To the uninitiated, Porto Murtinho may seem like the middle of nowhere—or simply the end of the road. A well-paved Brazilian interstate ends here. No bridge connects it across the river to Paraguay. A few bait shops and the squalid shacks of a displaced indigenous tribe dot the opposite bank. Beyond the reservation lies the vast expanse of the Gran Chaco, a bioregion as remarkable for its diversity as for its hostility to humans. Covering much of Paraguay, parts of Argentina and Bolivia, as well as this sliver of Brazil, the Chaco's arid plains are as sparsely populated as polar regions, deserts, and tropical rainforests. Neither country bothers with a border checkpoint.
Yet many consider this paradise—or at least the gateway to it.
Behind a crumbling dike that has for two decades successfully staved off once-chronic flooding from the Paraguay River, the 15,000 souls of Porto Murtinho inhabit the southwestern corner of the Pantanal. Known as the "Serengeti of South America," the Pantanal is a patchwork of low-lying forests and marshes and dry, upland savannas. In the rainy season rivers and streams overflow their banks and flood 80% of the Pantanal, covering an area more than ten times the size of the Florida Everglades. Lagoons swell with water lilies; jaguars and giant anteaters prowl the marshes, and migratory birds like the upland sandpiper stop for seasonal respites.
For sports fishermen, and they are basically all men, this stretch of Paraguay conjures up visions of prized freshwater species like the dourado, “a fighting fish that is worth the trouble to catch,” according to one specialized website.
Their poles in tow, beer-swilling, chain-smoking Brazilian men converge on Porto Murtinho's fishing lodges by the busload. They top off days on the river with nights on the town, customarily in the company of prostitutes. Many of the sex workers are migrants from across the border or elsewhere in Brazil. Local women are also often drawn into the trade. Some of the immigrants and perhaps some of the local sex workers are children—four suspects were arrested in October 2004 for allegedly conspiring to force an underage out-of-state Brazilian, enticed under a false pretext, to engage in commercial sex.
Enter Clemencia Bitancourt Donatti, better known as Cida. Short, sturdy, and full of energy, Cida is a true sparkplug. She and her husband João Carlos met as student activists, but when they moved to Porto Murtinho seven years ago she pledged to stick to her job as a school teacher. She wouldn't get too entangled in local affairs.
But the town's social problems just kept walking into her classroom each morning—prostitution, teenage pregnancy, and the town's overwhelming poverty rate. “I had to live with these things at work,” she says. “I had to do something.”
She recruited fellow teachers and began to offer sex education for girls and young mothers, using theater as an attention grabber. But without the active support of their families, the teenagers proved a difficult audience. When she began to try to draw in their families, Cida discovered that the root of the problem lay in a whole different dimension. As many as five couples shared cramped little shacks. For privacy, or peace, couples would often sleep outdoors. Children ran willy-nilly through kitchens, yards and muddy streets. “It is no use to talk about sexual exploitation or planting trees,” Cida thought.
With the help of the National Housing Movement and a regional civil society organization named Ecoa, Cida managed to get 600 locals to a meeting: “There's a crazy woman here who says we can get housing!” exclaimed one participant. Most of the small multitude hoped to leave with a deed. When people discovered that they'd have to invest sweat equity, the number of candidates dropped to 16 families.
Over time, the crazy woman proved she had the ability to negotiate with government officials for a plot of land and building materials. More folks signed on. It took nearly three years, but 63 single-family dwellings were built. Proud prospective owners drew lots to divvy up the structures. While modest, even spartan by middle-class standards, the homes remain well-kept three years later, each with an added touch—an orange tree in one backyard, a new coat of paint down the block.
During construction, participants would sometimes show up for their shifts and find nothing to do. Officials had failed to deliver materials, perhaps. But folks weren't sent home to sulk. Cida and her volunteers would organize educational sessions on HIV/AIDS, crafts, and something called the “Hidrovia,” a scheme promoted by the region's governments to dredge and straighten the Paraguay River to improve navigation for barges carrying mostly soybeans for export. Environmentalists warn that the Hidrovia threatens the fragile stability of the entire Pantanal ecosystem.
Another round of home building would follow in Porto Murtinho, albeit with ever-greater difficulties due to growing obstacles erected by public officials. But the newfound blend of social and environmental agendas determined the course of Vida Pantaneira (Pantanal Life), the name adopted by Cida and her cohorts for their organization. Vida Pantaneira has organized seminars and events, helped scavengers of fishing bait improve their professional standing, organized groups of volunteers to plant seedlings along deforested stream banks, and helped ensure access to Brazilian public health services for the neighboring Paraguayan Indians who have no other nearby alternatives.
Vida Pantaneira has come to make the Paraguay River its focal point—and that has led to cross-border organizing. “You can't talk about the Paraguay River from one side only,” says Cida, “It is a border river.” Vida Pantaneira extended an invitation to citizens in the nearest Paraguayan village, Colonia Carmelo Peralta, to join their movement. A few Paraguayan schoolteachers accepted. Now they're trying to cut through their own country's red tape to register an independent organization, Ecochaco, across the border. The two groups are planning a binational youth conference for later this year.
For all their brotherly rhetoric, the governments of the Southern Cone seem unable to think beyond environmentally-destructive mega-infrastructure projects like the Hidrovia when they act in the name of regional integration. Along the Paraguay River, Vida Pantaneira would seem to have made more progress toward cross-border integration than a decade of ill-fated joint governmental projects.
Whether stemming from jealousy or spite, politicians and special interests offer high praise by reaching to absurd lengths to discredit Vida Pantaneira's little band of activists. “There are people who say we represent the Queen of England,” says Cida, with a smile.
A former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week, Bill Hinchberger is the founder and editor of BrazilMax: www.BrazilMax.com and contributor to the IRC Americas Program: www.americaspolicy.org . The Center for Social and Environmental Support (CASA) and the Greengrants Alliance of Funds (GAF) ( www.greengrants.org ) provided support for this article.
