report on IIRSA by Timothy Killeen

I haven't yet had time to read this report by Timothy Killeen (and published by Conservation International), but his subtitle shows how relevant it is likely to be to our course: "A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness: Development and Conservation in the Context of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA)".

I strongly recommend that you look it over.

Many thanks indeed to Alan Perry for drawing it to my attention.

articles on Xapuri, Madeira in the Washington Post

I strongly recommend that you visit the Washington Post website, and then key in "Partlow" in the search box. You'll find several links and, if you go there right now, you'll find those dated 12 and 14 October directly relevant to our course. Some of them are articles; others are links to photos.

I'm not sure how long the Post lets you have access to old articles and so, as I say, you should visit them as soon as you can.

roads and sustainable forestry in Acre

"Could environmentalists learn to love this road?" is the headline of an article published online by the InterAmerican Development Bank. Admittedly the IADB is an organisation fingered by many activists as all too willing to support infrastructural projects without adequate safeguards; even so, the article is a useful introduction to a number of current issues in the Brazilian state of Acre.

As it happens, the road being discussed is the BR-364, a highway going (more or less) west from the state capital of Rio Branco; it is not, therefore, the Interoceanic highway on which most of our focus lies (and which heads off from Rio Branco in a more southwesterly direction). Still, some of the issues addressed by the article could apply equally well to the case of either road and, moreover, we're likely to be travelling along the BR-364 itself as our itinerary changes, given current events in Bolivia.

Also mentioned in the article is the Antimary State Forest, an important project in the region and one that has come to represent attempts to develop practices of sustainable forestry. It is possible (though not yet certain; as I say, recent events in Bolivia are requiring us to change our itinerary) that we'll be able to visit Antimary and to spend a couple of nights there, as we did when visiting the region in 2000. If you read the article, you'll find a great deal to look forward to should we be able to make such a visit.

sustainable forestry in the Brazilian Amazon

The question of sustainable forestry is one that has both socioeconomic and environmental/biological aspects. If you're interested in these things, you might want to look at a journal such as Forest Ecology and Management and, in particular, at an article in Vol.256, No.7, which deals specifically with sustainable forestry in the Brazilian Amazon.

If, once you've opened the article, you scroll down to Section 5.2, you'll find a discussion of extractive reserves in Rondonia, one of the Brazilian states we'll be visiting. (Indeed, the concept of extractive reserves is one you should all be familiar with before we arrive.) You might also want to browse elsewhere in this long article.

soybeans and the Brazilian Amazon

Old images of Brazil as a country covered with jungle from top to bottom are in danger of being replaced by images of Brazil as one enormous field of beans.

This article, from the US Department of Agriculture, gives you some background into the changing place of soybean cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon. The report is from January 2004, but may well give you some valuable context for our travels. After all, one of the reasons for the road we're studying is to enable Brazil to export its beans to China more easily than by shipping them to the distant Atlantic coast.

Bolivia photos from the last Luther J-Term (2007)

Alan Perry, our main man in Bolivia, has posted some photos from the last Luther group to visit the area, in 2007. This time, we may or may not visit the same community (Sani), but the photos give you a good general idea of the region.

(There are photos of some other groups as well; just click on Sani/Luther College.)

U of Texas website on Latin America

A useful resource for many of the topics related to this course - and for your own specific interests - can be found here. Just browse around and report back on what you find.

As some of you may know, the Latin American programme at U of T is particularly strong. Who knows? Some of you may consider it for graduate school.

short article on Brazil nuts in Bolivia

You can get an introduction to the harvesting of Brazil nuts in the Pando Department of Bolivia - one of the most important sources of income for the people there, and indeed in other parts of the MAP region - by reading a short article by Jeff Bentley (with whose work I'm not otherwise familiar but who describes himself as an agricultural anthropologist, nicely providing a bridge between the physical and the social sciences as, of course, we ourselves aim to do in this course).

comment on Bolivia's recent recall referendum

There's a fairly comprehensive article about the recent referendum can be found here. It's put out by Upside Down World, an outfit with which I'm not familiar, but which looks sufficiently reliable at first glance for me to sign up for their free newsletter. (Their site also has an article about recent issues in Peru, which I haven't looked at yet but which is also likely to be relevant.)

I know that some of you, whose interests are more narrowly environmental than narrowly political, may think that my posts are getting too heavily into social science. It's obviously my natural inclination, but I should stress that the course itself will strike a balance between the two "narrow" views. Indeed, arriving at a "broader" understanding of the issues is one of our main goals.

So... let me encourage those of you who wouldn't normally "follow politics", to read articles such as the one mentioned above. If you want to follow events in the Bolivian Amazon, some such background (and, of course, other perspectives may be equally valid) is indeed essential.

CEPR article on Bolivia

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (often a somewhat progressive organisation, let it be said) has just published a report on Bolivia that you may find useful. Even if economics and political science are not your main interests, it is hard to understand what's going on in Bolivia unless you have some background of this kind - though other sources, of course, may be equally valuable, yet have different points of view - so I draw the report to your attention.

You may know that tomorrow, 10 August, is the date of an important national referendum, called by the President to buttress his position, but fraught with risk no matter what the outcome. I imagine the poll will be covered in the US press (eg, the New York Times and other major national papers), so I encourage you to keep your eye on the issue.

forestry and sustainable development

A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development on forests and forest-based livelihoods can be found here.

It covers a wider range of territory than our area of immediate interest but, for those of you who plan on digging deeper into forest-related topics when we're in the MAP region, this report may provide some valuable background.

issues raised by IIRSA

If your knowledge of IIRSA comes only from their site, then you may be wondering what all the fuss is about, and why it has been criticised by some. One way into this discourse is through articles such as this one by Raúl Zibechi. Admittedly it's a couple of years old, and much of the introductory material will be familiar to you from the IIRSA site itself, but if you scroll down you'll begin to see some of the issues raised that we need to keep in mind as we prepare to visit the region.

Obviously you don't have to agree with the article (which is, by the way, in English), but I do hope you'll find it useful.

new MAP resource

Let me draw this material, put out by a group out of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, to your close attention.

Some of the links found in the section headed "Economic integration" are closest to our theme, but many of the others are likely to interest members of our group.

Brazil to help Bolivia with road

I mentioned the other day that Lula would be meeting Evo Morales on 18 July. I've been slow to keep you updated, mainly because I've been travelling, but here's an article from Reuters that brings out the main points of their get-together (at which Hugo Chavez was also present).

Don't miss the last paragraph of the article, which has the specifics - but don't forget that the road they're talking about, which will run through northern Bolivia as far as Riberalta, isn't the "Transoceanic" road on which we've concentrated so far, and which connects Brazil with Peru. Many of the same issues are involved, though, in the two roads, and in fact in January we may travel along the existing road up to Riberalta, just to see what it's like before the new road goes through. (I made this journey by bus in October 2006 and it was pretty rough; in January, which is in the rainy season, it may simply be impassable.)

By the way, I'm currently in Manaus, where the local paper today happened to mention this agreement between Lula, Evo and Chavez. This paper, at least - I won't give you the link, as it's in Portuguese which I don't think any of you know - regards the whole exercise with approval. They see the road to Riberalta going on to connect with Brazil at Porto Velho (which we'll visit), and then going on up to Manaus by reopening an old highway that's been unusable for many years. (It was open briefly in the late '60s, when I travelled along it. Yes, that's right - the late '60s.) The editors of this Manaus paper see such roads as allowing the city to export its manufactured goods more easily. (There's already a road from Manaus up to Caracas in Venezuela, which Luther students travelled on in January 2007.) We usually think of these roads as helping Brazil export its agricultural products to China, so it was interesting to think of this additional support from manufacturing interests in the major city of Manaus.

Of course, not everyone would share their view. That's what makes this important issue so interesting.

Getting back to Lula, we seem to be following each other around. He was in Bolivia shortly after my visit there earlier this summer, and a couple of days ago I was in Leticia, Colombia, just 24 hours after Lula left having had yet another meeting with regional presidents (this time, I believe, from Peru and perhaps Ecuador as well as Colombia).

There's a whole lot going on in this part of the world, though I doubt you've heard much about it in the press back home.

Bolivian blog

I'm not yet sufficiently familiar with it to assess its reliability, but from what I've seen so far the Blog from Bolivia is quite likely to be helpful. It's in English.

The most recent post mentions the important national referendum to be held on 10 August.

Bolivian newsletter on sustainable development

Again for those who read Spanish, you might be interested to sign up for a newsletter put out under the name REDESMA. (Go to Boletín in the left-hand panel, and click on Suscribirme.)

REDESMA'S coverage is not limited to the Amazon, but I'm hoping that if some of you keep your eyes on this kind of source material, we won't let anything slip by.

latest news from Peruvian Amazon

The home page of this blog mentions the MAP site, and some of you may have subscriptions to their e-mail news service (available only in Spanish and Portuguese). If you've been keeping up, you'll have noticed that there have been demonstrations recently in the town of Puerto Maldonado which is our final stop in the Peruvian Amazon.

To keep up with these issues - if you're not already doing so - you could start with this article (in Spanish) and, as I say, sign up for their newsletter,

Bolivian and Brazilian presidents to discuss roads on 18 July

Those of you who read Spanish will see from this article that Evo Morales and Lula are to meet in Riberalta, Bolivia, on 18 July to discuss regional integration and, in particular, a road through northern Bolivia to the border with Brazil.

The article also mentions another project, that would link the Brazilian port of Santos with Arica on the Chilean Pacific, this time passing through Bolivia to the south of our area of interest (namely, through Santa Cruz and Cochabamba).

For better or worse, roads and other transnational infrastructure are hot topics in our region. I'll try to keep you informed as to any announcements that come out of the meeting on 18 July.

uncontacted indigenous groups

Two or three weeks ago, newspapers around the world showed photos of an indigenous community located in the Brazilian state of Acre not far from Peru. Apparently the group had never been contacted by the majority culture (unless you count flying over their village as contact), and the hostility shown by at least two of the men from the community - their bodies painted, they were pointing arrows at the plane - lived up to our stereotypes in a picturesque fashion.

The issues, of course, are complex, if we think about what it means deliberately not to make contact with a community - and ask, also, just why these pictures were released at this time. Possibly the intent was to draw attention to illegal logging in the area, especially in Peru, which might have driven this group over the border into Acre. Certainly it is hard to see their way of life continuing unchanged once the road we're studying is complete. Some of these issues are introduced in an article from the New York Times that you might like to read if you haven't seen the story elsewhere.

who owns the Amazon?

Brazilians are often concerned that other countries have designs on that part of the Amazon basin which falls within its borders; they fear that Americans and Europeans are starting to think of the Amazon as "too important to leave to the Brazilians". That particular quote actually comes from a recent editorial in The Independent, a leading English newspaper.

If you read the whole editorial (which I hope you will), you might find a different way of reading that phrase which sounds a bit less threatening to Brazilian sovereignty. After all, Brazilians themselves have said for years that their forests provide vital services to the rest of the world, and the editorial could be read as agreeing with that stance - saying, in effect, that the rest of the world ought to pay the Brazilians for keeping their forests intact. But the wording is such that it's hardly surprising that Brazilians are sensitive on this score (just as Canadians are nervous about American refusal to recognise their sovereignty over much of the Arctic).

The New York Times ran a similar article not long ago quoting, I believe, Al Gore to the effect that the Amazon was an international asset. What do you think of this idea? If the Amazon belongs to the world, where do you stop?

recommended magazine on Latin America

I recommend - and subscribe to - NACLA, a magazine on Latin America that comes out, if I recall, about four or five times a year. Admittedly its coverage goes beyond our region of interest, but you are likely to find that it gives you valuable background.

Health warning: it is of a somewhat progressive (leftist) slant, which may not appeal to all readers of this blog. I find it usually thoughtful and well-informed, but some of you may like to dig out a journal with a different perspective and let us know.

National Geographic article on Bolivia

I'm back from a productive visit to the region we'll be visiting in January, and shall have more to say about it in future posts.

For now, let me just draw to your attention an article on Bolivia in the latest issue of National Geographic. I haven't yet had a chance to read it all - you might want to note that there are a number of related articles, which can be found by following the links - but it does seem to be a helpful introduction to the country in which we'll be starting our visit to the region.

As I've found Guillermoprieto's work useful in the past, you may eventually find this article amongst the required reading for our course. In the meantime, however, perhaps you'd like to look at it simply out of interest :-)

World Social Forum to be held in the Amazon region, January 2009

Those of you interested in the way that environmental issues meld with questions of social justice may already know about the World Social Forum. At the end of January next year it will be held in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon (and in fact I'd hoped at first to include it in our itinerary).

The Forum can give the impression of lacking form and focus, but that's in the nature of a movement whose legitimacy derives from the grassroots. I went to the second Forum (in 2002), and found it exhilarating, even inspiring.

Further details of the 2009 Forum (in Belém) can be found here - though, as I say, things are a little up in the air right now.

Luther students have attended the Forum in the past, usually as part of a January course. At least once, though, a small group of students made an independent trip, yet with some financial support from the College. As we'll be in the region already, perhaps it would be cost-effective for a few of us to include the Forum on our way home.

This is very much a long shot but, if you're interested and highly motivated, we could look into it further. And, in any case, it's a good idea to keep an eye on what goes on at the Forum.

BBC special on the Amazon (recommended)

You might like to take a look at today's special on the Amazon put out by the BBC World Service.

At this early stage, when our own journey to the region is still a long time off, a general overview of this kind might be useful. Admittedly, I haven't had much of a chance to look it over in detail myself (though I see it mentions a book about Chico Mendes, whose home town of Xapuri we'll be visiting). Perhaps some of you might like to report back on anything you find of interest.

MAP and IIRSA links

If you're new to the blog, let me urge you to follow up on the MAP and IIRSA links found among permanent text in the right hand panel of this page.

There's no specific content for you to locate - on the contrary, I encourage you to rummage around and find matters of interest. On the MAP site, if you are able to read Spanish (or Portuguese), you'll find a greater range of material than if you limit yourself to English.

Talking of which, I also encourage you to sign up for MAP news feeds to your e-mail inbox; they don't come very often, and they're not extensive. They do, though, require you to read Spanish (or Portuguese), as in this case there's no English version. If, however, you come across an item of news in Spanish, perhaps you could translate the gist of it and publish it on this blog?

There may be a similar news feed on the IIRSA site - I haven't yet checked.

Brazil's environment minister resigns - Madeira dams last straw

The first post in a blog such as this is bound to be hard - we come to a story that's been running for a long, long time. Where to begin? How to help you understand that today's news out of Brazil is striking and significant?

I've decided to keep it short, and to fill in the details later. Here's the news: Brazil's environment minister, Marina Silva, has resigned.

If you google "Marina Silva resigns" you'll get the basic outline of the story, in articles such as this one from the BBC, which specifically mentions the proposed Madeira dams about which we'll learn much more. The last two paragraphs of the BBC article also mention something of Marina Silva's own story, but it's easy to find more online (this interview is merely the first one I came across), including book-length treatments. In the end, it becomes hard to separate her story from that of the issues with which she has been associated for so long: daughter of a rubber-tapper, illiterate until her teens, close associate of Chico Mendes, environmental activist, the youngest woman ever elected to the Senate, Minister of the Environment since 2002. (In spite of what you might think, Brazil has a higher percentage of women in the Senate than does the US - although I'd be grateful if someone would check this out and see if it's still true.)

Anyway, she's an extraordinary person, whom Luther students were fortunate enough to meet in 1997 when she received us at her office in Brasília.

There'll be much more in the press over the next few days and weeks about the meaning of this resignation - or, at least, there should be much coverage. I'll try to keep you posted although, of course, you yourselves can writ to this blog, and it'll be particularly interesting if you come up with articles from the Spanish-language press from neighbouring countries. (I'll translate some of the Brazilian views, though of course it takes time and I'll have to summarise.)

To sum up: for years people have wondered how much longer Marina (as she is usually known) could put up with an environmental policy that's been, let's say, less than entirely friendly to what we understand as sustainable development. Now the proposed Madeira dams - about which we'll learn a lot more - seem to have been one of the issues that has led her to resign.