Amazon communities displaced by hydroelectric dams: Implications for environmental changes and householdś livelihood

Abstract

Livelihood changes associated with forced displacement caused by large dams occur in a context of socio-environmental transformation, raising the question on how resettled people cope with and adapt while experiencing environmental change. This article analyses how environmental change is connected to householdś livelihood in communities displaced by the Madeira River hydroelectric dams, Santo Antônio and the Jirau, in the Brazilian Amazon. We adopted a mixed methods approach, exploring qualitative and quantitative aspects of the relationship between environmental changes and households’ livelihood. The results indicate the decline of ecosystem-related activities, such as fisheries and floodplain agriculture, through the process of resettlement, period in which took place the major negative environmental impacts of the dams. These overlapped processes contributed to the livelihood displacement experienced by resettled communities, a trend intensified by the resettlement plans addressed by Impact Assessment process that incentivized the adoption of socioeconomic practices that weren’t part of peoples’ livelihoods, such as market-oriented agriculture and pisciculture projects. Such trends call for the urgency of preventing displacement over treating it by mitigation and compensation measures that fail to account immaterial losses, a crucial subject for future research. The results may help improve the revision of the resettlement plans for the studied dams, others in the region and plans for projects yet to come.