Power-Games over the Environment Issue: Hydro-electric Belo Monte Dam is just one more bad example...

thursday, 02/11/10 - 00h18 AM

A few weeks ago, the brazilian Press put out the news: “The Tucuruí Lock Nº2 has been taken by protesters. The “invaders” belong to various “social movements” and submit a heavy negotiation backlog alleging their seeking for environmental impacts solutions.

It is reported that the Dam-Affected People Movement has adopted a new approach over the past two years by networking with other “social movements”, such as MST (Landless People Movement), FETRAF (Family-farming Workers Federation) and other ones by strengthening their common claims. The heavy claims-list bunches the various groups involved in the occupation together.

Among the claims by the “Social Movements” acting in the area affected by the Tucuruí Lake, are listed the impacts caused by the logging activity, charcoal production and land exploitation, i.e., the secondary impacts caused by the spontaneous colonization process brought about by the Locks construction.

The claiming leaders argue over the excessively slow-moving indemnification funds freeing in favor of the Locks construction affected families, as well as over the lack of a straight-forward and well-defined position by the Municipal Government regarding the land-area to be set aside for the building of 300 popular houses and an open-air fair around the area from which the Locks Lake is foreseen to emerge.

This type of protest-action tends to stretch on and on, as well as to further stiffening, as long as the Government does not ensure the proper and efficient application of the rules for environmental licensing of such highly-impacting projects, particularly when social and economic aspects are to be taken into account.

The Writer’s purpose is not to “warm over” this issue. The problem and its causes have indeed been recurring, have been taking place over and over, repeatedly, though in different situations, throughout the very history of Brazil and govern-rulings by various partisan colors, as time wears on, and always connected to the implementing of infra-structure mega-projects and those aimed at natural resources exploitation, no matter if renewable ones, or not.

All actions and proper measures are required to be foreseen and plainly defined, in full harmony with prevailing Legislation, by means of the control instruments, or, environment-committed projects. They should not be limited to the compensation effect range, but, on the other hand, they should aim at mitigating the negative impacts, as well as enhancing the positive ones, highlighting those of social-economic and environmental value.

In the State of Pará, what has regrettably taken place is the fact that, neither COEMA (the Environment State Council), which counts on a strong Civil Society representation, nor Citizens themselves, have taken advantage of such favoring Law provisions, throughout the public hearings which are held way-before the prospective studies are finished.

In hindsight, no matter if whites or Indians, as soon as they reach out for compensations, what they end up being after, in fact, are non-existing rights, inasmuch as, outside the requirements and parameters that expressly ruled the Environmental Licensing obtained by a company, all and any action expected from such a company has to be rigorously considered as “voluntary” and/or “self-free/goodwill-initiative”. The State machine ends up powerless to legally charge supposed infringers, while even the renewal and releasing of further Licenses could as well be bound up to fair compensations fulfillments.

Participatory democracy should ensure its own space as well as stimulate formal democracy to further broaden and strengthen civil society’s influence upon Government-made decisions. This sort of dynamics should help changing the very meaning of “governing”. A new perspective for decisions making would arise, leading non-governmental actors to share responsibilities with public sector managers, thus playing an effective role in the public scenario.

Whoever labors on the painstaking drudgery of consolidating participatory democracy, finds himself faced with the challenge of reconciling the efficiency of the made decisions with democratic ethics. For such, one ought to count on rulers’ political goodwill in giving in and sharing some power, and, from those occupying these participation spaces, the ability to attain top-improvement would be expected. The challenge would be for both winning the real participation space, and for consolidating the patterns of participatory and sustainable co-management, every time such public places are taken over by a population stratum. The participatory democracy exercise requires, though, permanent collective efforts, by both society and government.

Besides being quite more complex, the participation-based decision-makings do require much more hard-work in meetings, negotiations and processes organizing than those arisen from a centralized and non-participation model do. Therefore, it would be highly recommendable that participants’ neither time nor energies be wasted throughout these meetings.

The problems emerge and can be depicted from each participating individual’s attitude along the Public Hearings. Barriers to the success of these meetings usually arise from the participants’ very own attitudes. Different viewpoints, interests and goals may come into shock and further harden the situation if the issues inherent to the process are not duly clarified and negotiated. Background differences, like previous training and experience, as well as the institutional role played by each participant, are enough to establish this unevenness. Participation quality and ethics are jeopardized by a centennial legacy of a clientele-dependent, ego-cultist and authoritarian political culture.

The afore factors all contribute to nourishing certain “Power-Games”, which may have none, little or greater relevance in the decisions-making process. The problem becomes more serious when these “games” playing overmatch the goals, not only upon each meeting or Public Hearing, but throughout the whole participation process in general. As time wears on, the bona fide participant starts losing faith in the process and stepping out of it, frustrated by feeling exclusion and the perception of being inserted in something where the real purpose being fought over is nothing but only power-holding. The lack of ethics and true effectiveness leads the process to fading away both quantity and quality-wise.

It is such an issue that requires unselfishness and personal efforts by one in order to act open in relation to others, as well as negotiation, tolerance, patience, briskness and discipline skills, among other requirements. What mostly endangers a participatory meeting are the authoritarian mechanisms, typical to an anti-democratic political culture, played, to a greater or lesser extent, by the participants, impelled either by habit or deliberate purpose. It is important to be able to identify such mechanisms and to prompt the actions that will lead the participants to understand them, so that the work-group can replace them by democratic alternatives, opposed to indifference, to the hidden scene play, to the empty rhetoric dispute, to the unfocussed acting, to the generalized speech, to the conspiracy theory or the persecution syndrome.

Hydro-electric Belo Monte Dam is just one more example...