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ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL:
A Tragedy of Local and Global Dimensions
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) - The people who
live in the favela of Guararapes are
probably unaware that the heavy rains
that forced them to flee their homes
were caused by a phenomenon that is
affecting the whole planet: global
warming.
But in their own small world - a poor
shantytown clinging precariously to the
slopes of one of the numerous morros or
tall, steep hills that dot the Rio de
Janeiro skyline - they can clearly
identify the local cause behind the
tragedy: the artificial diversion of a
stream that has caused the gradual
erosion of the hillside they live on.
From his vantage point in academia,
oceanographer David Zee is fully aware
of both the global and local reasons for
the current disaster. And he has
experienced their effects first hand.
While he could easily use scientific
jargon, he prefers everyday language to
talk about how he was trapped for almost
three days in his apartment in the Rio
neighbourhood of Barra da Tijuca, hit by
heavy flooding as a result of the
torrential rains that have lashed the
city since Monday.
"What would have once been considered
extraordinary has started to become
ordinary," the professor of oceanography
at the University of the State of Rio de
Janeiro told IPS.
Natural disasters like the one provoked
by this week’s rainstorm, called the
worst in four decades by state
authorities, "are now here to stay," he
added.
Zee, who is also the coordinator of the
master’s degree programme in
environmental studies at Veiga de
Almeida University, attributes the
severity of the storm to "global climate
changes that have local effects."
These changes include, among others,
increased activity since late 2009 of
the El Niño/Southern Oscillation climate
phenomenon, characterised by an abnormal
rise in surface water temperature in the
tropical Pacific Ocean.
"In Rio de Janeiro we are suffering from
a climate phenomenon with a global
cause. The higher sea temperature leads
to greater evaporation of water, which
in turn produces more rain," he
explained.
The effects of this global factor are
exacerbated by other, local factors,
such as the geographical location of Rio
Janeiro, which was built "between the
rock of the mountains and the sea."
"Rio de Janeiro is like a shellfish,
squeezed between the sea and the
mountains along a narrow strip of
coastline," he commented.
Further contributing to the problem is
the environmental deterioration caused
by the city’s population growth. Cement
is now much more widespread than forest
cover, which used to help retain water
in the hills and mountains. Now the
water simply flows right through.
Chronic shortfalls in the city’s
drainage systems and the now commonplace
accumulation of rubbish on the hillsides
obviously do nothing to help matters.
When a cold front enters the region, it
hits up against the "wall" of mountains
along the coast, and essentially remains
stuck over the city.
The heavy flooding in Barra da Tijuca,
an upper-middle class neighbourhood, did
not happen by chance, but was rather the
result of explosive real estate
development that ignored the dangers of
building too close to the banks of
rivers and inlets.
A world away from Barra da Tijuca, in
the favela of Guararapes, a group of
neighbourhood women who spoke with IPS
did not need scientific jargon to talk -
and sometimes shout - about the local
causes of their own personal tragedy,
Their anger and despair are
understandable. After a lifetime of
struggle and sacrifice, of building
their houses brick by brick, of raising
their children and burying their parents
in this poverty-stricken area that is
nonetheless their home, they are now
forced to leave it all behind, because
of the heightened risk of their houses
collapsing and landslides.
They insist that the whole problem began
when a stream - formerly their source of
drinking water - was diverted for a
private real estate development on the
peak of the hill. Since then, leaking
water has been gradually filtering down
and eroding the hillside, "and that’s
what caused the landslides," Jurema de
Moraes told IPS.
"We had to leave our houses because
everything came crashing down on us. We
have no light, no water, it’s extremely
dangerous, and we have no idea where we
are going to live now," said Elizabethe
da Silva, another of the 500 residents
of Guararapes.
The diversion of the stream, which used
to flow clear and strong and met all of
the community’s drinking water needs,
triggered an additional tragedy.
The abnormally high volume of rainfall,
which in just one day surpassed the
amount forecast for the entire month,
caused the community water tank to burst
and collapse. It fell on a nearby house,
killing the three little girls who lived
there, although their mother managed to
survive.
"Three little girls have died, we’re
sleeping outside exposed to the
elements, but they’re covering it all
up, because this is a tourist area,"
said da Silva, referring to the fact
that the train to the massive statue of
Christ the Redeemer, a world-famous Rio
landmark, runs up this same hill.
"We can’t blame nature, because it knows
what it’s doing. But we can blame human
beings," Waldemar Santana reflected.
Far from Guararapes, in the city of
Niterói, which faces Rio de Janeiro
across Guanabara Bay, global and local
factors combined to cause yet another
tragedy. This time the victims were the
residents of Morro da Bumba, a favela
built entirely on the site of a former
garbage dump, which has received funding
from successive governments to improve
living conditions there.
Torrential rains and gale-force winds
crushed the flimsy houses built up the
slope of the old landfill and swept them
downhill in an avalanche of mud, cement,
bricks and corpses that buried the homes
further down.
The landfill formerly underlying the
favela has now been unearthed by the
mudslide, forcing rescue teams to wade
through garbage and the stench of decay.
The health minister of the state of Rio
de Janeiro, Sergio Cortés, admitted that
this was one of the worst possible
places to build a housing settlement.
In 2007, a report from Federal
Fluminense University (UFF) stated that
there were 143 sites in Niterói with a
propensity for landslides.
"Considering the number of irregular
settlements in our city, the only
solution is to move the families who are
in high-risk areas, and to promote the
urbanisation and regularisation of land
ownership in the others," Regina
Bienestein, an urbanisation specialist
at UFF, told IPS.
Among the other causes of the current
catastrophe, UFF points to the
deforestation of hills and mountains
where the poorest of the poor tend to
build their homes. In essence, local
developments like these have had a
spiral effect on the consequences of
global warming, further deepening the
tragedy now facing Brazil. |
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