Developing Amazonia

This study of the Grande Carajas programme, the largest project in the Amazon rainforest, is central to the debate on its future and fate. The social and environmental costs of the programme are examined here.

This study of the Grande Carajas programme, the largest project in the Amazon rainforest, is central to the debate on its future and fate. The social and environmental costs of the programme are examined here.

This book argues against the assumption that sustainability and environmental conservation are naturally the common goal and norm for everyone in Amazonia. This is the first book focusing on agency, reflexivity and social development to address sustainable development in the region. It discusses the importance of looking into societal dynamics in order to deal with deforestation and sustainable development policies through the ethnography of an Amazonian settlement named New Paradise. This book demystifies utopian and overtly conservationist views that depict the Amazon rainforest as a troubled paradise. Engaging with social theory of practice with particular focus on emergentist perspectives and Foucault’s analysis of ‘heterotopia’, the author shows that Amazonia is a set of settlement heterotopias in which various local and external initiatives interact to make up real, lived-in places. The settlers’ placemaking continually rearranges power and material relations while the process usually emphasises utopian developmentalist and conservationist policy intervention. This book explores in detail how, as power relations are arranged and governance reshaped, sustainable development and construction of a green society also need to become a goal for the settlers themselves. The book’s insights on the relationship between the sustainable development frameworks used in environmental policy, and ongoing societal development on the ground inform debate both within Amazonia, and in comparable communities worldwide. It also offers institutional pathways to realise new, more engaging, policy intervention for development professionals and policy makers.

This book brings together a valuable collection of case studies and conceptual approaches that outline the present state of Amazonia in the 21st century. The many problems are described and the benefits, as well as the achievements of regional development are also discussed. The book focuses on three themes for discussion and recommendations: indigenous peoples, their home (the forest), and the way(s) to protect and sustain their natural home (biodiversity conservation). Using these three themes this volume offers a comprehensive critical review of the facts that have been the reality of Amazonia and fills a gap in the literature.The book will appeal to scholars, professors and practitioners. An outstanding group of experienced researchers and individuals with detailed knowledge of the proposed themes have produced chapters on an array of inter-related issues to demonstrate the current situation and future prospects of Amazonia. Issues investigated and debated include: territorial management; indigenous territoriality and land demarcation; ethnodevelopment; indigenous higher education and capacity building; natural resource appropriation; food security and traditional knowledge; megadevelopmental projects; indigenous acculturation; modernization of Amazonia and its regional integration; anthropogenic interventions; protected areas and conservation; political ecology; postcolonial issues, and the sustainability of Amazonia.

The Amazon region is the focus of intense conflict between conservationists concerned with deforestation and advocates of agro-industrial development. This book focuses on the contributions of environmental organizations to the preservation of Brazilian Amazonia. It reveals how environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and others have fought fiercely to stop deforestation in the region. It documents how the history of frontier expansion and environmental struggle in the region is linked to Brazil’s position in an evolving capitalist world-economy. It is shown how Brazil’s effort to become a developed country has led successive Brazilian governments to devise development projects for Amazonia. The author analyses how globalization has led to the expansion of international commodity chains in the region, particularly for mineral ores, soybeans and beef. He shows how environmental organizations have politicized these commodity chains as weapons of conservation, through boycotting certain products, while other pro-development groups within Brazil claim that such organizations threaten Brazil's sovereignty over its own resources.

This report, prepared by the Commission on Development and Environment for Amazonia at the initiative of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty and supported by the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, is based on the concept of an Amazonia that exists above and beyond the world of fantasy and myth: an Amazonia of flesh and blood, of human toil, of human history, of human faces and hopes, and future human beings. It is an analysis based not only on the experiences and technologies of today"s world but also, and with greater emphasis, on the wisdom accumulated for centuries by Amazonia itself: standing Amazonia. The Amazon region has the largest area of tropical forest on the planet, and concern for its environmental deterioration extends well beyond the borders of the eight countries that form a part of it. With support from the IDB and UNDP, the Commission on Development and Environment for Amazonia prepared this report that provides data on the region's natural resources, population, health and infrastructure.

This groundbreaking study engages with the theoretical aspects of realism - a long neglected area in film studies.. Contributes to an understanding of how popular films use realist forms to address contentious social and political issues such as social exclusion, war and violence.. Focusing on key moments in film history the authors examine the uses of realism in national cinemas as a context for their in-depth analysis of contemporary popular films.. A series of case studies examines the hybrid styles of realism used in recent filmmaking practice and the politics of these forms in relation to topics such as urban youth and domestic violence (Boyz N the Hood, La Haine, Once Were Warriors, Ladybird, Ladybird, Nil By Mouth), government conspiracies and war (Cry Freedom, JFK, Schindler's List), and serial killers (Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, Man Bites Dog, Natural Born Killers).. Will give rise to new directions in the theorisation of both popular film and realism in the cinema.

This report, prepared by the Commission on Development and Environment for Amazonia at the initiative of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty and supported by the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, is based on the concept of an Amazonia that exists above and beyond the world of fantasy and myth: an Amazonia of flesh and blood, of human toil, of human history, of human faces and hopes, and future human beings. It is an analysis based not only on the experiences and technologies of today"s world but also, and with greater emphasis, on the wisdom accumulated for centuries by Amazonia itself: standing Amazonia. The Amazon region has the largest area of tropical forest on the planet, and concern for its environmental deterioration extends well beyond the borders of the eight countries that form a part of it. With support from the IDB and UNDP, the Commission on Development and Environment for Amazonia prepared this report that provides data on the region's natural resources, population, health and infrastructure.