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.