11 August 1999
In the Eye of the Beholder: Brazil's Wealth of Rivers
By Achim Steiner, Secretary-General, The World Commission on Dams

Perhaps more than any other industrialised country, Brazil has depended on hydro power for its economic growth. Almost all the electrical energy created in Brazil - 94-96% -- comes from hydro turbines. With more than 56 000 megawatts of hydro-producing potential in its 600 large dams, Brazil is by far the major hydro nation in Latin America. Should man continue to dam it, the Amazon alone is estimated to offer another 200 000 megawatts of hydropower, quadrupling current national production.

In this and in other ways, Brazil's wealth of rivers has captured the global imagination because of their unfathomable riches.

Just how those riches are defined depends on the beholder.

There are those who say those rushing waters are 'wasted' if they are left to flow without impediment from the Andean highlands, through the Brazilian heartland and out into the sea beyond Belem. These are the people who see more mines, more industries, more schools and hospitals and homes illuminated by hydropower, if there is a revival in the dam- building boom of the 1970s-80s.

Then there are others who say nature does not waste itself, that free-flowing, undammed waters mean the preservation of flora, fauna and human communities dependent on river life; that it is man who is wasteful when he alters rivers by damming them to meet his immediate material needs; that we must preserve indigenous plants and traditional knowledge for future generations.

Whose view is the correct one? Is there a single, correct view?

At this stage in its existence, the World Commission on Dams can only respond 'No'. There is no single, correct view on dams. There is a lot of opinion out there, a lot of passion, a lot of narrowly-focused research that tends to support one argument or the other. What has been lacking in the terribly fractured dams debate is independent, authoritative, exhaustive research and analysis as to the developmental benefits of dams, and their costs in economic, social, and environmental terms.

Conducting such research and analysis is the job of the World Commission on Dams. Gathering that information from all sides in the dams debate in this region is the goal of our Latin American Regional Consultation, to be held in Sao Paulo 12-13 August. We're holding the meeting in Brazil because of the weight of experience in this country in terms of building, opposing, and analysing dams. It must be stated that we are here to learn, not to judge.

Analysis of our Sao Paulo programme shows that, like all our meetings around the world, it is carefully balanced to give equal footing to proponents and critics of dams, chosen on the basis of submissions made to the Commission in the past few months. We also have sought to give regional balance, with half the speakers coming from the rest of Latin America to discuss the myriad impacts of dams such as the Urra in Colombia and the Chixoy in Guatemala, to give a few examples.

So who and what is the World Commission on Dams? It all started in 1996 when the World Bank produced a report analysing the success/failure of 50 dams the Bank had funded around the world. That report was heavily disparaged by non-governmental organisations active in opposing dams for their environmental and social impacts (particularly the displacement of people living near dam sites, estimated at four million per year globally).

In 1997, the new World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, joined with the IUCN-World Conservation Union to broker a meeting between 35 pro- and anti-dam interests, in Gland, Switzerland. Out of the meeting came the unanimous call for an independent World Commission on Dams. After months of negotiation 12 eminent persons from the fields of business, academia, NGOs and government were chosen as Commissioners. One is Professor José Goldemberg, an esteemed Brazilian academic, former Minister of Education, and ex-chairman of the Energy Company of the State of Sao Paulo. Professor Kader Asmal was chosen as Chair because of his background as a human rights lawyer active in the anti-apartheid campaign in the UK and as South Africa's Water Affairs and Forestry Minister in Nelson Mandela's first cabinet.

The highly participatory process through which the Commission was created is replicated at every level of the WCD work programme:

• Many members of the Gland meeting have joined our 55-member advisory Forum to guide, criticise, and support our research.


• We have commissioned 17 papers on economic, social, environmental and institutional issues related to dams, as well as an exhaustive analysis of alternatives to large dams in producing power, providing irrigation and flood control.


• Each of our eight individual dam case studies, including that of Brazil's Tucuruí dam, is conducted by a national team of experts and parties involved in the dams debate. A broad group of stakeholders in the dam area helps thrash out the scope of each study, and later will comment on it before it is published.

The role of dams in Brazil's economic development is unquestionable, and we have much to learn from this country's experience. However, the question of balancing the costs and benefits of large dams, and conflict resulting from disputes over dams, is an urgent matter of public concern in Brazil. The WCD offers an unusual opportunity to review the facts, learn lessons from the past, identify areas of scientific uncertainty related to dams, and acknowledge those issues that are subject to value judgements and the difficult choices that must be made as a country chooses a development path.

As will be seen at our Sao Paulo meeting, by bringing the parties to the dams debate together (for the first time, in most instances) the WCD breaks down the barriers to fruitful discussion. And its final report will provide the world with tools for rational management of that most essential component of life and well-being, water.