By: Monti Aguirre, Latin America Program Director (with Brent Milliken, Latin American Program Director) The global COVID-19 crisis has shed a light on the deep-seated inequities in the way our rivers and the people who depend on them are treated. With the exposure created by this crisis comes an opportunity. As International Rivers adapts to current…
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BY: Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre On April 24th, the Canadian mining company Belo Sun released a corporate statement on its website claiming that it “successfully completed” the indigenous component of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for its controversial Volta Grande project, a massive open-pit gold mining operation proposed for installation along the Xingu River in the Brazilian…
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By: Siziwe Mota, Africa Program Director The Kunene River forms part of Namibia’s border with Angola. The idea of damming the Kunene dates back as far as when the Germans occupied Namibia and there have since been a number of dams and weirs on the river. In 1991, the Namibian and Angolan governments began exploring…
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By: Bruce Shoemaker, Klamath Project Liaison After decades of controversy and campaigning by Indigenous and environmental groups, the largest dam removal project to date world-wide is moving forward in far-northern California and southern Oregon of the United States. Four large hydropower dams on the Klamath River are to be removed, restoring hundreds of miles of habitat…
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By: Peter Bosshard, former Executive Director This commentary first appeared in Mongabay When we learned that Berta Cáceres, a leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was murdered in Honduras, we were shocked but not surprised. A violent death is the all-too-frequent fate of indigenous activists who defend their rivers and lands against dams, logging and other forms of…
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By: Zachary Hurwitz In some countries, dams are being built without the basic protection of human rights. In Sarawak, Malaysia, the Murum Dam was built before even its environmental impact assessment was published or discussed with affected communities. In Brazil, the Belo Monte Dam was approved by the government in 2005 even before an EIA had been written in 2008;…
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