Background Information : Read this before coming to the lesson !

Brazil is a developing country in South America. Look at the table below which compares France with Brazil. This will help you to understand a little more about the country.

Table A: Comparison of Brazil and France

GNP= GDP +exports (goods sold abroad)

GDP= total value of goods and services made by companies in a country

Q. What comments can you make about the two countries?

Brazil is a very large country which covers nearly half of South America. Look at the map below and see if you can find out the names of :

One of the biggest problems in Brazil is that of inequality. This means that the wealth of the country is not divided fairly between the people : there are a few very rich people and many very poor people. In cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, many poor people live in shanty towns or favelas. There are also between 7 and 8 million children who are forced to live on the streets of these Brazilian cities. These children have to do difficult work like collecting rubbish in order to earn some money. Some of them turn to crime, others take drugs and many are murdered on the streets every year.

Table B : Regional differences in Brazil

Before you read about the differences between the north-east and the south-east of Brazil, look at the table above. What comments can you make about the two regions?

Nearly half of the population live in the south east. This is where the major cities are found. (Can you name them ?) It is also an area of industrial and foreign investment. There are many manufacturing industries which produce goods such as satellites, aircraft and cars. However, these industries are gradually being replaced by service industries like banking.

The north-east of Brazil is a much poorer area. Traditionally, near the wetter coastal regions, farmers have grown cocoa, cotton and sugar cane, whilst cattle farming has been more common on the more arid inland soil. One problem in the area is that much of the land is owned by wealthy businessmen who hire people to work on their large farms or latifundia. The wages are not very high. Small landowners, with their small plots of land called minifundia, are gradually being forced out. Since 1970, many people have chosen to leave this area and move to the big cities in the south-east.

Q. Why are people migrating to the south-east ?

• they want their children to have better schooling
• in the north-east the soil is poor and there have been droughts

• in the north-east there is a high birth rate and therefore large families (average family size= 8 people)

• -there is less industry and so fewer jobs

However, this migration is leaving behind an area where the population is declining, local shops are closing down due to a lack of demand and many towns are becoming ghost towns.

This migration is also causing problems in the urban areas. The influx of new people to the towns leads to a shortage of houses, unemployment, crime and many people are forced to live in favelas.

Some people argue that rural poverty is being replaced by urban poverty.

(c) Amazonia

The Amazon river is 6,500 km long and is the second longest river in the world. Its huge drainage basin is covered by the largest rainforest in the world. Originally, the Amazon rainforest was 6 million km2. Very few people live in the rainforest but it has an amazing variety of plant and animal species. There are believed to be between 250600 species of mammals, 2500 species of trees, 2-30 million species of insects in the rainforest, and 2000 species of fish in the river. There is also a wide variety of mineral deposits such as bauxite, nickel, copper, gold, tin and iron ore in the forest. For thousands of years the indigenous people of the rainforest lived there without damaging the forest, but in recent years the Brazilian government have been using it for different purposes.