Amazon mega dam delayed following protests

3 Decem­ber 2009

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydro­elec­tric dam, planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, has been delayed fol­low­ing protests by Indi­ans and objec­tions by local and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions.

If con­struct­ed, the dam will be the third largest in the world, cost­ing over US$10 bil­lion, bring­ing more than 200,000 work­ers into the area and forc­ing an esti­mat­ed 20,000 peo­ple from their homes.

A large pro­por­tion of those dis­placed will be indige­nous peo­ples who have been liv­ing in the area for cen­turies. Nine mil­lion hectares of rain­for­est will be affect­ed.

The dam was con­demned because it vio­lates human rights and harms the envi­ron­ment, at a hear­ing on dams organ­ised by the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights last month.

Kayapó Indi­ans togeth­er with 14 oth­er tribes par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long protest in Octo­ber.

After the protest, Indi­an rep­re­sen­ta­tives deliv­ered a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Lula in which they warned, ‘If the Gov­ern­ment decides to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of Belo Monte, we Indi­ans of the Xin­gu will com­mence a war.’

Although FUNAI, Brazil’s Indi­an Affairs agency, acknowl­edges the dam will have a neg­a­tive impact on indige­nous peo­ples, it has giv­en its go-ahead for the project.

The auc­tion when com­pa­nies will bid for con­tracts to build Belo Monte has been delayed owing to prob­lems in acquir­ing an envi­ron­men­tal licence for the project. If the licence is not grant­ed by Jan­u­ary, the con­struc­tion of the dam will be fur­ther post­poned, pos­si­bly until 2014.

On Tues­day, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and oth­ers affect­ed attend­ed a pub­lic hear­ing where the author­i­ties involved in the con­struc­tion of the dam spoke of its impacts. How­ev­er, no rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the gov­ern­ment bod­ies most close­ly linked to the project attend­ed. Anoth­er hear­ing was held yes­ter­day, fol­lowed by a protest by indige­nous lead­ers.

The Licens­ing Direc­tor and the Infra­struc­ture and Ener­gy Coor­di­na­tor of Brazil’s Envi­ron­ment Min­istry, key fig­ures in the Belo Monte case, announced their res­ig­na­tion on Tues­day.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Belo Monte dam see Inter­na­tion­al Rivers.

Read more about dams affect­ing oth­er indige­nous peo­ples around the world.