Lowes Findings

1
Lowes Findings

• consumption end of commodity chain degradation
  driven in part by extreme value placed on these
  fish by consumers FAR AWAY (do not live with the
  effects)
• People of many ethnicities involved in cyanide
  fishing (NOT just the Sama)
  
• NOT all Sama fish with cyanide (most still use
  handlines) and many OPPOSE the practice
  
• Local people actively recruited by wealthy
  (sometimes foreign) owners of fish camps
  
• recruit YOUNG men (generational conflict)
• provide them with expensive outboard motors (must
  fish to pay off debts)
  
• fishermen feel trapped and exploited by
  relationship with fish camps
  
• Local government officials derive PERSONAL INCOME
  from permits issued to fish camps
  
• only poorest fishermen prosecuted, punishment
  largely symbolic and borders on extortion
  
• Sama possess in-depth ecological knowledge of
  fishing and could sustainably participate in the
  live fish trade
  
• including them in conservation efforts is CRITICAL

2
Cattle Ranching Deforestation in Latin America

• George Ledec now affiliated with the World Bank
  Environmental Unit for Latin America
  
• deforestation the more or less permanent
  removal of most of the natural tree cover from an
  area
  
• major cause of deforestation in Latin America
  CATTLE RANCHING
  
• not all parts of Latin America have natural
  grazing lands tropical forests cleared and
  fodder grasses planted
  
• requires large amounts of land (not many
  opportunities for intensification, must clear
  larger sections of land)
  
• yields much smaller economic returns per land
  area than other cash crops
  

3
Social Impacts of Deforestation

• Loss of Wood Production maximizes short-term
  profits from cattle over long-term profits from
  sustainable timber harvest
  
• Loss of Environmental Services watershed and
  soil conservation, hydroelectric power, fisheries
  (esp. fruit-eating fish), brazil nut production
  (destroys habitat for Euglossine bees that
  pollinates these trees)
• Loss of Biological Diversity 20 of all plant
  species on earth
  
• Climatic Stability rainforest generates 50 of
  its own rainfall
  
• Destruction of Livelihoods of Local
  Forest-Dwelling Peoples
  
• Replaces Crop Production and Agricultural
  Production (reduces fallow, etc.)
  
• Low-Density Settlements (costly to extend
  services and infrastructure to these areas)
  

4
Why raise cattle despite these drawbacks? What is
driving this production system?

• The Hamburger Connection
• i.e. Brazil worlds largest beef exporter
• 70 sold in the European Union
• system driven by demand for beef abroad
• Development Aid Government Policies
• ranchers receive subsidized credit from govt
  banks and land taxed at very low rates
  
• clearing land establishes ownership in the eyes
  of the government (ranching takes least labor and
  effort among ways of exhibiting ownership)
  
• target of development investment from
  international organizations
  
• World Bank (1985) Most countries in Latin
  America probably have a comparative advantage not
  in poultry and in pork but in beef and milk
  because of their substantial pastoral
  resources.
• these policies encourage the conversion of forest
  to pasture land
  
• MUST OFFER ALTERNATIVES to these policies to stop
  deforestation

5
Environmental Identity Social Movement Thesis

• Changes in environmental management regimes and
  environmental conditions have created
  opportunities or imperatives for local groups to
  secure and represent themselves politically
  (Robbins 2004 188).
• environmental movements often represent NEW
  forms of political action
  
• unite groups across class, ethnicity, and gender
  lines
  
• LOCAL social/environmental movements can weaken
  otherwise powerful GLOBAL political and economic
  forces

6
Kayapo Out of the Forest

• 1989 Brazilian indigenous groups unite to
  successfully stop the construction of a
  hydroelectric dam
  
• massive demonstration near proposed dam site at
  Altamira 600 Kayapo, 40 indigenous nations, 400
  news reporters, Sting
  
• Events researched and filmed by anthropologist
  Terence Turner (University of Chicago)
  
• Indigenous organizers Chief Ropni his nephew
  Poyakan
  

7

• Kayapo Background
• live along the upper tributaries of the Xingu
  River in Brazil
  
• sustained contact with outside world starting in
  the late 1950s
  
• 1993 population 4000, living in 14 relatively
  remote villages
  
• have semi-autonomous control of land reserves
  given to them by the Brazilian govt in 1980s
  1990s total 100,000 square kilometers of land
  (the size of Austria) land constantly encroached
  upon by Brazilian settlers, gold miners, etc.
• practice slash and burn agriculture as well as
  hunting and gathering

8
Kayapo Out of the Forest

• What barriers did the Kayapo overcome to organize
  this demonstration?
  
• How did they achieve this?
• Why did the Kayapo oppose the dam project?What
  were their principle arguments?
  
• How were the Kayapo regarded by non-indigenous
  Brazilians?
  
• What was the role of the international media in
  this controversy?