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  • Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Yacyretá

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    Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Yacyretá

    A giant dam project on the border of Paraguay and Argentina raises questions about the social and environmental impact of major infrastructure projects.

    Dozens of dams were built in South America between the 1960s and early 1990s. Many were financed by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, to bring progress to the continent by harnessing its powerful rivers for industry and growing urban populations.

    The largest of these dams was Yacyretá, on the border between Paraguay and Argentina. Yacyretá was to produce thousands of megawatts of energy. But it was also to flood the biologically richest area of both countries, and force the largest urban displacement by a development project in history.

    In the latter half of the 1980s, the banks held up loans to Yacyretá, pending plans to address environmental and social concerns. Then, despite protests that people and endangered animals would be left homeless, the banks began preparing to restart the loans, raising questions about the policy of international lenders to leave environmental protection and resettlement to the borrowing countries.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    May 30, 1992

    Outlets

    Weekend Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture, Environment
    Regions: South America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
    Other Tags: Argentina, Paraguay, dams, hydroelectric, displacement, World Bank

  • Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Argentina’s Guaraní Indians

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    Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Argentina’s Guaraní Indians

    Once the largest tribe in South America, the Guaraní have nearly all left their native forests. But one last band is holding out.

    The Guaraní Indians were the once the largest tribe in South America. Their home was a forest that stretched from the Argentine pampas to the Brazilian Amazon.

    Four centuries ago, Jesuit priests arrived in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil to evangelize the Guaraní, a story told in the 1985 movie “The Mission.” The Jesuits coaxed the nomadic, hunter-and-gatherer Guaraní to live in Catholic missions called reductions.

    Some Guaraní, however, never accepted the church, and remained hidden in the forest. Today, their descendants confront a world in which paper mills, dams, settlers, and tourism development have so diminished their habitat that, increasingly, the forest’s edge is all that’s left.

    In 1992, when this story was reported, the government of Argentina was planning to relocate the last of that country’s Guaraní onto small plots of farmland. Yet one small band of Indians, in northern Argentina’s Misiones Province, was still holding out.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    January 12, 1992

    Outlets

    Weekend Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture, Environment
    Regions: South America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Alan Weisman, Cecilia Vaisman
    Other Tags: indigenous rights, Argentina, Guarani