Amazonian reserve surrounded by hydropower dams, unserved by electricity

The sun sets and the evening falls in the communities of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Harvesting Reserve in Pará state, in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. But the lights begin to pop up at 7pm, when power generators are turned on. The favourite evening entertainment in the community is to watch soap operas and the news on television. But the fun has a set time to end, and at 10.30pm the sound coming from the TV sets is no longer heard.

Even though it is surrounded by hidropower dams, the harvesting community gets none of the electricity for itself, and has to make do with diesel generators maintained by local associations that receive average contributions of $9 a month from residents. The money is also used to provide access to water, which usually comes from artesian wells. Some communities have piped water.

José Rosário Fonseca, known as Tugurrilho, is a 70-year-old resident from the São Pedro community. His main expectation about electricity is having cold drinking water. This leads him to pay money to use his neighbouring bar's generator that provides electricity for longer—from 4pm to 11pm. “It's barely enough to cool the water a little, and by the next day it's got warm again,” he complained.

In the kerosene lamp days

Full-time power supply is a pressing demand from the communities. It is needed for a number of purposes, especially health. That would allow, for example, community healthcare centres to keep on-site supplies of such medications as snake antivenom and insulin for treating diabetes, avoiding the frequent travelling to the nearest city, Santarém.

“We had an incident recently where a boy was bitten by a venomous viper locally known as a surucucu. I was in Santarém that day. The nursing technician called me but I was unable to call back. Another nurse had to contact the ambulance speedboat in São Pedro, but it wasn't in good condition to carry the patient. We had to use the school boat to take him to Santarém,” said Marcela Amaral, a 32-year-old nurse from Mentai, one of the few communities with a local healthcare centre.

Adequate electricity would also make life easier for Ivaldo Cruz Basílio, a 43-year-old leader of Surucuá community, who makes furniture from fallen woods that he gathers from the forest. He needs electricity to power up his wood sawing and polishing machines, so he can only carry out part of his job while the community generator is on.

Next to the reserve are two large power dams—Tucuruí and Belo Monte. The president of the Community Association of Vila Franca, Raimundo Guimarães Gamboa, 58, complained that being close to large power generation complexes is not translating into energy availability for the communities. “This part of the Amazon we live in—especially the two states, Pará and Amazonas—is surrounded by power dams, and yet we're still using kerosene lamps as home lights,” Gamboa says.

Electric light for all

Addressing the shortage of energy availability in the region is the goal of a government programme called Luz para Todos (Light for All), launched by the Ministry of Mines and Energy in November 2003 and run in collaboration with energy utilities throughout the country that are set annual targets they have to meet.

In a statement, the ministry said it is reviewing the case of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Reserve and gathering data to decide on the best method and the feasibility of meeting their demands. “In Pará, the services will be provided by CELPA (Pará State Electricity Co.) based on the rules of the Luz para Todos programme until 2018, and will continue pursuing the universalisation plans with a date to be defined by the National Electricity Agency (ANEEL),” the note read.

As for other reserves in the region, the ministry said projects are being planned, with the provision method to be defined—whether that's power grid, photovoltaic miniplant, or individual photovoltaic systems. The Verde para Sempre is the only reserve where project execution has a set date to begin—the first half of 2017.

*With additional reporting by Michelle Moreira, from the EBC's Rádio Nacional da Amazônia.

Translated by Mayra Borges