History of the Amazon (Plínio de Camargo) - Amazon-PIRE

PIRE 09
History of Amazon
• 1492 – 6 to 12 million indians in the Amazon region (Hecht and Cockburn, 1990)
Indians Tapirapes
Photo: R.H. Tapie (1930)
•1494 - Tordesilhas
• 1500 - Pedro Alvarez Cabral arrived in Brazil
Route of Portuguese boats – 1415 - 1700
Painting – Benedito Calixto
Discovery of Brazil
Eduardo Bueno (2003)
The discovery of a river
• 1541 February – Gonzalo Pizarro & Francisco Orellana left Quito (Equador) towards the
Amazon basin searching for cinamon. 200 horses, 1,000 hunting dogs, 2,000 pigs, 4,000
indians and 250 spanish soldiers (Bueno, 2003)
• 1541 December – After crossing the Andean Cordilheira no more pigs or horses to feed
the expedition. Pizarro order Orellana to built a boat and launched it in to the water after
the confluence of the rivers Napo and Aguárico. Orellana, 57 soldiers and Frey Gaspar de
Carvajal start their historical trip into the Amazon basin.
• 1542 August – Orellana, Carvajal and 48 soldiers arrived in the Atlantic.
source:www.bresalien.de
www.daniel.duguay.free.fr
•Discovery of the Rio Negro....”On the same day we saw the mouth of another big river, on
the left side, which entered that one in which we navigated and of water as black as ink, and
therefore we gave it the name of Rio Negro. It ran so much and with such ferocity that for
more than 20 léguas (110 km) if made a stripe in the other water without mixing with that
one” (Translaction by Harold Sioli).
• 1580 to 1640 – Spain and Portugal are under the same
crown
Belém
S. Luís
• 1612 – French soldiers found the city of São Luís
•1616, January – Captain Castello Branco: foundation
of Belém
•1637, November 28 - Pedro Teixeira first expedition
Belém-Quito-Belém. 70 soldiers and 1200 indians in 47 canoas of good size
• 1638, June 24 – Pedro Teixeira arrives in Quito
• 1639, February 16 – Pedro Teixeira leaves Quito
• 1639, December 12 – Pedro Teixeira arrives in Belém
“Many fishes have special peculiarites,e.g. one, the indians call Peraque, has the shape of an enormous
eel or better of a small Conger. And the person who touches this fish begins to tremble all over like
attached by shivers of Malaria, and it lasts as long as there is a contact between the fish and this
person, stopping immediately when letting loose the fish” (Translation of H. Sioli, 1984)
1637, November
1639, December
1638, June
1639, February
• 1640 – Portugal separates from Spain after 60 years
• 1647 – Raposo Tavares Expedition
•1661 – Foundation of Santarém
•1682 – Commercial Company of the Maranhão & Grão-Pará: “drogas do sertão”
•1699 – Foundation of the fort São José do Rio Negro (Manaus) by the Portuguese
1661- Santarém
1690 – S.Gabriel
1616- Belém
1740- Tabatinga
1709- Tefé
1612- S.Luís
1699- Manaus
1639- Gurupá
1776- Porto Velho
·1736 – The French Académie des Sciences Charls Marie de la Condamine. First “scientist” in the
Amazon region. First to describe rubber (caucho)
Source: Bueno (2003)
•1760 – Marquis of Pombal x Jesuítas
• 1772 – States of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro linked direct to Portugal
•1777 – Marquis of Pombal sent his brother Xavier de Mendonça Furtado
to govern states of Maranhão and Pará. Importance of this region
•1792, January return of this expedition to Belém.
Book: “Jornadas Filosóficas”
• 1800 – Belém was exporting rubber shoes to New England
Source: Bueno (2003)
• 1808 – States of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro not more directly linked to Portugal. Now they
also belonged to Brazil
• 1822 – Independence of Brazil from Portugal
•1835-1840 – Cabanagem – alliance of forest peoples,
exploited Indianas, impoverished caboclos, and fugitive
slaves from the quilombos could no longer endure
the economic monopoly and oppresion of the oligarchs.
D.Pedro I – the first king of
Brazil
• 1817 – Maria Leopoldina Josefa Carolina
de Habsburgo came from Vienna to Rio
to maried D.Pedro I. She brought 15
scientists. Among them Johann Baptist
von Spix and Carl Friedrich Phillip
von Martius.
• 1823 – “Reise in Brasilien”
• 1908 – “Flora Brasiliensis”: 15 volumes,
•20,773 pages, 3.811 drawings, 22,767 species
von Martius
von Spix
THE RUBBER BOOM •1839 – Charles Goodyear – vulcanization of rubber
•1839 – 450,000 pairs of shoes from Belém to New England
Hevea
brasiliensis
Latex
extraction
• 1877 – 100,00 cearenses go to Acre for work as rubber
tappers
• 1880 – Manaus 50,000 people and 12,000 tons of rubber
exported to Europe
•1888 – John Dunlop – bikes with rubber tyres
• 1896 – Amazon Theatre was open in Manaus
•1901 – Karl Benz – cars with rubber tyres
•1904 – Manaus, 80,000 tons of rubber exported to Europe
• 1906 – Malasya started to produce rubber.
• 1913 - This was the end of the rubber boom.
Manaus Theatre
· 1848 – May 28 arrive in Belém Henry Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace
· 1850 – March, 26. Bates goes to the upper Solimões region and Wallace to the
upper Rio Negro
Wallace
Bates
Bates & Wallace
•1852 – August, 6. Wallace returns to London.
·1853 – “A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro” by Wallace is published
•1858 – Linnean Society (London) “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely
From the Original Type”
Alfred Russel Wallace
Amazon forest in the Wallace’s book
Richard Spruce
1849-1864
worked with Wallace and Bates
• 1859 – Bates returns to London with the description of almost 15,000 species of animals
• 1863 – Publication of “Naturalist on the river Amazonas”
·1897 – Friedrich Katzer – performed the very first chemical analyses on Amazonian
waters (Katzer, 1897)
·1897 – Henry Anatole Coudreau – river courses and tributaries more cartography
and hydrography of the rivers.
·1898 – Euclides da Cunha – “the last unwritten page of Genesis”
• 1912 – Bluntschli H. 1921 –
“Now we become understand that all and everything
in Amazonia must stand under their influence from the smallest living being to the
activity and the behaviour of mankind...The criculation of the water from the sea
through the air to the wooded earth, and from the forest through the plain on the
big river back to the eternal ocean, that is the great momentum which dominates
the image of Amazonia, its life and its character. Perhaps there is no other place on earth
in which the mighty force of the circulation to the waters appears with such transparence
and obviousness bofore the spiritual eye of man. In Amazonia, nothing dead and nothing
alive exists that could not testify to that”. Translation of Harold Sioli.
•1922 – Paul le Cointe – geography, botany, phytochemistry and zoology of the
Lower Amazonia
1940 – March to the West
•President Getulio Vargas was worried about the “emptiness of people”
that he found in Central Brazil and North region during an official visit.
• International pressure – suggestion of occupy the Amazon emptiness with
foreigners
Occupation of Central Brazil area by two initiatives: Roncador-Xingu expedition
and Brazil Central Foundation. The first was responsible for explore and map the
region, and the second was responsible for set small villages in areas recommended
by the Roncador-Xingu expedition.
•As consequences of these efforts: 43 villages were
established, 19 small runways, contact with more than
5,000 indias, and more than 1,500km of trails was open.
Populational density, 2000
Photo: Roncador-Xingu
expedition
Photo: Roncador-Xingu
expedition
Xavante indians
Orlando Villas-Boas
First Xavante indian to speak Portuguese
Blue: route of the Roncador-Xingu
expedition. www.brasil.oeste.com.br
The rubber soldier – the second cycle of rubber in the Amazon
• 1942 – Japaneses dominate Malaya in the Pacific region.
Malaya was an important region for rubber supply during the
WWII.
.1942 – USA incentivates the rubber production in the Amazon
region
• Amazon had the rubber tree (seringueira), but had not the
people to collect rubber.
• Getúlio Vargas recruited the people in the Northeast
region of Brazil. Mass imigration from the Northeast
to the Amazon (Rubber soldiers).
• Northeast – drought and no work for people
Getúlio Vargas
1951-1954
1953 – Law 1806 - Creation of the SPVEA (Superintendency for the
Economic Valorization of the Amazon) by the former president
Getúlio Vargas
“The Amazon, under the impact of our will and labor, shall cease to
be a simple chapter in the history of the world, and made equivalent
to other great rivers, shall become a chapter in the history of human
civilization.... Everything which has up to now been done in
Amazonas, whether in agriculture or extractive industry... must be
transformed into rational exploitation" (Getúlio Vargas,
quoted from Hall 1989)”.
Juscelino Kubitschek • Enlarge the legal area of the Amazon including parts of Mato
Grosso, Goiás and Maranhão ---- “Amazônia Legal”
• Banco de Crédito da Borracha (Rubber Bank) was transformed in
the Banco de Crédito da Amazônia (Amazon Bank).
1956-1960
·1958-1960 – construction of the Belém-Brasília road during the
government of Juscelino Kubitschek. First road
linking the Central Brazil with the Amazon region
•April 1960 – 2,000 km from Brasília
(the new Capital) to Belém
·1959-1963 – 54200 km2 of state lands
were transferred to private owners
• Imperatriz –MA: huge increase in the
population size
250,000
Belém
Population
200,000
150,000
Belém-Brasília
1960
100,000
50,000
0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Brasília
Urban centers
Deforestation
Colonization
Focus of heat
Marabá Para WRS2, Path 223, Row 64
LandSat TM - TRFIC
1996
1986
http://www.bsrsi.msu.edu/trfic/browser/legalamazon_frame.html
Marabá June, 1996 – June, 1997
http://www2.ibama.gov.br/desmata/desm_frame.php3?ano=1997&lang=ing
Rio Branco, Acre, 407ha, August 2000 ---- August 2001
http://www2.ibama.gov.br/desmata/desm_frame.php3?ano=1997&lang=ing
Castello Branco
1964-1967
J. Goulart
1963-1964
Costa e Silva
1967-1969
E. Médici
1969-1974
Militar Dictatorship - 1964
E. Geisel J.B. Figueiredo
1974-1979 1979-1985
End of the militar dictatorship
J. Sarney F. Collor
1985-1990 1990-1992
I.Franco F.H. Cardoso Lula
20031992-1995 1995-2003
Civilian Presidents
F.H. Cardoso
Lula
1984 – End of the militar dictator ship
Operação Amazônia – “Amazonian occupation will proceed as though we
are waging a strategically conduceted war” (translation of Hecht and Cockburn, 1990)
Castello Branco “Plano de Valorização Econômica da Amazônia” – October, 27, 1966
1964-1967
(Plan of Economical Valorization of the Amazon)
SUDAM – Superintendência do Desenvolvimento da Amazônia
BASA – Banco da Amazônia
• Research programme --- economical potential of the region
• “Development poles” --- areas with special economical interest would be
fully incentivate through tax and trade breaks, land concessions and all
sort of fiscal incentives
• Government will be responsible for all development of infrastructure
Gen.Golbery and
his book
• Creation of a stable, self-sustaining population
• Adoption of a immigration policy by the government
• Incentives to agriculture and livestock
• Exploitation of several tree species, including silviculture and increase
of the productivity of the regional extractivism, unless a more profitable
activity could be conducted in the region.
Fiscal incentives only for large and powerfull groups or
people
• 50% of the tax liability could be invested in already
existing Amazonian projects for the next 12 years
• 100% of the tax liability could be invested in new projects
(prior to 1972) for the next 12 years
• 75% of the costs of projects in the Amazon would be
supplied by the government
• For livestock operations funds would be available for buy
land with grace periods of 4 to 8 years with a very low
interest rates
“Land price went up and became a vehicle for capturing incentives, cheap credits, and
itself assumed the form of a speculative instrument and an object of exchange rather
than being an input into production” (Hecht and Cockburn, 1990)
Laborers and squatters that came to the Amazon from other regions of Brazil had not
acess to the land ------- increasing the social tension.
Brazilian Comunist Part (PC do B) organizes the “Guerrilha do
Araguaia”
Porto Velho
Belém-Brasília
1960
Rio Branco
BR-364
Cuiabá-PV
1968
Photo: Romeu Batistella -http://www.ecof.org.br/projetos/tejo/057.html
Cuiabá
• 1968: Cuiabá-Porto Velho Highway (BR-364)
• 1,500km
• Population of Rondônia in 1960: 70,000
• 80% of the State was covered by intact
forests
• Massive wave of migration to Rondônia
Costa e Silva
1967-1969
PIN first phase: building of the Transamazônica and
Cuiabá-Santarém highway (1970)
Transamazônica
1972
Transmazônica (1972): 5,600km from Recife to
Boqueirão da Esperança. However only 2,500km
were built from Aguiarnópolis to Lábrea, only 29km
BR-364
Cuiabá-PV
1968
Belém-Brasília
1960
were paved
The hope of the President Médici and his minister
CuiabáSantarém
1976
was to allocate people from the dry Northeast into
the Amazon through programes of colonization.
Second phase: INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) and PROTERRA a line
of credit for small farmers - 1971.
• Transportation to the Amazon (TransAmazon road)
• A plot of 100ha (240 acre)
• Guaranteed credit for the planting of rice, beans,etc
• Six month household subsidy
• By the end of 1974 only 5,700 families had settled
www.ari.org.br photo: Prensa Três
(Fearnside, 1986)
“Transamazônica is also Brasil”
Planfet produced by the Regional Council of Development
of Transamazônica and Low Xingu
National Development Plan-II (1975-1979) and III (1980-1984)
Second and Third Development Plan for Amazônia
(The Era of the Big Projects)
POLOAMAZÔNIA: same concept of the “desenvolviment pole” of the
first militar president Castello Branco in 1967 – 15 poles of “development”
E. Geisel
1974-1979
10. Roraima
livestock
4. Trombetas
bauxite
9. Tefé
oil & timber
J.B. Figueiredo
1979-1985
15. Marajó
livestock
5. Altamira
livestock & agriculture
13. Juruena
livestock
2. Carajás
iron & gold
3. Araguaia-Tocatins
livestock & trading zone
8. Acre
livestock & agriculture
1. Xingu-Araguai
livestock
7. Rondônia
livestock & agriculture
Figure from Hecht and Cockburn, 1990
14. Aripuanã
forest research
Projeto Grande Carajás - 1980
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) –
Exploration of iron ore and bauxite at the Serra
dos Carajás (1980)
The Project is composed by the mine itself,
a railroad (1984) linking the mine with the Port of
Itaqui in São Luís do Maranhão.
Axel Ferran
Garimpo at Serra Pelada
“Gold mining at Serra Pelada”
Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado
•1984 – Tucuruí Hydroelectric Dam
4,000 MW
3
State of Pará
Tucuruí – 2430 km2
Urban centers
Deforestation
Colonization
Focus of heat
1985 – End of the Militar Ditactorship in Brazil
.
• Up to now the majority of plans to “develop” the Amazon had been carried
out with strong finnancial support of the international community, specially
the World Bank
1985 – starts a strong international pressure on the deforestation that was
J. Sarney
1985-1990
occurring in the Amazon basin
"Vast Amazon Fires, Man-Made, Linked to Global Warming," New York Times,
8/12/88;
"Thousands of Amazon Acres Burning," Washington Post. 9/8/88;
"Amazon Jungle Going Up in Smoke Again," New York Times. 10/13/95;
"The Amazon Is Burning Again, Officials Say," Reuters. 10/3/97;
"Report: Amazon rain forest fading," Associated Press, 4/8/99; and Couzin, J.,
"The forest still burns." U.S. News & World Report April 19, 1999.
As an answer the Sarney government launched two distinct plains. One aimed
to increase the militar presence in the Amazon: the Calha Norte project and
other – Nossa Natureza (Our Nature) - aimed to demonstrated that the
government had environmental concerns about the Amazon.
1987 – Law allowing the establishment of “reservas extrativistas”
(extractive reserves) – mainly for latex exploration
Chico Mendes
•These reserves would be protected from most forms of
development or unsustainable extraction of resources
(Domansk, 1997).
• December 22, 1998, death of Chico Mendes
•In February 1988, the first extractive reserve was created at Sao
• Luis de Remanso.
April 1, 1989 – Program Nossa Natureza (Our Nature)
• This was the first government programe with a real environmental concern
I – Stop any action that could lead to environmental degradation
II – Better organization of organisms involved in environmental protection
III – Environmenatal education program
IV – Regeneration of disturbed areas
V – Protect indian communities and population involved in the extractivism process
VI – Ecological zoning
Important: temporary suspension of fiscal incentives) for cattle ranching and annual
cropping in Amazonia provided by SUDAM.
SIVAM
I.Franco
1992-1995
The system is intended to help the government of Brazil monitor and control
drug-trafficking, smuggling, illegal extraction of the region's natural resources,
and to defend national sovereignty in the Amazon region. This way of
strengthening and confirming territorial sovereignty and security over
the Amazon region is certainly a less destructive alternative than the massive
infrastructure-based projects of the past (Domansk, 1997)
The Amazonia Agenda 21
• Inclusion of Amazon questions in school
curricula, in order to make it a national, not
just a regional, concern;
Legal Amazon Environmental Control
1996.
(1) the two-year suspension of all
authorizations and concessions for
• Integration of the Brazilian Amazon with the
Amazonian regions of other countries;
commercial exploitation of Mahogany
• Ensuring the multiple use of resources
(soil, water, biodiversity), without any one
being prejudicial to or excluding another;
(Virola surinamensis), which are
• Regulation of activities for the prospecting
and use of mineral resources;
industries in the world’s rainforests”;
• Creation of programmes for traditional
populations;
clear no more than 20 percent (as
• Guarantee of the rights of indigenous
peoples;
50 percent) of their forested land.
(Swietenia macrophylla) on and Virola
described as “two of the most
lucrative but destructive
(2) the requirement that landowners
opposed to the earlier requirement of
• Creation of efficient systems of
surveillance and protection;
• Execution of economic-ecological zoning.
F.H. Cardoso
1995-2003
Nepstad et al. (2000) - IPAM
Nepstad et al. (2000)
?
Lula
2003-
Cattle herds
Population
Deforestation
600
Militar Period (1964-1985)
18,000
Construction
Cuiabá-Sant.
TransAm
400
2
15,000
500
Paving of
BR-364
Deforestation (x1000 km ) - Brazilian
Amazon
Cattle herds & Population (x1000) - Region North
21,000
12,000
9,000
Construction
BR-364
highway
PROTERRA
colonization
projects
300
200
6,000
Nossa Natureza
100
3,000
0
19 60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
0
20100
Decades
Calha Norte
Construction
Belém-Brasília
highway
Beginning of
fiscal incentives
to cattle ranchs
by SUDAM
Sivam
PROTERRA
colonization
projects
PoloAmazônia
The Era of the Big
Projects
Death of
Chico Mendes
Avança
Brasil