Blogs: Amazon Under Threat

Fish are dying at an alarming rate because of the Santo Antônio Dam. (Instituto Rio Madeira Vivo)

This blog in Brazil caught our eye recently: catfish are now disappearing at an alarming rate from the Madeira River, thanks to the reservoir of the Santo Antônio Dam.

When the environmental license for the Santo Antônio Dam was approved against the findings of fish experts, Lula controversially claimed that the dams would not be stopped because of "some catfish." Now, the catfish are disappearing. Don't say we didn't warn you. 

Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre stops construction at Belo Monte's Pimental work site

In the first days of the New Year, Brazilian contractors quietly started blockading the Xingu River to allow construction to start on the massive Belo Monte Dam. Often called the "Pandora Dam" by mainstream media because of James Cameron’s support for the struggle against it, the hydroelectric project could become the world’s third largest. While construction had started on roads and associated works several months ago, the building of coffer dams to divert the flow of the river started during the Brazillian new year holiday, presumably to sidestep the scrutiny of civil society, NGOs and regional activists. But escape scrutiny it did not.

Kayapó Warrior Readies for a Response at the Belo Monte Dam Occupation (Ivan Canabrava)

Early this morning on the Xingu River outside of Altamira, an estimated 600 indigenous people from 21 tribes, as well as fishermen, occupied the construction site of the Belo Monte Dam, demanding a definitive end to the project. Events are very fluid on the ground, and internet has been out in the region, so information is coming in bit by bit. We know that early on, the mobilization declared their intent to not leave the site until the Belo Monte Dam was cancelled for good.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the Regional Federal Tribunal reconvened 10 days after judge Selene Maria de Almeida voted that the Belo Monte project licenses are illegal because the government failed to consult the affected indigenous tribes prior to congressional approval, thereby violating Article 231 of the Constitution. At the reconvened trial, the second of three judges of the tribunal, Judge Sebastião Fagundes de Deus, voted against judge de Almeida's decision. 

The Xikrin Kayapó recently told Public Prosecutor Felicio Pontes about the government's lack of prior consultations (Marcelo Salazar/Instituto Socioambiental)

On Monday, federal judge Selene Maria de Almeida voted in a landmark opinion in Brazilian courts that the Belo Monte Dam licenses are illegal and must be cancelled due to what is now widely-accepted evidence that the Brazilian government did not hold proper consultations with indigenous tribes that would be affected by the project. De Almeida argued that while the dam reservoirs do not flood indigenous territories, the project's diversion of the Xingu River will directly impact the tribes' abilities to reproduce physically, culturally, and economically, as 80% of the Xingu River would be channeled away from their lands to the reservoirs. The vote shined a stark spotlight on the project's astronomical risks, and on a growing gap between the implementation of Brazil's legislative framework and the standards of international best practice.  



The Macuxi Tribe are fighting against the proposed Cotingo Dam in Raposa Serra do Sol territory (Eliane Potiguara)

In 2005, after years of fighting, the Macuxi indigenous people finally won title from the Lula administration to their own indigenous territory, called Raposa Serra do Sol. Then followed a heated legal battle to remove non-indigenous people from the lands, including ranchers and rice growers who had illegally invaded the area in the 1970s. The Brazilian Supreme Court decided to enforce the removal of the non-indigenous people from the territory in 2009. Now over 50,000 indigenous people in the area are fighting a new threat: a Dilma administration proposal to build hydroelectric dams inside of their territory. 

The Brazilian government has built a legal house of cards for Belo Monte

In June of this year in Foz do Iguaçú, Brazil, at the International Hydropower Association's bi-yearly Congress, Eletrobras Director Valter Cardeal declared: "All of the indigenous people, even the Kayapó who live upstream from the area of impacts, are in favor of Belo Monte."  Cardeal made the declaration with a straight face, speaking to the audience of dam industry CEOs, financial officers, and government representatives who were probably ecstatic to hear such a development.  Too bad it wasn't true.  Sitting in the front row were indigenous leaders Sheyla Yakarepi Juruna and Patxon Metuktire.  In fact, they said, indigenous people were not properly consulted.  And that's against the law.

Curt Trennepohl approved the Belo Monte installation license in June 2011

In early July, a rather courageous 60 Minutes Australia reporter confronted IBAMA President Curt Trennepohl in Brazil about the agency's polemic approval of an installation license for the Belo Monte Dam.  Mr. Trennepohl's off-camera comments made him sound like an apologist for genocide – rather damaging to the credibility of an environmental agency.  The video was even removed from YouTube, presumably following the complaints of someone in the Brazilian government.  Below, we've embedded the relevant section of the televised report so you can watch and judge for yourself:

Men holding protest sign (Foto SER)

For over a month, close to 2,000 people in the Puno area of the Peruvian Amazon went on strike in an effort to convince the government to cancel mining concessions and the Inambari Dam. They blocked access roads to the region and held mass protests.

To appease the strikers, the government established a high-level commission to review the Inambari Dam. After a tense meeting with local communities on June 13, Commission Chair and Vice-Minister of Energy Luis Gonzales Talledo cancelled the project, stating that the Brazilian consortium Egasur's rights to develop the project had been revoked.

The Inambari Dam was to be built at the corner of Puno, Cusco, and Madre de Dios states, 300 km from the border with Brazil.The project would have flooded 410 square kilometers of forest, including part of the Bahujan Sonene National Park buffer zone. More than 15,000 people would be deprived of their agricultural lands and thus their main source of livelihoods. 

Kayapó leader on the Xingu River (Christian Poirier/Amazon Watch)

Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA stepped further into controversy last week when it granted Belo Monte Dam consortium Norte Energia a full installation license to begin construction. By doing so, the agency drew the Belo Monte project further into what will be a long, drawn-out quagmire of doubt, legal and technical problems, growing social unrest, and – more likely than not – large cost overruns. The fight over the Belo Monte Dam is not over. It's just getting good.

The illegality of the Belo Monte Dam is reaching a boiling point.

"If Norte Energia has not met the legal pre-requisites to building the Belo Monte Dam, it seems obvious to us that the project should be delayed.  We can't sacrifice the region's people and environment to satisfy the consortium's timeline, when it was they who caused the delay in the first place."  This statement from Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor Ubiratan Cazetta sums up the risks of approving a full Installation License for the Belo Monte Dam after new evidence recently surfaced that the pre-requisites have not been met.