interesting and instructive to note the similarities this debate has to the one 20 years ago surrounding internally displaced people (IDPs), which eventually yielded Guiding Principles (Stavropolou, 2008). Another such set of principles for the environmentally displaced could work well—bringing attention to the issues, linking policy and research, incorporating affected population feedback, and tying in efforts of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to fund adaptation with countries’ development plans to build local resilience (Black, et al., 2008) (Myers, 2002) (Warner, 2011).

Foreign aid clearly needs to be redirected and augmented, in addition to beefing up of UNHCR’s budget. This is only to cope with meeting the basic needs in the camps effectively and should be seen as an underlying policy. The UNFCCC should also work to ensure pledges to the Green Climate Fund ($100b annually by 2020) should be forthcoming, accessible and directed at adaptation. More collaboration between the UNFCCC and UNHCR will build up knowledge for a proactive rather than reactive approach to environmental migrants (Warner, 2011).

Due to the impracticality and unlikeliness of mass resettlement to developed countries, and the growing inability and unwillingness of the Kenyan state to care for the burgeoning Dadaab complex, research into the potential return of Somalis is needed. To avoid yet more tragedy, the “right questions” (Stone, 2008) need to be asked regarding this possibility. What conditions does their return demand, for example? At a very base level, return will not be possible while Somalia is in such a state of anarchy. But even if it were, migration will occur so long as livelihoods are being undermined by a changing climate. Droughts increase vulnerability to future droughts by killing livestock and eradicating food stocks, unpredictable weather systems undermine livelihoods (Black, et al., 2008). As the already fragile environment of Dadaab is being further degraded by competition for resources, we are more likely to see increases in conflict and environmental damage itself.

The best approach is one of adaptation through education. No amount of orders from above will change harmful environmental behaviours (UNHCR, 2001, p. 55). But what kind of educational policies can shift behaviour to be more sustainable and ultimately improve the lives of all populations—host Kenyans, old Somali refugees, and new climate refugees—while also empowering newcomers with additional resilience that may help if ever they return?

Environmental Education is not the preserve of the West

Any educational project should be informed by the substantial work carried out by the UNHCR and International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), who have published guidebooks on environmental education in the context of refugee camps (UNESCO, 1997) (International Institute for Educational Planning, 2010) (UNHCR, 2001). Criteria of the UNHCR environmental guidelines should also be followed, namely that approaches be cost effective, include participation of all local stakeholders, integrate with other environmental management and humanitarian efforts, and be preventative rather than reactive in an ad-hoc manner (UNHCR, 1998, p. 11).

In Dadaab, there are 15 primary schools serving 17,000 children in the refugee population, and one local secondary school that some refugee children attend (UNESCO, 1997). Clearly the educational situation as a whole is not adequate. As various inhabitants of Dadaab have testified, An environmental education project would refocus attention on education in general and would allow for broader improvements—building more classrooms, regenerating old ones. To begin with an outreach campaign would be needed to encourage children to come and their parents to let them. Methods to facilitate this would be to link up with food programmes at the camp to give hot meals at the school for children. Another would be to give roles to women in the classroom, alleviating some concerns about security of children and involving more of the adult community in the education process. To ensure a broad reach, both of the initial advertisement and then later of the environmental messaging, requires the use of formal, non-formal and informal channels that incorporate different media and languages (UNHCR, 1998) (ProAct Network, 2010) (International Institute for Educational Planning, 2010).

Ideally a baseline study would be carried out to establish both educational needs and environmental attitudes and behaviours. This should be done mindful of the dynamics between the three main divisions of people: hosts, previous refugees, and new climate refugees. These initial assessments would also bring together most of the NGO and UN actors to assess how environmental education can be brought into the camp as part of broader environmental management strategies, and in a way that reinforces any environmental themes in other programmes. Any discussions crafting the details of the project should involve in a central way not only representatives of the refugee population (teachers, students, parents) but also civil society (NGO workers in other projects, UN staff,) government (Kenyans education and development officials) and importantly, the host population (teachers, leaders). To avoid future conflict over environmental problems, the host population must be involved in the process. No doubt they, as the established population, will have valuable know how that can be incorporated into the educational project. They will also be able to outline to project designers what the local laws and traditions are regarding the environment.

Obviously a project of this ambition requires a lot of planning, money, training, and coordination. There is no formula for sustainable development. For every problem anticipated, there will be five more that come up. And Dadaab is an extremely challenging, volatile, and complex setting. Beyond camp security (shaky at best), the risks are great: environmental education is paramount to environmental sustainability, and that sustainability is paramount to survival. But a self-reflective, continuous, multi-sectoral approach, based on local knowledge and supported by public information and mutually agreed short term regulation that clearly sets out the rules could yield tangible results in terms of environmental, and therefore lifestyle, improvement (International Institute for Educational Planning, 2010) (UNHCR, 1998). Luckily, UNESCO has already run a (poorly documented) pilot project in environmental and peace education in Dadaab. A future project can build on their efforts, benefit from the resources they developed (teacher training, pupil workbooks, lesson plans etc) and learn from their lessons. Refugees should be involved early on in planning, formal and non-formal channels should be harmonised, teacher training should be participatory, activities should be linked to other projects, and the largest costs will be occurred in start-up (UNESCO, 1997).  

Perhaps the most obvious and most reactive potential criticism to such a project is that it is culturally condescending—a western guilt over environmental damage hoisted on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. While it is always good to be on the lookout for greenwash, it must also be understood that sustainable development is not about green consumerism or imperialism, it is about ensuring that present needs are met without sacrificing future generations’ abilities to meet the same needs. The effort to bring a sustainable development paradigm to people who need it urgently is not a cheap, quick, or easy task. Efforts to do so need commitment across the board, and they need proper measures of accountability, transparency, gender/cultural sensitivity and supporting research. If those conditions are met, Somalis in Dadaab could just maybe start removing some of those baskets of sorrow.

 

References and Resources

*To learn more about conditions in Dadaab from the perspectives of Somalis who are either currently living there or have now left, see the excellent “Somalis in Maine,” referenced below.

Adow, M. (2008, October). Pastoralists in Kenya. Forced Migration Review(31), p. 34.

Black, R., Kniveton, D., Skeldon, R., Coppard, D., Murata, A., & Schmidt-Verkerk, K. (2008). Demographics and Climate Change: Future Trends And their Policy Implications for Migration. Brighton: University of Sussex.

Boano, D., Zetter, P., & Morris, D. (2008). Environmentally Displaced People: Understanding the linkages between environmental change, livelihoods and forced migration. Oxford: University of Oxford.

Dahir, M., & Perry, A. (2011, September 5). A Famine We Made? Time, pp. 38-41.

Dun, O., & Gemenne, F. (2008, October). Defining ‘environmental migration’. Forced Migration Review(31), pp. 10-11.

European Commission. (2011). “Climate Refugees” – Legal and policy responses to environmentally induced migration. Brussels: European Parliment. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://www.statewatch.org/news/2011/dec/ep-climate-change-refugees-study.pdf

Herlinger, C. (2012, January 19). “Food becomes Everything”. National Catholic Reporter, 48(6), 20-21.

Huiseman, K. A., Hough, M., Langellier, K. M., & Nordstrom Toner, C. (2011). Somalis in Maine: Crossing Cultural Currents. Berkely: North Atlantic Books.

International Institute for Educational Planning. (2010). Chapter 4.4 Environmental Education. In International Institute for Educational Planning, Guidebook for planning education in emergencies and reconstruction (pp. 85 – 101). Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001902/190223e.pdf

Myers, N. (2002). Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 357(1420), 609-613. Retrieved February 27, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3066769

Needham, A. (2009, December 18). Nowhere to hide from climate change in Kenyan refugee camp. Retrieved from UNHCR: http://www.unhcr.org/4b2b76a79.html

OCHA. (2011, October 25). Somalia Famine and Drought Situation Report 19. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from Internal Displacement: http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpDocuments%29/DC59083766027A7DC1257938007897E5/$file/OCHA+Somalia+Situation+Report+No.+19-25+October+2011.pdf

Perry, A. (2010, December 13). Land of Hope. Time, pp. 68-73.

ProAct Network. (2010, October). Environmental Management in Camp Settings. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from ProAct Network: http://proactnetwork.org/proactwebsite/media/download/Factsheets/ProActFactsheet_EnvironmentalManagementInCampSettings.pdf

Stal, M. (2011). Flooding and Relocation: The Zambezi River Valley in Mozambique. International Migration, 49, 125-143.

Stavropolou, M. (2008, October). Drowned in definitions? Forced Migration Review(31), pp. 11-12.

Stone, D. (2008, October). Asking the right questions. Forced Migration Review(31), pp. 42 – 43.

UNESCO. (1997). Refugee Education in Kenya: Education for a Peaceful and Sustainable Future. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from UNESCO: http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/emergency/casestudy/kenya.htm

UNHCR. (1998). Refugee Operations and Environmental Management: Key Principles for Decision Makers. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://www.unhcr.org/3b03b24d4.html

UNHCR. (2001). Refugee Operation and Environmental Management: A Handbook of Selected Lessons Learned from the Field. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://www.unhcr.org/406c38bd4.html

Warner, K. (2011, May). Climate Change Induced Displacement: Adaptation Policy in the Context of the UNFCCC Climate Negotiations. Retrieved from UNHCR: http://www.unhcr.org/4df9cc309.pdf

Weir, E. A., Blätter, A., & Gabaudan, M. (2011, December 12). Horn of Africa: Not The Time To Look Away. Retrieved from Refugees International: http://www.refintl.org/policy/field-report/horn-africa-not-time-look-away

 

Posted:
March 30, 2012
Author:
Nathan Thanki

What on [earth] is going on?

An update

By Nathan Thanki

Earth in brackets, as a team or as an online presence, does not exist in a void. We actually exist inside the very warm embrace of College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Maine. A small, young school (350 students, 40 odd faculty, founded 1969) that offers one (or infinite, depending on who you ask) major: human ecology. Right now is not the time to enter the labyrinth of explaining human ecology. I’ll save that for my junior year. Nor is it the time to openly advertise COA; for that you may visit coa.edu. The purpose of this blog is to update you wonderful readers on what the next year, and specifically the next nine weeks, has in store for [Earth].

With a lot of energy and attention around this project after Durban—despite the bitter disappointments suffered—and with the storm brewing over Rio+20, now would be the time to really take our little endeavour to another level. So we applied and were accepted to COA’s sustainable business programme—giving us the much needed time, resources and funds to make the most of all that energy.

Our hope is to reach more people. We know you’re out there—rabble-rousers, change-makers, informed radicals, human ecologists. The language of power that exists in the UN is deliberately obtuse, to prevent our meaningful involvement. We think can translate that language enough to inform. Our hope is to be a dissenting voice, a force for positive change that highlights injustices and their solutions; our hope is to empower and embolden youth activism.

Some of what we are going to do over the next term is long overdue and relatively uncomplicated (I say that now). This entire website could do with a facelift, a reorganizing. As our content grows, better categorization is needed. To be a resource for others at COA and further afield, earthinbrackets.org has to become more user friendly; easier to navigate and interact with. To this end, your thoughts and feedback would be much appreciated. Also, not everybody enjoys reading, surprising as that may be. We’re hoping to incorporate different modes of expression: to that end, keep your eyes open for a feature length documentary about our time at the climate negotiations in Durban, as well as video updates from Bonn and Rio. Getting the word out there will take some work on advertisements, and building up some promotional and educational material (check out our ‘what is climate justice’ primer booklet/pdf).

Then again, some of what we hope to achieve is a lot more long-term and harder to accomplish quickly. The challenge of sustainability looms large for our project as it does for the human civilization project. We need to ensure that the enthusiasm for [Earth] remains and a good way to do that is to strengthen ties to the curriculum. Contribute to the project as part of class! The harder part of sustainability is the financial side. How can we maintain a presence at the UN circus as it travels around the world bringing empty promises and great fanfare? It takes money. So far things have more or less worked out thanks to the generosity of COA (and the Davis family especially, who many of us owe a lot to) but we cannot rely on the existing channels indefinitely. ‘Networking’ is a term that makes me cringe, but we’ll be doing a lot of that too. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved, so we’re eager to build new bridges and strengthen existing connections among youth activists. Ours is a collaborative worldview, not a competitive one.

With all this in mind, don’t be surprised to see some changes to the site, to see more of us or hear from us. And don’t hesitate to get in touch with comments or ideas. You can email me directly – nthanki@coa.edu. Easy as you go.

Posted:
March 7, 2012
Author:
Nathan Thanki

Belo Monstro: a first hand account of hydro-politics in Brazil

COA student Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler is currently in Altamira, Brazil, from where he sent us this dispatch. As an [Earth] delegation heads off to the World Water Forum in France, this piece serves as a poignant reminder as to what is at stake in the world of hydropolitics. You can read more about Jivan’s experiences on his blog. 

*****

The Xingu and the dam run side by side through the social fabric of Altamira, with people trying to navigate between the two and one threatening to overtake the other.  Belo Monte is everywhere in the city, though the construction is actually taking place 40 kilometers downriver.  Scores of cars are marked CCBM — Consorcio Construido Belo Monte, most hotels are full of people working on the dam, and graffitti pops up sporadically:  “Fora Belo Monte, Away Belo Monte”  “Belo Monstro, Belo Monster.”  Restless young men in CCBM jumpsuits hang out in the park in groups during lunch time and walk the streets at night — they’re new to the city.  A garbage truck sponsored by the consortium roams the streets at night once traffic has died down in town, cleaning up stray garbage  Young women in white shirts have jobs with a social program that fights dengue, also sponsored by the dam’s builders.  But not everyone is convinced the consortium is out for the public good, though.  “Dengue” has been crossed off on a poster that had read “Dengue kills” in Portuguese, and has been replaced with “CCBM.”

Near the river there are houses on stilts made out of neat strips of woods and topped with wavy, corrugated tin roofs.  There isn’t much to the houses, and the voices of their residents bounce out into the street through open doors, but they seem solid and there are lines running down to them for electricity.  A wooden sidewalk above a stream that connects to the river is held up by makeshift poles and the walk has gaps big enough you wouldn’t let you toddler walk on it.  Canoes line the stream.  Glosy blue posters stand out on many of these houses.  One says “COTA 100″ and explains the that the water level in the Xingu will rise to 97 meters above sea level once the dam is built, and that all houses will need to be at least 100 meters above sea level after it is built, which most of the houses in the neighborhood are not.  The other poster says “Belo Monte é melhor pra voce.  Belo Monte is better for you,” and explains the consortium will either: One, provide you with a new house if you are forced to move; Two, Give you credit towards a new house in town; or Three, Give you the value of your house in cash.

But as striking as the dam’s mark is in Altamira, it pales in its sway to the bend of the Xingu that fronts the city.  The length of the town’s border with the river is all public space — a boardwalk, grassy areas, benches, basketball courts, and street vendors that sell roasted nuts and tiny cooked bird eggs run the length of it.  Behind it all as the backdrop to life is the vast blue of the river, slowly heaving being heaved by its own force to some other place, always watching the city as it goes by.  On the other side of the river there are trees and nothing more.

And it’s more than a symbol, more than a mere geographical feature that was important in the region’s history and persists as a psychological presence.  Boats line the water on the city’s edge — some are motorized canoes, others look like houses fitted onto rafts.  Throughout the day and night there is someone heading one way or the other or there is fisherman in a canoe gliding slowly and intently.  There is also a boat that makes the two day journey to Belem, the state capital, once a week — an option much cheaper than a plane and faster than a bus on the dirt roads of the region.  All this is threatened by the Beautiful Mount of electricity, and jobs, and infrastructure — the Belo Monte.  In September a lawsuit brought by an association of ornamental fishermen caused an injunction which stopped construction on the river for a month.  Construction proceeded on land until the injunction was overturned by another court.

There are other criticisms, too.  The standing water provided by the reservoir behind the dam may be a breeding ground for malaria carrying mosquitoes.  The project is also expected to bring 100,000 job-seekers to the area with no guarantee there will be work or housing for all of them. This could mean an increase in crime, drugs, and prostitution.  And while Norte Energia has factored into its impact assessment the  people who will have to move because of the flooding, those living in the part of the Xingu known as the Big Bend, whose flow will be greatly reduced to its diversion to fill the reservoir, are not considered directly affected and will not be compensated. There is also the question of whether the amount of water in the river during the dry season will be enough to generate any power at all.  Some think the only way to make use of Belo Monte year round will be to build more dams and reservoirs upriver to temper the seasonal fluxes, an allegation Norte Energia denies.  Finally, critics say planners are being dishonest by billing the project as a clean alternative to coal and oil.  While the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, when organic matter such as the wood in forests is submerged in water, its decay releases methane because of a lack of oxygen.  Methane is twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.  Many people simply don’t think the potential power is worth it.

 *****

The project that is now known as Belo Monte was originally proposed in the 1970′s with a different name and with financing from the World Bank and other international partners.  Major indigenous opposition and international pressure shut down the project in 1989 before it ever broke ground.  For a decade the construction plans and environmental impact assessment were reevaluated and the project stayed largely under the radar.  But in 2002 the plans were unveiled for the new version of Belo Monte.  This time it’s being financed by a combination of Brazilian private and public firms under the name Norte Energia, with the actual construction contracted out to the firm CCBM.  It’s also being heavily subsidized by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES).  This time around it’s framed as a Brazilian project to keep fueling the national economy and help develop one of the poorer regions which hasn’t been touched by the benefits Brazil’s 9% yearly growth in GDP.  If built it will be the world’s third largest dam, exceeded only by Three Gorges, in China, and Itaipu, on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

I asked a professor in Santarem, a nearby city, about the prospect of making Brazil’s infrastructure more efficient, and thus preventing the energy already on the grid from slipping through the cracks, rather than building a dam to generate more, which was the solution my Hydropolitics class coalesced around during our mock stakeholder negotiation.  He said, yes, Brazil needs to improve its infrastructure, but you can’t always tell a country, “Just fix what you have,” eventually every country needs more energy.

But some of the international criticisms of the project resonate with people in Altamira.  We’re not going to see any of this energy, one man told me, it’s all going to the South, just like with Tucurui — a dam nearby which has been criticized for fueling the growth of cities in the South like Sao Paulo and neglecting the rural region in which it has been built.  It’s all about mining, someone else said, there’s a lot of manganese and bauxite in the area and they need energy to process it.  The professor I talked to in Santarem had affirmed this. He said the energy demand is tied to the fact that the developed countries which used to import bauxite in its raw form have, in an effort to cut down on energy consumption, begun only importing aluminum — essentially shifting the energy burden of transforming the raw material into the finished product onto the developing countries where bauxite is mined.

My first full day in Altamira I wandered around town, trying to read the city like a book.  I eventually stopped and bought a salgado, a little piece of fried bread with cheese inside, from a woman near the river.  As the sky opened up began to pour I stayed under the little roof that overhung her shop and talked to her and her husband — who lauged at my still developing Portuguese and let me try the region’s white rum, cachaça.  What do people think about Belo Monte, I asked.  She moved her hand back and forth like a see-saw, a lot of people are for it and a lot are against it.  Here, she said, gesturing along the dirt road beside the river, people are against it, because they’ll have to move if it’s built.

She said a lot of people in Altamira have gotten jobs with the dam, and a lot of people are coming from elsewhere for jobs too.  There’s not room for all of them, she said, flailing her arm down the dirt road at the houses.  It’s dangerous here at night now, people get their bags stolen.

But a boy about my age, maybe a little younger, said yes, it was a good thing if it meant jobs.  And a woman at one of the ritzier cafes in town told me all the people eating lunch upstairs worked for the dam.  Is it a good thing for Altamira, I asked.  Of course it’s good, she said.  A dramatic pause.  “É progresso.  It’s progress,” she said, drawing out the word.  Before I’d started asking about the dam she’d said she had moved to Altamira a year ago from Sao Paulo to start up the shop.  She didn’t like it here, the culture is different.  People here are lazy, they don’t have the same culture of work as people in the South.

A lot of people are for it: the taxi driver, the salesman — said a man I bought anothersalgado from, gesturing with his hands, because their business is with people from the dam.  But the dam will finish and the money will leave and then we’ll be worse off than before.  They offered me R$15,0000 for my house, said a woman I talked to with a house near the docks, but what can you buy with 15,000 reais?  Maybe they’ll give us one of these nice new houses with a nice new bathroom they say they are building, but I haven’t seen any of these houses yet.

*****

         The modern looking building Norte Energia has built in the center of town facing the river, with its translucent blue sliding doors, looks not so much imposing as out of place.  And the tiny color-coded recycling bins on the patio in the front seem somewhat patronizing next to the shacks on the river’s edge and the piles of garbage swirling in the eddies.  Inside the building there is a scale model the size of two pool tables showing the dam, reservoir, and surrounding areas.  All the construction features, as well as the town and roads, are fit with little labels.  The model imbues a sense of the project’s scale and impacts — Altamira, a town of 100,000, takes up only a small quadrant, dwarfed by the proposed reservoir (the land that will be flooded) and by the vast stretch of river that will be diverted to fill it.  On two tables next to the model sit thirty-some laminated volumes that make up the Belo Monte Environmental Impact Assessment, as if daring someone to say the decades worth of planning haven’t been thought through.

What does seem imposing is the Policia Militar, Brazil’s heavily armed equivalent of the National Guard, which has been stationed in Altamira since May 2011.  It’s not so much the guns that are intimidating — even local cops and security officers in Brazil have the firepower and body armor of an American SWAT team — it’s the presence of this national security force in a relatively small and off the beaten path town like Altamira.  As an anti-dam activist told me — the worst crime in Altamira last year was someone stealing women’s underwear off clothes-lines.  But once people are forced to move out of their homes, they’ll need the soldiers, he said.

The most prominent anti-dam group in Altamira is Xingu Vivo Para Sempre, whose name mean Xingu Alive Always.  Their office is filled with informational posters on Belo Monte, inspirational ones of native people and community organizers,  books and journals on social and environmental policy, anti-dam literature, newspaper articles, and a handful of staffers and volunteers.  In the short time I was there I witnessed a television interview with journalists from another Brazilian state, a meeting with officers from the Policia Militar, and a planning session for a Canadian band that wanted to do an anti-dam concert in the city.  On my second afternoon at the office a group of high school students arrived and I was invited downstairs to watch them perform a choreographed dance before a small audience in a warehouse-type room.  The dance reenacted the arrival of Europeans in the region and their imposition on the indigenous peoples — relating the struggle in the end to the imposition of the Belo Monte on the town and native groups in the area.  The men and women that make up Xingu Vivo seem a like a smart, savvy, dedicated group and they make weekly trips out to the indigenous communities.  I wish my Portuguese had been better at the time or I that I’d had the wherewithal to corner the couple English speakers in the periods they were free to ask more questions because they were a valuable source of information and understanding.

At the same time though — and this has less to do with the merits of the dam — my time with the group stood out next to my time wandering through the streets of Altamira.  Theirs was a world of blackberrys and slacks and taxi cabs that seemed somewhat removed from the horse-carts and tin roofs that make up a lot of the town.  This isn’t to say that there isn’t a middle-class in Altamira — there is, and the members of Xingu Vivo fit squarely into it.  But I couldn’t help but think the everyday reality of the anti-Belo Monte activists was closer to that of the engineers working on the dam.

The night I went to a planning session for the Canadian band, some people from Xingu Vivo sat on a patio with people from another anti-dam group.  They discussed and debated what and where the band (which didn’t have instruments with them and didn’t know Portuguese) should play and tried to hash out logistics.  At the end of the meeting when I asked how long the people around me had lived in the area I found out all fifteen or so were from other states and had been in town just a few months.  It’s a contradiction that I think a lot of us interested in human rights and development — internationally or in our home countries — have to face eventually: when we show up in a community we hope to help organize we come from an economy and society that ensures our background and everyday lives will be closer to the consultants and engineers of the corporations we criticize and to the civil servants of the governments we try to change than to the people with whom we work.

But the picture is more blurry than that, and it grows blurrier every day as the world grows smaller.  Belo Monte is a project of the Brazilian government and Brazilian industry and on some level it is a question Brazilians need to sort out themselves.  But in Brazil, as in any country, who and what are Brazilian is an open discussion, constantly in flux.  There are minorities, like the indigenous tribes of the Xingu, that were not invited to become Brazilian for centuries, and who have been marginalized by governments and persecuted by lighter skinned peoples.  In 2012 the groups have access to the global community, through internet and cell phones and all the varieties of information technology and social media they make possible.  So do the people of Altamira and smaller towns along the river, which have long been underrepresented in matters of state.  Indigenous youth are collaborating with professors and NGOs.  Tribal leaders and town dwellers can tell their stories on web pages transmitted instantly around the globe.  People who have long been on the margins of their own society can reach out to far flung corners of the international community and find powerful allies.  Raoni Mektuktire, the chief of the Kayapo people, who has a large disk inserted in his lower lip, took a petition about the dam with him to Paris.  This is what is making it harder for government officials to dismiss criticism as foreign intervention in a Brazilian project.  As Mektuktire and another tribal leader, Yakareti Juruna, say in a Xingu Vivo sponsored pamphlet, “President Lula said last week that he cares about the Indians and the Amazon, and that he doesn’t want international NGOs speaking against Belo Monte.  We are not international NGOs … Our butcher’s shop is the forest, our market the river.  We don’t want the rivers of the Xingu disturbed anymore and neither do we want our villages and our children, who are going to grow up in our culture, threatened.”

The two go on to say, “We are here fighting for our people, for our lands, for our forests, for our rivers, for our children, and in honor of our ancestors.  We fight also for the future of the world, because we know that these forests bring benefits not just for the Indians, but for the people of Brazil and the entire world.  We know also that without these forests, many people will suffer much more, just as they are already suffering because of the forest that has been destroyed up to now.  Because everything is connected, like the blood that unites one family.”

         ***** 

        I tried to present here a somewhat impartial mix of ethnography and journalism that spoke to what I gathered from my time in Altamira.  I’m not an expert on dams or their social and environmental impacts and I don’t feel comfortable making strong statements about what the positive or negative impacts will be if Belo Monte is built.  In truth, with a project as large and the dynamics of culture and enviornment as sensitive as they are along the Xingu, I don’t think anyone knows what the exact impacts will be.

But my own thoughts as a student of human ecology and hydropolitics are that this is a mistake.  The energy this project would add to the grid does not justify the damage it could bring.  The changes threatening the tribes and towns are irrevocable, and there is not enough evidence to suggest they will be for the better  — not in the long term, not sustainably, not in a way that leaves people better off culturally and materially.  And while historians and conservationists can argue about the merits of saying the rivers and forest need to be “preserved” in a region that has been shaped by indigenous people for millenia, the truth remains that the landscape, and the lives it allows people to live along the Xingu, are much different than the land and the lives of people on most of this rapidly urbanizing Earth, and that is something worth saving.
Posted:
February 27, 2012
Author:
Nathan Thanki

The 6th World Water Forum…

…will start in less than 2 weeks.

Earth in Brackets will be there in the thick of it.

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