Tomorrow morning, I will be leaving for São Francisco do Pará, a beautiful village in the South of Pará. Here, I believe I will be learning about tropical forest succession and local conservation issues, though I am not quite sure of specifics. We will be there for three days, after which I return to Belem for the weekend before going on my first long excursion! On April 19th, I will fly to Manaus with everyone on my program and we will live on a boat together for 17 days as we travel from Manaus to Santarem. I am remarkably excited to see a large portion of the Amazon River and learn as much as I can about environmental issues that are affecting the river and those who live on it.
I am still trying to decide what I want to study in my last month here for my Independent Study Project (ISP), though I am leaning towards studying the effects of the Belo Monte Dam on indigenous fishing cultures, migratory fish patterns, and perhaps water quality. However, I am also very interested in studying agrarian land use change due to biofuel production here in Brazil, as most of their energy is derived from ethanol. It would be interesting to better understand the pros and cons of biofuel production, the ways in which they create ethanol from sugar cane, the impacts on food production, indigenous rights and biofuel production, and the like. I'm sure as I visit more places and learn about more environmental issues, my list will grow, so I am trying to stay focused so that I can create a useful and practical final project.
Tchau for a few days!
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