by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 13, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Property & Material Destruction, Reclamation & Expropriation, Worker Exploitation
By Agence France-Presse
Work on Brazil’s controversial $13 billion Belo Monte mega-dam ground to a halt Monday after protesters torched buildings at three dam construction sites over the weekend, the developer said.
Saturday, “a group of 30 people set fire to prefab structures at the Pimental site. They went into the cafeteria, destroyed everything and robbed the till” before setting it ablaze, said Fernando Santana, spokesman for builders Consorcio Constructor Belo Monte (CCBM).
And late Sunday, groups of 20 people set structures ablaze at Canais and Diques, two other dam construction sites, said Santana.
“On Monday, as a precautionary security measure, all activities were suspended at the construction site,” said Santana, suggesting that “vandals” might be trying to derail salary renegotiation under way.
The state-owned Norte Energia hired CCBM to build the dam, which is set to be the world’s third largest when it has been completed. Between 12,000 and 13,000 workers would be employed at the site on two shifts, Santana said.
The incidents broke out after CCBM proposed a seven percent wage hike to the workers in an area where the inflation rate is at 30 percent, said Xingu Vivo, a non-governmental group opposing the dam.
On October 9 protesters — 150 natives and local fishermen — interrupted dam construction, accusing Norte Energia of backtracking on accords signed in June when people occupied the Pimental area for three weeks.
Indigenous groups fear the dam across the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, will harm their way of life. Environmentalists have warned of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and irreparable damage to the ecosystem.
The dam is expected to flood some 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) along the Xingu and displace 16,000 people, according to the government, although some NGOs put the number at 40,000 displaced.
The natives want their lands demarcated and non-indigenous people removed from them, as well as a better healthcare system and access to drinking water.
Expected to produce 11,000 megawatts of electricity, the dam would be the third biggest in the world, after China’s Three Gorges facility and Brazil’s Itaipu Dam in the south.
It is one of several hydroelectric projects billed by Brazil as providing clean energy for a fast-growing economy.
“Avatar” director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver support dam opponents, drawing parallels with the natives-versus-exploiters storyline of their blockbuster Hollywood movie.
From Bangkok Post: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/320956/trouble-at-brazil-mega-dam-stops-construction-for-now
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 3, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Agence France-Presse
Energy-hungry Cambodia on Friday gave the green light to a multi-million dollar hydropower dam backed by companies from China and Vietnam that activists say will affect thousands of people.
The Hydro Power Lower Sesan 2 project will invest $781.5 million to build a 400-megawatt hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Mekong River in northern Stung Treng province, according to a government statement.
The government did not name the Chinese and Vietnamese firms involved, but said solutions had been reached for affected villagers.
Prime Minister Hun Sen also ordered authorities and the company to build new homes and prepare land for an unspecified number of families that would be resettled for the project, according to the statement.
Activist Meach Mean, coordinator at an environmental group 3S Rivers Protection Network, estimated more than 50,000 people would be affected by the dam.
“We are surprised by the approval,” he told AFP, calling on the government and the company to hold a public forum to discuss concerns before going ahead.
“We don’t know clearly about the process to build the project,” he said. “We are really concerned about the impact on the people’s livelihoods, water, and ecology system.”
UN human rights envoy Surya Subedi also raised concerns about the dam in a report in September, saying communities reported they had not been adequately consulted about the impact of the project.
Cambodia late last year opened the country’s largest hydropower dam to date, a more than $280 million Chinese-funded project that has attracted criticism from environmental groups.
Spiralling utility prices, driven by the lack of supply, are a major obstacle for Cambodia to attract foreign investment, and the government has struggled to find a way to bring down the cost of power.
Nine dams, including at least four funded by China, are set to open by 2019, and once they are all operational the government says they will generate 2,045 megawatts of power, serving all Cambodia’s provinces.
From PhysOrg: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-cambodia-controversial.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 9, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Construction on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halted again as around 150 demonstrators, most of them from nearby indigenous tribes, have occupied the main construction site at Pimental. Over a hundred indigenous people joined local fishermen who had been protesting the dam for 24 days straight. Indigenous people and local fishermen say the dam will devastate the Xingu River, upending their way of life.
“The renewed occupation of the project’s earthen cofferdams paralyzed construction works, while indigenous protestors seized the keys of trucks and tractors forcing workers to leave the strategic Pimental work camp on foot,” reads a press release from the NGO Amazon Watch. Around 900 workers were sent home.
This is the second occupation attempt in less than six months. Over the summer some 300 indigenous people sustained an occupation of the dam for 21 days, before breaking it off though little headway was made in talks with consortium building the dam, Norte Energia.
The Belo Monte dam, which would be the world’s third largest, has been plagued by controversy from its origin decades ago; the battle for the dam has been fought both in Brazil’s courts and on the international stage. If built, the dam will flood an estimated 40,000 hectares of present rainforest and could push some fish species to extinction. In addition, 16,000 people will be displaced according to the government, though some NGOs say the number is more likely double that.
Despite the impacts, the dam has been strongly supported by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and every legal injunction against the dam has been overturned. Norte Energia has filed with a local court for repossession of the construction sties.
Indigenous groups say the construction of the dam is already imperiling their way of life, as the Xingu river becomes more difficult to navigate. They have also said they have no intention of leaving until Norte Energia meets their demands.
“We are witnessing the devastation of this land. The island of Pimental was completely destroyed, with a sole tree left standing, and the water is putrid. It is very shocking,” an protestor told Amazon Watch.
Dams are often described as ‘green’ energy source, however in the tropics they actually release significant methane emissions due to rotting vegetation. Although it has a shorter life than carbon, methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas.
From Mongabay: “Indigenous groups re-occupy Belo Monte dam in the Amazon“
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 1, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Mongabay
200 indigenous men and women are blockading shipments of construction materials to a dam site in Malaysian Borneo to protest the impact of the hydroelectric project on their traditional forest home, reports the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), a Switzerland-based group that campaigns on behalf of forest people of Sarawak.
According to the NGO, on the morning of September 26, 200 Penan and Kenyah set up a blockade on the road used by trucks to deliver supplies to Murum dam, a controversial project being built by China’s Three Gorges Corporation. The protesters say they will maintain the road block until Sarawak Energy, the agency behind the dam, meets with them and agrees to their demands relating to involuntary resettlement and their traditional land rights. The dam would flood up to 250 square kilometers of rainforest and farmland, affecting some 1,400 people, says BMF, which adds that the communities fear a repeat of the nearby Bakun dam.
“They have witnessed how the quality of life decreased for their neighboring communities affected by Bakun dam, one of the biggest dams in Asia, when they were forcefully displaced in 1998,” BMF said in a statement. “They do not want to face the same fate: loss of livelihood, poverty and loss of culture.”
The government of Sarawak is planning to build at least a dozen dams over the next twenty years, well exceeding the state’s demand for electricity. But Sarawak says it aims to attract energy-intensive industries like mining. Critics argue that the primary motivation is corruption: large infrastructure offer big opportunities for officials to line their pockets using state funds. Sarawak’s Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is accused of amassing a personal fortune of some $15 billion through such approaches as well as control over the state’s forest resources.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 28, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Agence France-Presse
Brazil’s Supreme Court has approved the resumption of work on the huge Belo Monte dam in the Amazon, which was halted earlier this month after protests from indigenous groups.
The preliminary ruling on Monday overturns an earlier ruling that ordered construction of the dam across the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, to be stopped until indigenous peoples can testify before Congress.
However, the decision by Supreme Court President Carlos Ayres Britto could be revised when the court examines the case further, its website said.
The dam, expected to produce 11,000 megawatts of electricity, would be the third-biggest in the world, after China’s Three Gorges facility and Brazil’s Itaipu dam in the south.
A regional federal court, in the earlier ruling, had noted that when Congress approved the project in 2005, it called for an environmental impact study after the start of the work.
By law, the native communities had the right to air their views in Congress on the basis of the study, but this was not done, the court said.
Work on the dam began a year ago, despite fierce opposition from local residents and green activists.
Indigenous groups fear the dam will harm their way of life while environmentalists have warned of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and irreparable damage to the ecosystem.
“Avatar” director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver have given their backing to dam opponents, drawing parallels with the natives-versus-exploiters storyline of their blockbuster Hollywood movie.
Belo Monte is expected to flood an area of 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) along the Xingu, and displace 16,000 people, according to the government. Some NGOs estimate that 40,000 people would be displaced.
From Yahoo! News:
