After a 15-year delay, the environmental licensing process for the Tabajara Hydroelectric Plant has been cancelled, effectively ending the project. On June 30, 2025, Brazil’s environmental regulator, IBAMA, definitively archived the project, proposed on the Machado River in Rondonia, after the developer Eletronorte failed to submit the required studies for over two years. International Rivers applauds the social movements and Indigenous and frontline communities who have challenged the feasibility of the proposed Tabajara dam and advocated for its cancellation.
This victory was the result of the tireless advocacy of communities that united to protect the Machado River from a project that would threaten their food and economic lifelines and destroy their connection to their cultural heritage. Studies conducted by Brazilian researchers confirmed that the Tabajara would accelerate deforestation and loss of biodiversity, alter the Machado River’s flow, degrade water quality, accelerate local greenhouse gas emissions, ignite battles over land, and threaten the way of life for countless Indigenous communities. Throughout the process, International Rivers helped prepare technical notes, supported coordination of social movements, and coordinated engagement with IBAMA.
Along the way, the process for approving the project was rife with flaws, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Most notably, it violated local communities’ human rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. The trail of environmental destruction imposed by large-scale hydropower in Brazil, including its scar on Indigenous, traditional, riverside, and urban communities, clearly demonstrates that the energy generated by hydroelectric dams has never been clean, fair, or socially inclusive.
The cancellation of the Tabajara project’s environmental licensing process was not merely an administrative act, but rather the result of a collective effort of struggle and resistance by Indigenous and social movement organizations, universities, national movements, such as the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), and national and international environmental organizations.
On the eve of COP 30, Brazil has the opportunity to serve as a global leader in the clean energy transition. It can achieve this by abandoning mega-dams and encouraging, promoting, and expanding renewable, fair, and socially inclusive energy sources. It must abandon mega-dams and lead a just, clean, and decentralized energy transition. As the world looks to Brazil for climate leadership, large-scale hydropower has no place in that future. Button: Learn more
Read the joint statement from International Rivers and its allies marking the decision (Portuguese).