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Summary

Chapter 5 builds on the argument that the Brazilian military government largely ignored the social and environmental costs of its big dams because it was under pressure to build them quickly and cheaply and because it believed that its pharaonic environmentalism would satisfy its critics. It covers the twenty-year period from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, when reservoir floodwaters submerged cherished land and waterscapes that had been protected as national parks, engendered profound transformations to local fisheries, and set in motion ecological changes that led to devastating mosquito-related torments among communities living along the margins of reservoirs. To be sure, not all changes spelled disaster. Fisheries boomed in the decades following the formation of reservoirs, and malaria outbreaks were mild by historic standards. But in many places, disregard for the environment led to a series of local disasters that drew attention to the high environmental costs of big dams.

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5 - Environmental Transformations

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5 - Environmental Transformations

Summary