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The Construction of Mega-projects and the Reconstructionof the
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The Construction of Mega-projects and theReconstruction of the
World
David Barkin
The Rio Madeira Project offers a poignant illustration of the
scale of changes thatinternational capital has envisioned in its
breakneck race to control people andresources on a global scale.
While this is not new*the long history of humanity is oneof the
ever increasing attempts to extend control over new regions with
horrendousimpacts on resources and people everywhere1*the following
article, The MadeiraRiver Complex: Socio-Environmental Impact in
Bolivian Amazonia and SocialResistance, by Josep Maria Antentas
provides some of the details by which theprocess is proceeding in
the Amazon Basin. But the story recounted in this article is
onlypart of a much longer history that dates back more than twenty
years when the firstfeasibility studies were published for a
proposed Hidrovia, or inland water transportroute, that would
enable year-round river transport on the Paraguay and Parana
Riversas part of a much more ambitious project to forge an
inter-oceanic multimodaltransport system reaching from Brazil to
Chile in the south and through Peru andEcuador in the north. In its
first (and most ambitious) versions, it contemplated portfacilities
from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo connecting to a
2,500-kilometer-long canalsystem through the Tiete, Paraguay, and
Parana Rivers to Asuncion. A furtherextension then considered a
3,400-kilometer extension to the Pacific Ocean.
The regional infrastructure that the scheme envisions would
place South Americaat the center of a new global commercial route
between Europe and the Orient. Thisproject involves the forging of
a multi-modal system of connections that would emplacenew
export-oriented manufacturing installations in key areas where
abundant suppliesof low-wage, semi-skilled workers are located or
can be attracted (principally innortheastern Argentina), while
building links that would open well-identified parts of theAmazon
Basin to less costly access and more systematic resource
exploitation through theintegration of a hemispheric system of
interconnected river systems. Although some ofthese
interconnections were mentioned in an early report by the Wetlands
for theAmericas organization in cooperation with the Woods Hole
Research Center,2 those
1In this regard see the excellent collection of essays assembled
in Alf Hornborg, John R. McNeill, and Joan
Martinez-Alier, Rethinking Environmental History: World-system
History and Global Environmental Change(Lanham: AltaMira Press,
2007).2E.H. Bucher, A. Bonetto, T. Boyle, P. Canevari, G. Castro,
P. Huszar, and T. Stone, Hidrovia: An Initial
Environmental Examination of the Paraguay-Parana Waterway,
Wetlands for the Americas, Publication No.
10, Manomet, MA, 1993. See especially Figure 12.
CAPITALISM NATURE SOCIALISM VOLUME 20 NUMBER 3 (SEPTEMBER
2009)
ISSN 1045-5752 print/ISSN 1548-3290 online/09/030006-06
# 2009 The Center for Political Ecology www.cnsjournal.orgDOI:
10.1080/10455750903215704
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authors focused their concerns on the profound alterations that
would affect theviability of wetlands in the south-central part of
the continent; they identify seven riversystems stretching from the
Hidrovia all the way north to the Caribbean outlet of theOrinoco in
Venezuela. They do not examine an even more significant river
project thatis being developed in a surprisingly well-coordinated
effort of separate groups oftechnical and financial experts
throughout the region; this project proposes to
createtranscontinental links including roads from the Atlantic port
city of Belem innortheastern Brazil along the Amazon River and its
tributaries to Pacific ports innorthern Ecuador and central
Peru.3
This focus on the southern wetlands is of considerable
importance. The Pantanal,as the area is known, is located in the
frontier area encompassing Brazil, Paraguay, andBolivia. It is
nothing less than South Americas greatest wetland, one the
mostspectacular in the world. During the wet season from November
to January, therainwaters of the Eastern Andes and the Brazilian
High Plains flood this very gentlysloping basin. Once the rains
subside, the heat of the dry season begins to shrink the seainto a
series of scattered pools teeming with fish imprisoned by the
advancing banks.These provide a bonanza for birds and mammals who
arrive in droves to join the feast.At the same time, the average
daily temperature soars to a scorching 1108F, eventuallyconverting
the inland sea into a dry savanna. Four different South American
vegetationzones converge at its borders: the central Brazilian high
plains, the foothills of theAndes, the Atlantic forest, and the
Argentinean Pampas all lend their typical species tothe Pantanals
rich pulse of life. The South American alligator (yacare), and the
worldslargest rodent, the capybara, compete for the streams and
ponds with schools ofpiranha, while jaguars and giant anacondas
prowl the gallery forests. Endangeredhyacinth macaws and marsh
deer, as well as more than 90,000 varieties of plants, mayalso be
found here. Most striking, however, is the high concentration of
bird speciesfound in the Pantanal: over 600 known species, and in
such numbers as to dazzle eventhe most seasoned birders. No wonder
it was designated as a National Treasure inBrazils constitution.
The huge Pantanal sanctuary merits distinction not only as
anecological treasure, but also as an example of the ability of
communities to live inbalance with their environment. The local
inhabitants known as pantaneiros havedeveloped compatible land uses
based on conservation practices and adaptation to thenatural cycles
of the region. A U.S. wetlands researcher commented to the press
thatwhile Americans think of preserving wetlands as putting a fence
around them, thepantaneiros have found a way to maintain wetlands
while using them.4
The larger strategy goes beyond the river systems to integrate
global shippingchannels into a motor and rail transport system.
Beginning with the modernization of
3For an early critique of the attempts to use economic analysis
to justify this project, see: David Barkin, Macro
Changes and Micro Analysis: Methodological Issues in Ecological
Economics, Ecological Economics, Vol. 19,No. 3, 1996, pp.
197200.4Mac Margolis, Treasuring the Pantanal Brazil, International
Wildlife, NovemberDecember, 1995, onlineat:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_n6_v25/ai_17632856/,
accessed May 31, 2009.
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the Sepetiba Harbor near Rio de Janeiro, the investment program
encompasses a locallyfinanced road system from Rio de Janeiro south
to Sao Paulo and on to Montevideoand Colonia in Uruguay. This motor
transport network would further increasethe importance of the
Hidrovia and become especially valuable if the
approximately55-kilometer bridge across the River Plate were
completed. A subsequent stagecontemplates a new transcontinental
highway connecting Buenos Aires, Argentina, tothe port city of
Valparaiso, Chile; transport costs would be reduced by blasting
the25- to 40-kilometer Juncal-Horcones tunnel through the Andes,
thus avoiding theneed for making the extremely costly climb through
existing mountain passes, some ofwhich are blocked during the
winter.
Rail links would also be multiplied and strengthened. In central
Argentina, anew line from Bahia Blanca on the Atlantic would cross
the Andes to end in theChilean port of Talcahuano. The rail system
in Peru, beginning in Lima, would beimproved and interconnected
with Antofagasta, Copiapo, and Valpariso to movewest to Paraguay
and the Hidrovia system.
Overcoming the obstacles created by the lack of a world-class
deep-sea harbor onthe Pacific Coast of Chile or Peru, the proposal
offers an even more grandiose solution,illustrating its creativity
and scope: Each of the smaller port cities would be connectedby
smaller ocean-going freighters to a major new international
shipping center onEaster Island.
Understanding the Geopolitical Context
The infrastructure projects, of which the Hidrovia is an
important part, willreshape the economies and societies of every
country in the region and threatenecosystems globally. The
transformations in transportation, with dramatic changes inthe
relative costs of each system, will generate unimagined investment
opportunitiesalong the new routes and in a broad hinterland, but as
the Wetlands report cited aboveacknowledges, [c]atastrophic
flooding downstream becomes a real possibility. Asalways, the
problem is framed as one of the environment versus economic
opportunity;but this support is generally framed in terms of the
benefits to the very poor, the mostvulnerable. As Paraguayan
environmentalist and business leader Raul Gauto noted:Trying to
stop the Hidrovia is not morally right, because so many people are
going tobenefit.5
5Raul Gauto, quoted in the Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de Sao
Paulo, April 4, 1997. He remains aninfluential leader of the
regional and international community who argues that it is possible
to bridge the gap
between social and business interests; in response to a request
from this writer, he reaffirmed his position in
personal correspondence in June 2009: . . .the river is crucial
for thousands of poor people, for the
communications, for the sale of their products, to generate
employment, to protect their traditions . . .Today,
they continue super isolated and with their basic needs still
unmet!! For this reason, I commented that opposing
the hidrova was, and still is, morally incorrect.
8 DAVID BARKIN
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The debate has been carefully sculpted to heighten this apparent
contradiction.But the opposition persuasively insists that, as in
other parts of the world, the costs ofthe environmental destruction
and the reshaping of productive systems will be borneby legions of
the poorest inhabitants, the beneficiaries, who will be uprooted,
andthe masses of workers who will be recruited into exploitative
working situations.These changes will also increase the
vulnerability of whole regions and perhaps evennations to the
changing structure of prices in world markets as they are forced
toimport increasing shares of their basic consumption goods,
because local producersfind themselves unable to compete with
producers in other countries as transportcosts and other barriers
to trade are precipitously lowered.
How are we to begin to examine this large-scale metamorphosis?
Most of theanalytical tools of project evaluation are designed to
examine marginal changes inproductive systems. Although we have
discovered ways to begin to think aboutincorporating some of the
external costs and benefits of public investment projects intoour
calculations, we have no rigorous set of tools to apply to
structural changes of themagnitude involved in the Hidrovia
project, changes that will lead to the remaking ofeconomic systems,
social structures, and the environment itself. Most social
scienceanalysts, and particularly economists armed with their
theoretical tool chest ofmarginalist economics, are unprepared to
examine the (literally) earth-shaking changesunder serious
consideration by the international financial community for this
region.
Concentrating on the Madeira, however, does not do full justice
to the nature ofthe changes contemplated by international capital
on a continental scale. These involvea reorientation of the
geography to serve the demands of the world market,
literallycarving out new transportation corridors that will place
the regions vast naturalresources and isolated peoples at the
service of anxious investors searching for newopportunities. It is
not coincidental that these projects are advancing precisely in
thoseareas in which the State is weakest and/or compliant, and
where private interests aremost interested in extracting resources
and using cheap labor for processing; thisfragmentation and
deterritorialization involves changes in the States capacities
toregulate the use of its territory, where it cedes the ability to
impose justice, controlenvironmental impacts or manage productive
extraction in large areas [while also] . . .applying some
regulations, especially those that permit the extraction and
processing ofresources for export.6 Thus under the impact of global
capital, nature is transformedon an enormous scale, and Amazonia
ceases to be itself.
Going Beyond the Rio Madeira Project
It is in this context that we have to examine the broader
process of restructuringthe continent. The dams and massive
flooding are designed to remake the
6Eduardo Gudynas, The South American Hidrovia Parana-Paraguay:
Environment vs. Trade?, Revista delSur, No. 160, 2005, pp. 45.
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topography in a gigantic effort to restructure the regions
economy and place it at theservice of international capital. Little
consideration is accorded to the millions ofpeople in communities
that have tried to manage these ecosystems and protect
theirresources, while forging a society and economy that take the
biospheres needs intoaccount. The Madeira waterway projects, by
contrast, inscribe a story ofmonocultures under the command of the
merchants of grain, in which immenseamounts of soy are produced for
purposes of fattening livestock, along with alliedagroindustrial
projects.
It is a narrative mandating heightened conflict. The regional
protests and thenational mobilizations are vivid testimony to the
kinds of social conflict that arelikely to flourish as
international banks and capital advance with their intentions
toimplement the Regional Infrastructure Integration Program for
South America(IIRSA, as it is known for its Spanish acronym), the
part of the Hidrovia programagreed to by the executives of five
countries in 2000.7 The Rio Madeira project wasthe subject for
evaluation by the Latin American Water Tribunal in Guatemala in2008
and the International Water Tribunal in Istanbul, Turkey in 2009;8
in bothinstances the jury (of which I was a member) found that the
Brazilian governmenthad transgressed its own legislative mandates
by going ahead with the project in spiteof notable violations of
environmental and public works legislation as well asignoring its
obligations to conduct appropriate environmental impact analyses
andsubmit the project to public hearings.9 At the same time, the
investment program isprovoking serious problems in binational
relations with Bolivia as well as conflictswithin that country
because of the considerable areas that would be flooded,
thusdramatically changing the way that land is used.
The infrastructure proposals, then, must be understood as a part
of a geopoliticalstrategy to assure a continuing expansion of
supplies of raw materials and cheap laborfor integration into the
global production system controlled by capital. As anintegrated
project, the integrated scheme of a single link going from the
Atlantic,through the Pantanal, and then to the Pacific seems to
have been abandoned. But itsmost recent incarnation, the IIRSA, is
strongly supported by the Inter AmericanDevelopment Bank whose
efforts go far beyond the multi-billion dollar dams on theMadeira
to include investments in Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay,
asevidenced in the special issue of the Banks journal on regional
integration citedabove.
7The approach followed by IIRSA focuses on strategic axes of
integration and development, concentrating
actual and potential commercial trade flows; these include:
Andean, Southern Andean, Amazon, Guyanese
Region, Hidrovia Paraguay-Parana Rivers, Central Interoceanic,
Merosur-Chile, and Peru-Brazil-Bolivia. For
more details and a detailed description, see the special issue
of Integracion y Comercio, Vol. 12, No. 28, 2008,published by the
Inter-American Development Bank.8See http://www.tragua.com for more
details on this particular case and the history of processes for
evaluating
citizen complaints with regard to water management in Latin
America.9In fact, even within the Brazilian judicial system, the
review process of the environmental authorities strongly
questioned the wisdom of continuing with the project. (Personal
communication.)
10 DAVID BARKIN
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As analysts examining the relationship between society and the
environment,then, we need to comprehend the new productive
structures that are envisioned, theinterests supporting the
projects, and the projected environmental changes. Asalways, we
must be insistent on addressing both the opportunities being
destroyedand those being created for the local population and the
ability of ecosystems tocontinue providing for the welfare of the
people in the region and for the planet as awhole. The analysis of
the Madeira projects offers a window that reveals a vividpicture of
the destructive impact of current efforts to reconstruct the world
in thename of regional interconnection with large-scale investments
in infrastructure.
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