3 - Pharaonic Environmentalism

Summary

Chapter 3 covers the period in the 1970s and 1980s when the military regime finished its big dams and their reservoirs filled. During this time, the rise of international environmentalism pressured the military government’s dam builders to undertake environmental impact studies and design environmental mitigation programs. This chapter argues that the environmentalism that the military regime’s energy sector practiced was deficient and narrowly organized around two goals. The first was protecting power plant infrastructure from environmental threats such as sedimentation. The second was to showcase environmental care without fundamentally altering project designs or slowing down construction. For example, the military regime funded environmental impact studies, but did so belatedly, after committing to particular high-impact dam sites, and followed the studies’ recommendations selectively. Most dramatically, the military regime carried out animal rescue missions, which it hoped would showcase its environmental consciousness. These actions were “pharaonic environmentalism”: protection measures designed to bolster the image of the military dictatorship as a regime that could build durable mega dams while simultaneously protecting the environment.