As part of the Brazilian economy's attempt to move forwards its slow-moving growth, one of the large mining companies plans to extend its work in the Amazon. The company claims that this expansion would create 30,000 for rural workers in an area where jobs are badly needed. However, the expansion would involve the Carajás caves, an important archeological site. Archeologists have been studying the site since the 1980s and have found signs of life from 8,000 years ago. With several important archeological finds in Brazil in the past decades (some complicating the upcoming Río olympics), there has been increasing focus on the country's ancient history. This mining company has offered to preserve several of the cave areas, but plans to mine the majority of them even while admitting their archeological importance and hiring several archeologists to investigate the site. The government has become involved because the company was once nationalized and the government now holds a large part of its shares. The issue is, therefore, how to find a ground between development and preservation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/world/americas/in-brazil-caves-would-be-lost-in-mining-project.html?pagewanted=1&ref=americas
3 comments:
The Brazilian Economy is going to be one which will be an interesting one to keep an eye on. As they debate this development of mining vs preservation, you have to keep in mind that Brazil is going to host both the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympic Games in 2016. These are two huge events that will obviously bring a large number of tourists to the country. However, looking at past host cities for the Olympics, there has been a trend of a struggling economy afterwards. The country puts so much of its resources into hosting the games that they often times suffer afterwards. So I think Brazil will be an economy that may have dramatic economic changes in the next couple years.
I think the World Cup and Summer Olympic games are going to be huge for Brazil's economy. Many US real estate companies have a lot of exposure to Brazil and have seen sluggish growth in their assets over the past 12-16 months. From what I have seen, analyst are expecting big time pops in the retail numbers over the next few years in Brazil.
Very sad that the country feels they need to degradate such a fantastic part of their culture in order to help increase their growth. I also do not think this project is entirely necessary. Brazil is poised to host the world cup in 2014. Can't the government find infrastructure building jobs these people can instead fill?
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