South American dam news

2 Arrests in Home Depot Dam Protest; Take Action!

May 27th, 2009
Two activists were arrest­ed at a Home Depot in Glen­dale, CO, near Den­ver, after hang­ing a ban­ner off the build­ing that read, “Dam Home Depot, NOT Patag­o­nia!” Home Depot is under pres­sure from Inter­na­tion­al Rivers and allies for its ongo­ing finan­cial involve­ment with the main Chilean inter­est pro­mot­ing 5 dams in Chilean Patag­o­nia.

Home Depot has a share­hold­ers’ meet­ing com­ing up on Thurs­day, May 28 in Atlanta, Geor­gia. Con­tact them (before their May 28 share­hold­ers’ meet­ing if pos­si­ble, but cer­tain­ly dur­ing or after as well) and tell them to can­cel pur­chas­es of tim­ber from the Mat­te and Angeli­ni Groups (the com­pa­nies CMPC and Arau­co) for their involve­ment in plans to dam wild Patag­o­nia, and to drop the charges against Earth First! pro­test­ers in Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty, Col­orado. Call 1–800-553‑3199 (press exten­sion # 5), or send an email direct­ly from this site.

For more back­ground on the issue, vis­it Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ Patag­o­nia page.

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More South Amer­i­can Dam News

Chilean Patag­o­nia: Inter­na­tion­al Rivers deployed two large ban­ners at Home Depot’s annu­al share­hold­er meet­ing in Atlanta, GA, USA, on May 28, demand­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion sev­er ties with the two com­pa­nies push­ing plans to dam 5 rivers in wild Patag­o­nia. Inside the meet­ing, pro­test­ers brought their demands direct­ly to the company’s board.

The action came only a day after 2 Earth First! activists were arrest­ed for drop­ping a sim­i­lar ban­ner off a Home Depot in Col­orado. For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Dam Home Depot and Save Patag­o­nia, vis­it Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ Patag­o­nia page.

Brazil: At least 7 peo­ple were killed when a water stor­age dam burst, flood­ing the city of Cocal da Estação, pop­u­la­tion 30,000. Thou­sands were left home­less or with­out elec­tric­i­ty. Fol­low­ing the acci­dent, a Brazil­ian dam expert esti­mat­ed that 200 oth­er dams in the coun­try are at risk of fail­ure.

In bet­ter news, a fed­er­al judge has sus­pend­ed the envi­ron­men­tal per­mit for the Belo Monte dam on the Xin­gu riv­er, due to insuf­fi­cient con­sid­er­a­tion of the effects on indige­nous peo­ple. The Xin­gu dams have drawn a great deal of oppo­si­tion on both legal grounds and from indige­nous nations whose ter­ri­to­ry would be flood­ed or degrad­ed if they go through. They are part of a much larg­er plan to scale up Brazil’s ener­gy infra­struc­ture through the con­struc­tion of mas­sive hydro­elec­tric and nuclear plants.

Peru: The Cen­tral Ashanin­ka del Rio Ene (CARE), rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the indige­nous Ashanin­ka com­mu­ni­ties of the Ene Val­ley, declared its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the planned Pak­itza­pan­go hydro­elec­tric dam stat­ing, that “the Ashanin­ka com­mu­ni­ties of the Ene riv­er … Repu­di­ate the use of the Ashanin­ka word Pak­itza­pan­go in light of its spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance for the Ashanin­ka Peo­ple of Peru [and] Demand that any activ­i­ty such as research, pro­mo­tions, reports, meet­ings or pro­pos­als that sup­port or pro­mote the con­struc­tion of the Pak­itza­pan­go dam are imme­di­ate­ly called off. The Ashanin­ka of the Ene val­ley will NOT per­mit the entry of any insti­tu­tion car­ry­ing out any of the men­tioned activ­i­ties.”

Read the full dec­la­ra­tion.

UPDATE (June 4 2009): It appears that the dams planned for Ashanin­ka ter­riotry in Peru are intend­ed to sell elec­tric­i­ty to Brazil, pri­mar­i­ly for min­ing, met­al pro­cess­ing and indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture indus­tries in the East­ern Ama­zon.