Amazon Basin

Vaupés River, Colombian Amazon (Aguirre/Switkes/AMAZONIA)

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The Amazon Basin Campaign is now featured on Google Earth!

The Amazon Basin, home to 60% of the planet’s remaining tropical rainforests, is an immense region nearly the size of the continental United States. The Amazon´s incredible biodiversity is well-known, and new research confirms the critical role it plays in regulating the climate not only of South America, but also of parts of North America as well.

Increasingly, the Amazon Basin is being targeted for large dam projects. More than 60 large dams are being planned for the Brazilian Amazon, and neighboring countries Peru, Bolivia and Colombia are planning dams of their own. If built, these projects would dramatically affect the Amazon’s fragile web of aquatic and terrestrial life, as well as displacing tens of thousands of indigenous and river bank communities.

Map of the Rivers of the Amazon (Wikipedia Commons)

Roughly 83% of the Amazon rainforest is still intact, and a principal factor in the Amazon’s survival has been its remoteness. But now a series of large–scale industrial developments threaten to transform the Amazon into a center for extraction of raw materials for export. To fuel these developments, construction companies, hydropower utilities, and agribusiness are planning to convert the Amazon’s greatest tributaries into a series of slack-water reservoirs.

Once built, these dams would provide the power and transport needed to move large quantities of resources out of the Amazon—and accelerate its destruction. Many of these projects form part of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), a program supported by international financial institutions which regards the vast natural areas of the continent as obstacles to "development."

International Rivers is working with environmentalists, social movements, and indigenous people to fight dams planned for the Amazon, and to promote dialogue about the value of undammed rivers in the rainforest.

Some Key Amazon Dam Projects

The Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River would divert the flow of the river and devastate an extensive area of the Brazilian rainforest, displacing over 20,000 people and threatening the survival of indigenous peoples.

Santo Antônio and Jirau dams are being built on the Madeira River, the principal tributary of the Amazon.

A series of dams are being planned for the mighty Tapajos River, also a major Amazon tributary. The dams would flood national parks, reservers and indigenous lands.

The Araguaia and Tocantins rivers, which empty near the mouth of the Amazon, are targeted for dozens of large dams.

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