Avança Brasil: Environmental and Social Consequences of Brazil's Planned Infrastructure in Amazonia

“Avança Brasil” (Forward Brazil) is a package of 338 projects throughout Brazil; the portion of the plan to be carried out in Brazil's Legal Amazon region totals US$43 billion over 8 years, US$20 billion of which would be for infrastructure causing environmental damage. Brazil's environmental impact assessment system is not yet capable of coping with the challenge presented by Avança Brasil. Generic problems with the licensing process include stimulation of a lobby in favor of construction before decisions are made on the advisability of the projects, the “dragging effect” of third parties, whereby economic activity is attracted to the infrastructure but escapes the environmental impact assessment system, a tendency for consulting firms to produce favorable reports, a bureaucratic emphasis on the existence of steps without regard to the content of what is said, and the inability to take account of the chain of events unleashed when a given project is undertaken.The environmental and social costs of forest loss are high; among them is loss of opportunities for sustainable use of the forest, including loss of environmental services such as biodiversity maintenance, water cycling, and carbon storage. The benefits of export infrastructure are meager, especially from the point of view of generating employment. Much of the transportation infrastructure is for soybeans, while the hydroelectric dams contribute to processing aluminum. The example of Avança Brasil makes clear the need to rethink how major development decisions are made and to reconsider a number of the plan's component projects.     

ESTIMATION OF EPISODIC STREAM ACIDIFICATION BASED ON MONTHLY OR ANNUAL SAMPLING1

ABSTRACT: Programs of monthly or annual stream water sampling will rarely observe the episodic extremes of acidification chemistry that occur during brief, unpredictable runoff events. When viewed in the context of data from several streams, however, baseflow measurements of variables such as acid neutralizing capacity, pH and NO₃· are likely to be highly correlated with the episodic extremes of those variables from the same stream and runoff season. We illustrate these correlations for a water chemistry record, nearly two years in length, obtained from intensive sampling of 13 small Northeastern U.S. streams studied during USEPA's Episodic Response Project. For these streams, simple regression models estimate episodic extremes of acid neutralizing capacity, pH, NO₃·, Ca²⁺, SO₄^2?, and total dissolved Al with good relative accuracy from statistics of monthly or annual index samples. Model performances remain generally stable when episodic extremes in the second year of sampling are predicted from first-year models. Monthly or annual sampling designs, in conjunction with simple empirical models calibrated and maintained through intensive sampling every few years, may estimate episodic extremes of acidification chemistry with economy and reasonable accuracy. Such designs would facilitate sampling a large number of streams, thereby yielding estimates of the prevalence of episodic acidification at regional scales.     

Economic viability study of a separate household waste collection in a developing country

This article reports a study of the economic viability of a separate household waste collection project, and considers its social and environmental benefits. The study was developed from the database obtained through the pilot project on separate collections in João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba, in the northeast region of Brazil. The pilot project had been supported by the local municipal council since September 2000. The methodology applied to this study of economic viability is based on the economic quantification of the benefits and costs involved in the process of a separate collection of household waste. The benefits to the environment, owing to the reduction of the final disposal of household waste, were also evaluated. The results of this research are encouraging for the benefit cost relation (B/C) of both the quantified economic components and the environmental aspects. The values found for the relation B/C ranged from 1.27 to 1.77 depending on the economic quantification of the direct and indirect benefits to the components involved in the project, i.e., the waste collectors, the municipal council, the sellers of recycled material, and the recycling industry.     

Spatial Patterns of Water Quality in the Cuiabá River Basin, Central Brazil

This study evaluates the spatial patterns of land occupation and their relationship to water quality in the Cuiabá River watershed, one of the main affluents of the Pantanal floodplain. The impact of farming and other land occupation forms were studied using a three year time series. Monitoring included 15 parameters at 21 stations with a total of 1266 different samples. Ten stations along the Cuiabá River were ordinated by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). For an exploratory analysis in the spatial domain, sub-basins of the Cuiabá watershed were classified according to mean concentrations of selected water quality parameters. Supervised classification of digital Landsat ETM imagery and standard GIS techniques were applied to parameterize land use and occupation according to a watershed scale. Redundancy Analysis (RDA) was then used to evaluate impacts of environmental and socio-economic factors on water quality.A Cuiabá headwater station only shows slightly elevated total coliform counts and concentrations of nutrients in the river after it passes regions of extensive cattle farming. After the confluence with the Manso River, nutrient and COD concentrations increase significantly, receiving loads from sub-basins under intensive agricultural land use, with mean annual concentrations up to 1.74 mg/L of total nitrogen (Kjedahl). Sub-watersheds with intensive fishing culture activities were shown to have significant impact on nitrogen concentrations, reaching mean concentrations of 2.66 mg/L of total nitrogen in the affluents. Most serious biological and chemical water pollution can be observed at stream outlets in the urban agglomeration of Cuiabá/Várzea Grande. Affluent pollution is reflected in the water quality of the Cuiabá River: subsequent monitoring stations in the urban area are ordinated on a gradient of increasing degradation of chemical and biological water quality. The auto-depuration capacity of the Cuiabá River is intact, but elevated concentrations of Phosphorous and Chemical Oxygen Demand can be observed as far away as the Pantanal floodplain, about 120 km downstream from the urban agglomeration.     

E‐waste in the world today: An overview of problems and a proposal for improvement in Brazil

Environmental issues have been at the center of society's concerns for a long time. Recently, this kind of concern is growing even more due to the damage caused to the environment by electrical and electronic product waste. Based on this same concern, this work aimed to analyze, through a literature review, the production and treatment of electronic waste in today's world, with an emphasis on Brazil and China. The articles reviewed point to an increase in the production of this type of waste, in both Brazil and China, and reveal that the current processes of treatment of electronic waste mostly aim to obtain profit through the recovery of precious metals such as copper. This paper concluded that although Brazil is one of the major producers of e‐waste, more than 90% of its e‐waste has not had a proper final destination. This deficiency in e‐waste treatment in Brazil is mainly due to financial factors and the lack of a robust educational policy focused on the environment. Thus, this work suggests the implementation of an effective educational policy aimed at environmental conservation, as well as investments in research on recycling methods in Brazil, especially on the use of e‐waste as an aggregate in the manufacture of concrete.     

Opening Up for Participation in Agro-Biodiversity Conservation: The Expert-Lay Interplay in a Brazilian Social Movement

In science and environmental studies, there is a general concern for the democratization of the expert-lay interplay. However, the democratization of expertise does not necessarily lead to more sustainable decisions. If citizens do not take the sustainable choice, what should experts and decision makers do? Should the expert-lay interplay be dissolved? In thinking about how to shape the expert-lay interplay in a better way in agro-biodiversity conservation, I take the case of the MST (Movimento Sem Terra/Landless People’s Movement), possibly the largest rural movement in Latin America. The MST is in a process of turning towards environmentalism. It has adopted agroecology, a democratically oriented knowledge field. However, not all of the farmers were willing to adopt new environmentalist ideas and practices. Through ethnographic research, I analyze how expertise was recognized and redistributed within the MST, attending particularly to the role of MST coordinators and technicians. I explore how participation was framed and put into action. The adoption of agroecology brought to the MST a new and more inclusive map of expertise, but it also influenced new social distinctions within the communities. In part, farmers’ knowledge was labeled as ignorance. This may close down possibilities for dialogue as well as for sustainability. The paper suggests that experts’ power for discriminating among lay knowledges should come together with a responsibility for opening spaces for dialogue and action. One way of doing so could be by adding “interactional reflexivity” to experts’ expertise.     

Suitability of Nicotiana tabacum 'Bel W3' for biomonitoring ozone in São Paulo, Brazil

Nicotiana tabacum 'Bel W3' is a widely used sensitive bioindicator for ambient ozone, but it is rarely used in tropical countries. Our goal was to determine the suitability of this plant for biomonitoring ozone in the city of S?o Paulo by evaluating the relationships between leaf necroses and ozone under field conditions and measurements of chlorophyll a fluorescence and antioxidants in plants exposed to different concentrations of ozone in closed chambers. While a weak linear relationship between leaf injury and ozone concentrations (R(2)=0.10) was determined in the field, a strong linear relationship was observed in the chamber experiments. Maximum leaf injury was observed in plants submitted to 40 ppb, which coincided with a significant decrease in fluorescence and total ascorbic acid. The relationship between leaf damage observed in the field and ozone was improved when the concentrations were limited to 40 ppb (R(2)=0.28).     

Local to regional emission sources affecting mercury fluxes to New York lakes

Lake-sediment records across the Northern Hemisphere show increases in atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic mercury (Hg) over the last 150 years. Most of the previous studies have examined remote lakes affected by the global atmospheric Hg reservoir. In this study, we present Hg flux records from lakes in an urban/suburban setting of central New York affected also by local and regional emissions. Sediment cores were collected from the Otisco and Skaneateles lakes from the Finger Lakes region, Cross Lake, a hypereutrophic lake on the Seneca River, and Glacial Lake, a small seepage lake with a watershed that corresponds with the lake area. Sediment accumulation rates and dates were established by ²¹⁰Pb. The pre-anthropogenic regional atmospheric Hg flux was estimated to be 3.0 μg m⁻² yr⁻¹ from Glacial Lake, which receives exclusively direct atmospheric deposition. Mercury fluxes peaked during 1971–2001, and were 3 to more than 30 times greater than pre-industrial deposition. Land use change and urbanization in the Otisco and Cross watersheds during the last century likely enhanced sediment loads and Hg fluxes to the lakes. Skaneateles and Glacial lakes have low sediment accumulation rates, and thus are excellent indicators for atmospheric Hg deposition. In these lakes, we found strong correlations with emission records for the Great Lakes region that markedly increased in the early 1900s, and peaked during WWII and in the early 1970s. Declines in modern Hg fluxes are generally evident in the core records. However, the decrease in sediment Hg flux at Glacial Lake was interrupted and has increased since the early 1990s probably due to the operation of new local emission sources. Assuming the global Hg reservoir tripled since the pre-industrial period, the contribution of local and regional emission sources to central New York lakes was estimated to about 80% of the total atmospheric Hg deposition.     

A Successful Pilot Project of Decentralized Household Waste Management in Brazil

Summary Present municipal waste management paradigms in Brazil do not allow for flexible approaches to solving an extremely dynamic problem. This paper discusses the basic flaws in present thinking models of residents and municipal administrators. Fundamental arguments presented on municipal solid waste relate to nomenclature, destinations, definitions, logistics, social dynamics, social assistance programs, education and employment philosophies. In each case, the consequences of the stalemate are explained in terms of the unsustainable situation of constantly growing landfills. In sequence, a proactive thinking model is presented and explained that has the potential of drastically reducing landfill size. It is called Municipal Transit Material Processing. The model has been tested successfully in small communities and is now available for scale-up. The landfill diversion achieved stands at 62% of household waste in comparison with 15% theoretically possible in Brazil with selective collection models. Although of necessity the arguments apply directly to Brazil, the basic ideas behind the reasoning may be extrapolated to other Southern countries. The following simple example will illustrate to the reader the type of paradigm inversion the paper proposes to convey. The classical political slogan in Brazil is “get children out of garbage dumps”. The inversion proposed and explained is “do away with garbage dumps”.     

Assessing Landscape Health: A Case Study from Northeastern Italy

This article investigates the concept of biophysical landscape health for what are termed “highly governed landscapes.” It proposes a definition of landscape health along with a preliminary diagnostic model and methods. The idea of landscape health derives from the emerging integrative science of ecosystem health, which seeks to diagnose ecosystem condition as humans diagnose human health. Highly governed landscapes, such as the reclaimed areas of coastal northeastern Italy, are landscapes that have been subject to even greater degrees of human manipulation than normal cultural landscapes. These highly altered landscapes are not easily served by existing environmental paradigms and concepts of health are seen to have numerous advantages. This paper condenses a broader investigation of landscape health into three main sections. A brief review of the literature is followed by a case study, which details two different phases of landscape transformation in the Lower Piave area of northeastern Italy. A definition and general parameters of biophysical landscape health are then presented after this background stage. Some key parameters of biophysical health include absence of distress and risk factors, sustainability, biodiversity, resilience, and balance. For certain parameters, a preliminary landscape health diagnostic framework is presented that includes potential diagnostic methods and thresholds based on findings from this case study. At the paper's conclusion, a summary diagnostic model is presented, which suggests a process needed to implement landscape health assessment into practice.