Brazil: Another Belo Monte Occupation; Teles Pires Dam Suspended

20th Sep­tem­ber, Two bits of good news from anti-dam strug­gles in Brazil:

• On Sep­tem­ber 16, 150 indige­nous peo­ple affect­ed by the con­struc­tion of the Belo Monte Dam com­plex in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon occu­pied one of the project’s prin­ci­ple work camps, halt­ing con­struc­tion activ­i­ties on a sec­tion of the world’s third largest dam. Mem­bers of the local Parakanã and Juruna indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties blocked a main access road to demand that the dam-build­ing con­sor­tium Norte Ener­gia respect its oblig­a­tion to remove land invaders from local indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries. The mobi­liza­tion marks the eighth time Belo Monte has been occu­pied since 2012. Read more.

• The same day, a fed­er­al judge ordered the imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion of con­struc­tion on the Teles Pires hydro­elec­tric project – one of five large dams planned for the Teles Pires Riv­er, a major trib­u­tary of the Tapa­jós Riv­er in the heart of the Brazil­ian Ama­zon. In response to a civ­il law­suit filed by Brazil’s Fed­er­al Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tors’ Office (MPF), the deci­sion cites “unfor­giv­able fail­ures” in the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing of the dam, espe­cial­ly in terms of pri­or analy­sis of impacts on the Kayabi, Munduruku and Api­a­ka indige­nous peo­ple and their ter­ri­to­ries. Accord­ing to the deci­sion of Judge Souza Pru­dente, con­struc­tion of the Teles Pires Dam con­sor­tium must be halt­ed until the indige­nous com­po­nent of the EIA is com­plet­ed and for­mal­ly approved by FUNAI. Ana­lysts expect the Brazil­ian President’s admin­is­tra­tion to appeal the rul­ing. Read more.