Conflicts between national and local approaches to water usage, hydroeletriciy generation and local communmities living conditions in Tocantins River, BrazilAna Claudia Duarte Cardoso1

José Júlio Ferreira Lima2

Abstract

This paper presents how land occupation patterns along an Amazonian river, called Tocantins, have changed since the launching of big Brazilian national projects during the 1960s, particularly after the building of Tucurui Dam, and how these socio-spatial changes have impoverished traditional population, due to changes in the role of water (before a means to build a livelihood and to move over the region, at present a landscape associated to poverty and to health problems). It also presents the evolution on governmental approaches to impacts caused by hydroeletric generation in the region and the mismatch between national policies regarding to energy generation and municipal development, and how little attention has been given to local government’s limitations to follow national guidelines and to tackle impacts brought about by national projects. The paper explores the gap between the enforcement of a legal framework on access to hydric resources and the available local institutional system, which has imposed limitations on the use of water as part of social guarantees, and its dissociation with the living conditions of traditional population. The conflicts pointed here highlight the need of national policies to compensate historic elite bias despite Brazilian power transfers to municipalities.

Key-words: Impacts of hydroeletricity generation, Amazonian occupation patterns, Tucurui Dam.

IntroductionAmazonia population has been historically connected to water. The region is a flood plain with a remarkable volume of fresh water, where spatial accessibility and social development has been historically delivered by rivers. Up to the 1960s cities were differentiated from small villages by scale of open markets and commercial activities, and both were precious support to forest people, who use to earn their living from exploitation of rubber, Brazil nuts, clay and china factories, fruits collection and fishing.

Farming was not a popular activity in old Amazon, and people used to live either in cities or in isolated houses built on river banks, or in small areas were they could grow vegetables and rise animals, without necessarily having land ownership. Kinship was the principal social connection within communities, and education was limited to basic literacy.

During the 1970s Brazilian government employed economic measures to promote a development programme to populate Amazon, and launched many projects related to mineral exploitation and infrastructure (energy generation and roads), in the best interest of federal government. The projects have changed dramatically the pre-existing socio-economic and environmental dynamics.

1 Architect (BR), MSC in Urban Design (Brasília University) and PhD in Architecture (Oxford Brookes University, 2002), lecturer at Pará Federal University.

2 Architect (BR), MA in Urban Design (Oxford Brookes University) and PhD in Architecture (Oxford Brookes University, 2000), lecturer at Pará Federal University.

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This paper focuses the impacts of one of these projects, the Tucurui Dam, built on Tocantins river, to generate energy to mineral industries (iron, aluminium) and to other urbanized Brazilian regions (other than Amazon). Although the Brazilian Energy Company of the North Region (Eletronorte) has officially announced and conducted a program to mitigate its negative impacts in the region, such as poverty increase, a tense and recurrent conflict atmosphere has been present in the area. From the outset there was much controversy on how sites were negotiated for relocation, including legal measures taken to enforce compensation in municipalities under influence of Tucurui dam, built in Tocantins river. Following, over time it was made clear that priority was given to use hydro resources for energy production over democratising access of native population and relocated dwellers to safe water.

The exploratory reading offered here is based upon the belief that territorial planning could be a tool to sustainable development, able to assess the current paradigm of local governance and unveil how impacts caused by the barrier and the reservoir of Tucurui dam have been faced. In order to do so changes in population’s profile were identified (before and after the dam was built), and linked to changes in life conditions, particularly in land occupation patterns in areas under water influence upstream and downstream from the Tucurui hydropower complex. Over years, small communities that used to live on river margins (called ribeirinhos) building a livelihood from fishing or from collecting forest products in small properties, became expropriated and had started a trajectory of transfers, first to new rural settlements and latter on to flood plains or other areas considered unsuitable to occupation in the nearest cities’ outskirts.

Conversely, the population social conditions have been increasingly influenced by actions conducted by local authorities, following the institutional changes caused by the enforcement of muncipalisation processes determined, in 1988, by the Brazilian Federal Constitution. In municipalities located along Tucurui river, the local government lack of administrative and planning capacity has contributed to the worsening of living conditions. The point the paper aims to focus is that there is a gap between the enforcement of a national legal framework on access of water resources and the related practices by local governments, which has imposed limitations on the use of water, compromised living conditions of traditional population.

Alterations on land occupation patterns and impoverishmentPoverty has been a key issue in various aspects of how local communities have dealt with impacts in their living conditions following the construction and operation of Tucurui dam. Assessment of living conditions in cities of Pará state (crossed by Tocantins river, and also where the dam is located) based on economic criteria (such as poverty line), or according to internationally defined standards (such as per capita income), classifies half of state’s population as poor (Pochmann and Amorin, 2003).

The establishment of quantitative criteria to assess economic performance is justified by the need to compare different times, regions and countries, however such perspective does not allow an understanding of how communities that are vulnerable to poverty survive in unfavourable circumstances. In order to understand the meaning of poverty in urban Amazon, one needs also to consider qualitative and participatory definitions to poverty, incorporating the region’s recent history and the patters of territory occupation, to identify who is poor and how the poor population live (Cardoso, 2002). In this sense the observation of evolution in territory occupation, generated by traditional ways of life (dependent on collection and trade of forest originated products) and by new regional dynamics (characterised by the spreading of large farms, wood exploitation and of agro-business initiatives), offers a starting point to an exploratory approach to the question: what is about to be poor in a urbanised (former) forest?

Initially, the region economic development cycles (seasoning, rubber, brazil-nuts exploitation) were based on the action of groups that use to control the access of workers to land and to food supply, characteraing a system of white (disguised) slavery difficult to overcome.

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Working conditions within the forest were hardened by geographyc dispersion, tropical diseases (malaria), conflicts with indigenous tribes, and by the control of means of production by land owners. It is possible to say that up to the 1950s, the Amazonian economy was similar to a feudal one (Biery-Hamilton, 1996).

During the Second Word War, international agreements with North American institutions, were a first step towards the forest integration to the national territory trough presence of state. The action of Especial Service of Public Health Foundation (SESP), was an example; it has introduced public health programmes in the furtherst points of Brazilian Amazon, reaching small cities supported by their markets (places of trade to the production under the areas of influence). In these cities were also located basic educational and health services to the ribeirinhos who lived nearby. These cities’ population was constituted by public workers (who had regular income and basic education, and because of that had a higher status), small business people, workers, and ribeirinhos. Such cities had a close relationship with the river, as means of accessibility, livelihood and cultural identity. Economic power was based in activities located in rural areas (brazil-nut and rubber exploitation, mining for gold and precious stones) (Wagley, 1957).

The following actions of national integration had privileged road accessibility and broken isolation among Brazilian regions, and in Amazonian case, have caused huge changes in existing patterns of land occupation, according to a “developmental” logic (industrial) practiced in the Southestern and Southern regions of Brazil, that obviously were different from Amazonian existing dynamic (based in forest resources exploitation).

During the 1960s, the Plan of Amazon’s Integration has aimed to articulate the Northern region to the country, however, without acknowledgement of the tradicional logic of forest occupation. The river access was replaced by road access; new economic activities were introduced with mineral exploitation and infrastructure projects (federal roads and Turucui dam) that have turn the Northern region into a development frontier opened to agro-business investors, farmers (dedicated to cattle livestock), wood exploitation, in opposition to the regions’ vocation as a bank of natural substances (related to aesthetic, medical, nutritional industries), unthinkable at that time. Little was tought regarding to the impact of those actions on Amazonian cities’ organisation.

The region’s vastness has turned people and their cities into a detail. There was no housing and urban infrastructure policies devised to follow the levels of migration generated by the huge official projects lauched in the region. Far from it, only the actions related to big scales of capital, depending on qualified work force, provided settlements fully infrastructured and managed by the inverstor company, the called company towns. As such cities were not opened to less qualified workers, which were not directly contracted by the big company, but were necessary to support basic activities such as mining and building, they have created spontaneous cities. The same has happened in road intersections, and gold mining fields.

The tenure indefinition (due lack of information and of a traditional system based on occupation previous to land titles) plus availability of funds directed to official and private rural projects in Western Amazon, has prompted the constitution of big farms, attracting wealthy investors; besides that, rural oficial settlements attracted workers that not always had knowledge about agriculture, or environmental and climatic especificities (Saint-Clair and Rocha, 2002; Cardoso and Lima, 2005).

Conversely, roads and the dam’s barrier have weakened river navigation (the lock has not been built up to the present), which was restricted to less dynamic areas. The new social groups have modified enourmously the population profile, broadening social distance and triggering conflicts and struggle for land; in such context the ribeirinhos and the poor rural workers became relatively poorer (Cardoso and Lima, 2005).

Up to this stage, occupation was the main relationship with land, due to great availability. To the extent more informed migrants about land regularization procedures and real state market,

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have started to require land litles and to pay for the buildings and improvements native inhabitants have made on required land, natives begun a process of transfering from countryside to cities, without the support of public policies to manage such process.

Considering this evolution, it is possible to say that traditionally, starvation circumstances were unusual in the region, differently from other developing countries, thanks to availability of food (fish and staple crops) and water. However after the Tucurui dam was built, quantity of fish has decreased downstream Tocantins river, while fish was concentrated within the reservoir, favouring industrial fishing (rather than traditional), and water has gotten contaminated by the flooding of live trees, and lack of sanitation in urban areas along the river. In Lower Tocantins region, the river is still the main source of water to local communities, but potable water is available only in the biggest cities, as are other social and physical infrastructure, attracting migrants to the outskirts of urban areas (raging from metropolis to a tiny village). Besides that, despite the potential for energy production of Tucurui dam, electric power is available only in urban areas, preventing storage of fishing or fruits under refrigeration in small communities, and trapping ribeirinhos into poverty.

The countryside has also been occupied by crops (mono cultures such as peper) and during the last years is under fast process of deforestation, expeling native inhabitants from their land towards cities. The new urban settlers are accomodated in precarious informal or official settlements (promoted by politicians interested in more electors), usually lacking infrastructure, but close enough to facilities present in the city centres. This process is usually accompanied by increasing in social tension and criminality, in cities and villages (UFPA/ELN/Prefeitura Municipal de Igarapé Miri, Baião, Mocajuba, Limoeiro do Ajuru (2004).

Stalemates caused by indefinite frontiers between urban and rural in AmazonAmazon became an urbanized forest, where cities have assumed a new meaning accordig to specific dynamics, sometimes, through activities located in rural areas; differently from big cities (under industrial tradition) located in the Southest and South of Brazil. For rural population to move into a city means, beforehand, access to infrastructure and services not available in the countryside or small localities, starting with a permanent house. Access to land and housing, including piped water provision, and the possibility to educate children, represents an enormous advance in relation to rural life (or life as a ribeirinho). After forty years, migrant workers understood that, when born in the furthest localities, education would be possible only if they move to a big city. Paradoxically, the big cities do not offer immediate opportunities (neither official support) for rural migrants, and demands the learning of the urban / metropolitan way of life.

Old inhabitants and new comers share the space within the biggest cities, but following a clear socio-spatial organization (segregation). Only the better prepared migrants or the more determined to succeed manage to be integrated to urban life over time. Meanwhile, in the small cities labour positions require less qualified workers leading to lower rates of unemployment, despite the short term perspective of typical economic activities practiced in such contexts (such as wood exploitation). The small city supports rural activities by concentrating labour force (Cardoso and Lima, 2005)

The cities that stands out in their sub-regions, even when they do not have enough population to be considered medium cities (according to Brazilian standards), become poles to rural workers, who definitely leave rural life, or establish a house in the city to allow their children access to school and to facilitate trading of their rural production.

Up to the 1980s, rural migrants were very successful in providing housing to themselves in cities, by keeping links with rural areas. They have settled down along river banks of navigable urban rivers as a guarantee of communication and transport with their original places, where they kept crops as a guarantee of food; they have reserved backyards to practice

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urban agriculture, that later on proved to be a resource to housing children. Despite insuficiency of public policies and interruption of official investments in the region (that has prevented conclusion of Roads, the building of Tucurui lock, provision of eletrict power to rural areas) these migrants have managed to enhance their life chances.

However the prospects for the poor arrived in cities after the 1980s are less favourable, due to growing contest for urban soil. The first house has been feasible only in tiny plots, disclosed from a social network, in peripheral areas where social and physical infrastructure never work or arrive, limiting access to city and, overall, to citizenship. In such circumstance, compensation to money shortage, through mutual support (among neighbours) and locational exploitation, through street vending, sharing house with other activies to generate income or to produce food is limited.

The national approach to water resources management and the local level of governmentThe Brazilian legal framework to deal with water resources management, was enforcerd by the Federal law 9.433 dating from January, 1997. According to it, the planning and usage of water resources should be based on a National System of water resources management with plans to be drawn up at differente levels of resolution (federal, state and municipal). There is an emphasis on adequate parameters of usage, based on the integraton between water management resources and environmental management, as well as with land use. The integration would be the result of an integration of systemas connecting river waters and coast zones.

As part of the management guidelines in the law, there is a certain distance between the national institutional structure and the municipal one. As part of the instruments of the national policy there should be compensation for the municipalities for the use of water resources existing in municipality. This measure has provided the municipalities with royalties in the case of hydroeletricity generated by river waters, although this issue was included, the specific chapter was excluded, transfering details to subsequent norms already enacted, which link due actions to the river characteristics and use.

Although recognised in the law, the participation of the local level in the plan of water resources usage was not actually included, due to two main reasons discussed below. The first of them is the determination that Basin Committes should be enacted at the national and state levels, according to the basin´s perimeter. The second reason is that because of the lack of planning culture at the local level, the municipalities do not take part in Basin Committes. There are no policies at the local level able to cope with the issues raised at the territorial delimitation that includes portions of the municipality jurisdiction, in practice, land use control is a local issue with no relationship with water usage guidelines established at the regional and state levels.

Within the history of Tucurui complex it is important to raise the trajectory of management practices built by Eletronorte in order to understand the emergence of the local level of government in the issues regarding water usage and the local government. The Eletronorte Environment Division was established in 1987, and later renamed the Environment Department. The following year, the Coordination Committee for Environment Activities. Power Sector (COMASE - Comitê Coordenador de Atividades do Meio Ambiente do Setor Elétrico) was set up; this is a deliberative entity consisting of 25 concessionaires, the National Water and Power Department (DNAEE, Departamento National de Águas e Energies Electrical) and Brazilian Eletric Centrals S. A. (ELETROBRÁS, Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A). The second Master Plan for the Protection and Improvement of the Environment (II PDMA) was drawn up within the context of this new sectoral structure, prepared by the Environment Department of ELETROBRÁS and approved by the Coordination Committee (COMASE) in 1990. Based on the principles identified in the first Master Plan, the II PDMA proposed guidelines for: (i) the resettlement of communities; (ii) relationships with

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indigenous groups; (iii) the conservation of plant and wildlife; and (iv) the use of coal by thermo-power plants. This Master Plan constitutes the current policy of Brazil’s power sector with links to the growing importance to the local level in terms of implementing the proposed guidelines.

Regarding to the particular case of Tocantins river, the Environment Department of Eletronorte prepared the Tucuruí Dynamics Plan (PLANTUC - Plano de Dinamização da Region Geoeconômica de Tucuruí), in 1991, that redefined the territory affected by this hydropower complex. This included its stretching upstream from the dam, reaching part of Tucuruí municipality, all Itupiranga municipality and parts of Nova Jacundá, Moju and Rondon do Pará municipalities. Downstream, it included part of the Tucuruí municipality, and of Baião, Mocajuba, Cametá and Limoeiro do Ajuru municipalities. This plan outlined three basic lines of action: specific programme, definitions of sectoral policies, and actions adapting certain activities underway (La Rovere, and Mendes, 2000). It also established multi-institutional programmes seeking articulated solutions to social and environmental issues such as: i) the high incidence of aquatic macrophytes along the left bank of the reservoir; ii) alterations in the quality of water of the reservoir and the reaches of the river downstream from the dam; iii) precarious physical infrastructure in the area: access to facilities, electrification, social equipment, basic sanitation etc; iv) inadequate land use; v) influence of small-scale wild-cat mining operations in the Araguaia-Tocantins Basin; vi) disorderly exploitation of natural resources; vii) smaller catches downstream and inadequate standardisation and supervision of these fishing activities throughout the area; viii) Incomplete land ownership legalisation process; ix) loss of biodiversity.

The following table presents demographic and income dyanmics found at upstream and downstream municipalities from Tucuruí dam. It is seen that upstream municipalities, formed after the construction of the complex has had a rapid population growth while the population of downstream municipalities have not increased at the same rate. In terms of per capita income, presented in Brazilian currency: real, the performance of upstream municipalities is better than the others, although below Para and Brazilian standards.

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Table 1 Demographic and icome dynamics upstream and downstream from the Tucuruí Hidropower complex, 1980-2000

Municipalities Population Per capita income

1980 1991 2000 1991 2000UpstreamJacundá (1) 14.868 27.606 40.546 141,8 175,32Itupiranga (1) 15.641 30.141 49.655 63,92 85,71Tucurui (1) 61.140 50.246 73.798 132,02 180,99Breu Branco (2) - 22.091 32.446 98,51 132,32Goianésia do Pará (3) - 15.445 22.685 101,06 144,05Nova Ipixuna (4) - 8.079 11.866 75,47 127,26Novo Repartimento (5) - 31.585 41.817 64,8 91,61

DowstreamBaião 16.261 20.072 21.119 58,36 81,20

Mocajuba 12.789 18.496 20.542 70,71 85,29Cametá 79.317 85.187 97.624 61,41 71,06

Limoeiro do Ajuru 13.752 16.475 19.564 66,62 64,41Pará state 4.950.060 6.192.307 141,52 168,59Brazil 146.825.475 169.799.170 230,30 297,23Source: IBGE Demographic Census, 1980, 1991 and 20001Remaining population in 2000 after transfer of the area and the population to new municipality.2 Established on 1 Januray 1993, split off from Tucuruí, Moju and Rondon do Pará municipalities.3 Established on 1 Januray 1993, split off fom Tucuruí, Moju and Rondon do Pará municipalities.4 Established on 1 November 1997, split off from Jacundá and Itupiranga municipalities.5 Established on 1 Januray 1 1993, split off from Tucuruím, Jacundá and Pacajá municipalities.

Figure 1: Photographs of Novo Repartimento Municipality, one of the upstream

municipalities formed after the construction of the dam in 1993. Left: overview; right: detail of occupation along a small river internal to the city.

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Figure 2: Photographs of rural and urban areas of downstream municipalities. From left to right: Igarapé-Miri, Limoeiro do Ajuru and Baião.

As part of these issues, the relationship between Eletronorte and the municipalities have been centred on infrastrucurte shortage both at upstream and downstream territories. Infrastructrure shortage has been referred to urban development and subjected to central policies conducted by the Cities Ministry. It is referred as an urban policy because access to infrastructure is considered an urban issue, although in Amazon, dispersion in occupation of the territory has imposed a review of policies by present federal government, national social programmes are limited in the region both because of the focus on urban settlements and because of a lack of adequancy in terms of tackling contextual issues. It has been recognised the need of urban development policies specifically designed to the Amazon region, actually it is becoming part of an agenda established by the Cities Ministry.

Federal guidelines established by the Cities Ministry regarding the obligation of masterplans development, for all municipalities with population higher than 20.000 inhabitants has been incorporated in the demands of social moventes organized around compensatory issues regarding the dam impacts. The determination to have a municipal master plan has given opportunities to bring about many questions related to deprived Amazonian circumstances, such as those imposed by infrastructure and social services shortage. The compensatory measures including masterplans have been incorporated into the electricity companies agendas, which have a more inductive responsibility in terms of economic activities and on the other hand to present a growing role in the control of local power, both in terms of the direct provision of services, as mentioned before and as a priviledged intermediate agent between local and central governments. The electricity companies importance goes beyond royalties payments, becoming involved in actions related to the development of living conditions for their personel and for inhabitants of the municipalities. It is a political arena with points of contact with state action favourable to long term entrepreneurship. In the specific case of Tucurui dam, it was done without a more responsible role in the first phase of the project (PPDJUS, 2003). Now in the second phase of the dam construction, there is a precautionary atmosphere still related to previous impacts at the upstream region, the precautionary actions are very based on the limits of local involvement level of social movements and municipal governments. Existing tensions fostered the creation of the Council of Development of Micro Region Downstream Tucurui Dam (CONJUS, Conselho de Desenvolvimento da Micro-Região à Jusante da Barragem de Tucuruí) in order to have a continuous forum to related issues negotiation. Depending on the forthcoming results, there is a growing need of including new multidisciplinar partners who will make policies viable and sustainable for the development of the region.

Among factors influencing policy effectiveness in Brazil, there is, on the one hand, a lack of attention to peculiarities of urban areas of the different regions of the country affecting policy formation at the central level due to lack of linkages at different levels of government. On the other hand, in urban policy at both local and non-local levels too much bureaucracy has been held responsible for dysfunction in policy implementation (Batley, 1983, 1984, 1987). The division of the regulatory system between local and central authorities without proper coordination resulted in implementation of uncoordinated policies, especially of housing policies, defined centrally.

Alterations in living conditions of traditional population: dam impacts occurrence and mitigation actionsFrom the exposed above, the Amazonian traditional way of life, called ribeirinho, is now interpreted as a defeated system. The population that used to be more dependent on water (living along rivers) became a marginal population in the region. The big federal projects to populate and provide infrastructure to the region, have introduced new agents (migrants from

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other Brazilian region) and a new logic to exploit land and the environment. The native population had no means to become stackholder into the new dynamics, because they did not have neither knowledge nor enough capital to take part in the game. The replacement of the culture of occupation without land titles by land ownership, was fostered by expropriation strategies practiced by the time the reservoir of Tucurui dam was filled and by lack of information about which areas are public or private.

Nearby this reservoir, compensations were calculated by Eletronorte without considering the land potential of production, or without offering an alternative to those who wanted to stay. Over years, social movements have advanced in broadening natives’ rights to have a fair evaluation of their land, but rural inhabitants of Tucurui dam’s reservoir magins are still waiting to have access to potable water and eletric power, they have built their livelihood from fishing, becoming the new ribeirinhos, but have no stability or infrastructure to thrive. The reservoir margins became an area of environmental protection, but as there is no sufficient surveillance, there has been deforestation (trees have been replaced by cattle), and introduction of criminal activities (crops of cannabis), worsening local population’s vulnerability.

The recognition of limitations in the treatment of problems due to hydroeletricity generation in Tocantins region is expressed in the lack of references to impacts mitigation following long term changes in living conditions within the territory. CONJUS’ plans and actions have been related to demand criteria on Eletronorte expenditure in the region. Although projects for fishing or electricity distribution are proposed, there is no reference to more abriged (used to avoit the so called compreenshive planning aplied during the 1960s and 1970s in Brazil to designate top down planning) planning which could include the water usage issues in the agendas of local municipalities.

Nevertheless, changes in living conditions have been perceived both on the waterlogged areas and on firm land. At the waterlogged areas downstream, now subject to a different water cycle, fishers without a guaranteed production due to changes of fish specimes occurrence are obliged to work as collectors. Upstream, agricultors have to move to fishing without skills or technical assistance to the job. The result is that the whole region is under an economic reorganisation with more losers, and winners represented by the same groups that existed before the dam: politicians, old and new farmers and timber exploitation groups.

The municipalities depend on Eletronorte to implement all sorts of projects in the municipalities, including the construction of schools, hospitals and provision of water systems and even the acquisition of musical instruments for the local bands. The participation of CONJUS has been responsible for monitoring the relationship between mayors and Eletronorte, at the same time that has lauched a more participatory arena for including the local governemnt in the demands form the downstream region. In the upstream region, the social process of participation has been very weak, although a more activist association of those directly moved by the construction of the lake cause sistematic disruption in Tucurui town and in some facilities of Eletronorte. There is still population not supplied by electricity living at the margins of the lake.

Final remarksAlthough there is well established literature on the effects of the construction of the dam, both in terms of environmental and social terms, there has been scarce discussion on how the involvement of different social actors was first associated with municipal reorganization and the management capacity of the local governments to deal with the impacts caused by the construction of Tucuruí dam. Local government initiatives, in face of water usage issues in Tocantins Basin are limited, as a result of a combination of social and environmental questions, that must be dealt with by different social agents involved in the mitigation of impacts caused by the construction of Tucurui dam. Social organization is still particularly fragile in localities located in Lower Tocantins area (geographic distance, action of elites, lack

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of skills), different from other context located next door to Tucurui dam, such as Transamazônica Road area.

The impacts of Tucurui dam on territory occupation in Lower Tocantins region, as much as of other official projects in Pará State as a whole, was first associated to the organization of new municipalities, what has raised some localities’ status. Settlements which used to be villages and became new cities, are places where the new local power is based but still with limited services and facilities. Another evidence of this reorganization is related with the expansion of existing cities along roads axes, caused by a progressive rural exodus. The connection with the dam and its impacts within the framework of compensatory measures described in the paper, was a reason to oblige the municipalities affected to develop participatory master plans to municipal territory. The movement of drawing up masterplan in the region has given opportunities to bring about many questions related to deprived Amazonian circumstances.

In the power relationship explored in the paper, it is recognised that the federal government is still a very important stackholder to Amazonian municipalities, despite transfers of power occurred since the1988 Brazilian Constitution. Issues in affected municipalities cannot be dealt by local power only, and agents such as Eletronorte and eletrict power companies (that distribute energy) are turned into development inductors. Extrativism has been reconfigurated, assuming a larger scale following economic power of exploiters. Although not accounted for, due to its illegal character, deforestation is causing droughts, that at present are a menace to power generation and to inhabitants livelihoods. Rural issues are expeling population towards cities, and also reorganizating social movements. At present people demands infrastructure as social right, not as urban facility, and do not accept the repetition of old mistakes. But local power is still a too fragille forum to effectivelly manage so many conflicts (environmental, economic, socio-cultural, urban-rural), without information, financial resources, political authonomy, and technical knowledge to promote an integrated planning action, and to change long term inhabitants’ prospects.

The application of a new aproach to territorial planning, within the conflicts on water usage in Low Tocantins, sugested by evidences described along the paper, has raised the need to discuss what are the limits and the potential reach of local government in nowadays political process to tackle the challenges imposed by the power structure existing in the region. The need of alternative perspectives for the weaknesses found in the actions taken at the local level is still a question which needs to be addressed by the state and the population of the region.

ReferencesBatley, R (1983) Power Through Bureaucracy, Urban Political Analysis in Brasil. Aldershot: Gower.Batley, R (1984) Central Local Relations and Municipal Autonomy in Brazil. Local Government Studies. 10(3): 51-67.Batley, R (1987) Who Makes Housing Polity in India and Brazil? Local Government Studies. 13(3: 19-23.Biery-Hamilton, G. M. The differential impacts of development upon an urban population on the Tucuruí Reservoir, Pará, Brazil. In: Magalhães, S.; Britto, R. e Castro, E. (org.) Energia na Amazônia. Belém: MPEG, UFPA, UNAMAZ, 1996. v. 1 pp. 361-392. Cardoso, A. & Lima, J. Tipologias e padrões de ocupação urbana na Amazônia Ocidental: para que e para quem ? I Colóquio “Territórios, desigualdades e conflitos sócio-ambientais”, do Observatório de Políticas Públicas, Conhecimento e Movimento Social na Amazônia. FASE/UFPA/FF, Ananindeua, julho 2005.Cardoso, A. Life Chances and Modern Poverty. Urban Design International, 2002, 7, 223-236.

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La Rovere, E.L. and Mendes, F.E. 2000. Tucuruí Hydropower Complex, Brazil, A WCD case study prepared as an input to the World Commission on Dams, Cape Town, www.dams.org.Pochmann, M. and Amorim, R. (2003) Atlas de Exclusão Social no Brasil. São Paulo: Cortez, 2003.PPDJUS (2003) Plano de Desenvolvimento Sustentável da Região a jusante da Hidrelétrica de Tucurui (The Development Plan of the Region Downstream Tucurui dam). CONJUS: Cametá.Santos, Roberto (1980) História econômica da Amazônia. São Paulo, TA Queiroz Editor.TRINDADE JUNIOR, Saint-Clair; ROCHA, Gilberto Miranda. (Org.) (2002) Cidade e Empresa na Amazônia: gestão do território e desenvolvimento local. Belém : Pakatatu.UFPA (Pará Federal University) (2005) Tucurui Downstream Regional Diagnosis Report. Pará Federal University. Not published. UFPA/DAU/MPEG (2005) Field work on Novo Repartimento municipality, February 2005. Not published.UFPA/ELN/Prefeitura Municipal de Igarapé Miri, Baião, Mocajuba, Limoeiro do Ajuru (2004) Fieldwork on Igarapé Miri, Baião, Cametá, Mocajuba and Limoeiro do Ajuru municipalities. September, 2004. Not published.Wagley, Charles (1957) Uma Comunidade Amazônica. Estudo dos Homens nos Trópicos. São Paulo, EDUSP.

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