Indigenous peoples affected by the controversial Belo Monte dam complex now under construction along the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon have occupied a coffer dam that cuts across channels of the river since last Thursday June 21. Warriors from the Xikrin and Juruna indigenous groups arrived from the Bacajá River and Big Bend of the Xingu River in order to occupy one of Belo Monte’s main dams and work camps, expressing dissatisfaction with the blatant disregard of their rights and the dam building consortium’s non-compliance with socio-environmental mitigation measures. The groups independently organized the action and are demanding the presence of the Norte Energia (NESA) dam-building consortium and the Brazilian government.
The occupiers come from a region of the Xingu downstream of Belo Monte that will suffer from a permanent drought provoked by the diversion of 80% of the river’s flow into an artificial dam to feed the dam’s powerhouse.
The indigenous peoples are outraged that promised actions by government-led Norte Energia – many of which constitute legal obligations of environmental licenses issued for the Belo Monte complex – have not been implemented. According to protest leaders, a program designed to mitigate and compensate impacts of the mega-dam project on indigenous peoples and their territories known as the PBA (Plano Básico Ambiental) has not been presented in local villages as promised.
The protestors also claim that a promised system to ensure small boat navigation in the vicinity of the coffer dams has not been implemented by NESA leaving them isolated from Altamira, a market for goods and the main source of healthcare and other essential services. The interruption of boat transportation along the Xingu is expected to force indigenous peoples to open up access roads to their villages, provoking further pressures from illegal loggers, land speculators, cattle ranchers and squatters.
According to the Xicrin and other indigenous leaders, the coffer dams at Pimental have already compromised water quality downriver on the Xingu due to siltation and stagnation, making it undrinkable and unsuitable for bathing. Norte Energia promised to install wells and potable water distribution systems in indigenous villages, but no such works have been carried out. The protestors at Pimental also point to the lack of legal recognition and demarcation of several indigenous territories in the area of influence of Belo Monte, such as Terra Wangã, Paquiçamba, Juruena do km 17 and Cachoeira Seca, all legal prerequisites for dam construction.
The protestors camping out at the Pimental coffer dam on the Xingu are calling for immediate suspension of the installation license for Belo Monte.
Text written by men assembled in the Bacajá village in the Trincheira-Bacajá indigenous territory declared:
Stop this and let our river run. Let our boats navigate the river. Stop this and let the river run so that our children can drink and bathe in its waters. If they build this dam the river will become ruined, its waters will no longer be good. The river will be dry; how will we be able to navigate and travel?
Let the river run so that our people can continue to hunt in the jungle so that our children and grandchildren can eat, so that the river runs freely and we can fish in the early morning to nourish our children.
Our studies were poorly completed and now you speak of a dam. We do not like this. The Basic Environmental Plan [to mitigate social and environmental impacts] has not even begun to be implemented and they are already building the dam. We do not like this. We want this Belo Monte dam to stop once and for all! (Translation by anthropologist Clarice Cohn.)
Threatened by the construction of a huge hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous Peoples of the Xingu River Basin fight together to prevent by any means what they consider to the makings of a terrible catastrophe with global consequences.
Belo Monte, An Announcement Of War is an independent, crowd-funded, feature-length documentary about the largest ongoing construction project in Brazil and the permanent struggle to stop it. The entire film has been uploaded to the internet for anyone who wishes to view it.
While the Brazilian Government prepares to host the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit, 3,000 kilometers north in the country’s Amazon region indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolk, activists and local residents affected by the construction of the massive Belo Monte Dam project began a symbolic peaceful occupation of the dam site to “free the Xingu River.”
In the early morning hours, three hundred women and children arrived in the hamlet of Belo Monte on the Transamazon Highway, and marched onto a temporary earthen dam recently built to impede the flow of the Xingu River. Using pick axes and shovels, local people who are being displaced by the project removed a strip of earthen dam to restore the Xingu’s natural flow.
Residents gathered in formation spelling out the words “Pare Belo Monte” meaning “Stop Belo Monte” to send a powerful message to the world prior to the gathering in Rio and demanding the cancellation of the $18 billion Belo Monte dam project (aerial photos of the human banner available upon request).
Demonstrators planted five hundred native açai trees to stabilize the riverbank that has been destroyed by the initial construction of the Belo Monte dam. They also erected 200 crosses on the banks of the Xingu to honor the lives of those lost defending the Amazon.
Also this morning, hundreds of residents of Altamira held a march to the headquarters of dam-building consortium NESA. The actions are part of Xingu+23, a multi-day series of festivities, debates and actions commemorating 23 years since the residents of the Xingu first defeated the original Belo Monte dam. Residents have been gathering in the community of San Antonio, a hamlet displaced by the consortium’s base of operations and in Altamira, a boomtown of 130,000 severely affected by the dam project.
Antonia Melo, the coordinator of Xingu Vivo Movement said, “This battle is far from being over. This is our cry: we want this river to stay alive. This dam will not be built. We, the people who live along the banks of the Xingu, who subsist from the river, who drink from the river, and who are already suffering from of the most irresponsible projects in the history of Brazil are demanding: Stop Belo Monte.”
Sheyla Juruna, a leader from the Juruna indigenous community affected by the dam said, “The time is now! The Brazilian government is killing the Xingu River and destroying the lives of indigenous peoples. We need to send a message that we have not been silenced and that this is our territory. We vow to take action in our own way to stop the Belo Monte dam. We will defend our river until the end!”
Protestors and affected communities are highlighting the glaring gap between reality and the Brazilian government’s rhetoric about Amazon dams as a source of “clean energy” for a “green economy.” The Belo Monte dam is the tip of the iceberg of an unprecedented wave of 70 large dams proposed for in the Amazon Basin fueled by narrow political and economic interests, with devastating and irreversible consequences for one of the world’s most precious biomes and its peoples.
A delegation of international observers and human rights advocates including Brazilian actor Sergio Marone of the Drop of Water Movement came to witness and lend visibility to the actions.
Slated to be the 3rd largest hydroelectric project in the world, Belo Monte would divert 80 percent of the Xingu River’s flow through artificial canals, flooding over 600 square kilometers of rainforest while drying out a 100-kilometer stretch of the river known as the “Big Bend,” which is home to hundreds of indigenous and riverine families. Though sold to the public as “clean energy,” Belo Monte would generate an enormous amount of methane, a greenhouse gas 25-50 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
By Fabiola Gutierrez and Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times
Plans to build a $3.2-billion complex of dams that would have flooded thousands of acres in the bio-diverse Patagonia region in southern Chile have been put on indefinite hold in the face of ongoing protests against the project.
The five dams of the so-called HidroAysen project would increase Chile’s electricity capacity by 15% upon completion in 2020. But it also would have flooded 12,500 acres of pristine territory that is increasingly popular as an eco-tourism destination.
Project partner Colbun, a utility company, announced Thursday that it was suspending work on an environmental impact study that is a prerequisite to starting the project, saying the government lacked a clear energy policy. The power utility that is majority partner, Enel-Endesa, also made it known that it wants to call a board of directors meeting to reconsider the project, roughly 1,000 miles south of the capital, Santiago.
The five dams would add 2,750 megawatts of power to the national power grid.
Protests have been frequent in the year since the dam was given preliminary approval. Thousands of marchers poured into the streets of Santiago in April to protest a Supreme Court decision greenlighting the project.
Critics claimed that the rationale for the project was mainly to provide cheap energy to mining companies, not to consumers. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has called the plan a “political and financial folly,” were among the groups opposed to the project.
Also opposing it is the Roman Catholic bishop of the Aysen region, Luis Infanti de la Mora, who in a pastoral letter last year said it would provide little local benefit.
But President Sebastian Pinera remains solidly behind the project, making the case that dams are necessary to reduce Chile’s 96% dependence on imported oil. But his backing of HidroAysen has been a factor in his plummeting support in polls.
The government responded Friday by rejecting the notion of a suspension and insisting that it has a “clear energy policy.” Opposition group Aysen Future Foundation said in a statement that the suspension highlights the fact that the project is questionable and that support for it has diminished.
The Enawene Nawe Indians of the Brazilian Amazon have said they feel ‘desperate’, as their annual fishing ritual has provided them with almost no fish.
This is the fourth year running that the Indians have encountered drastically low fish stocks in their rivers, and the second year in which the ritual could not be properly performed.
This year’s catch is reportedly even lower than in 2009, when the Indians faced a catastrophic food shortage.
The lack of fish is blamed on pollution from the dams being built in the Juruena river basin. The Indians did not give their consent for the project, and have warned, ‘We don’t want the dams dirtying our water, killing our fish, invading our lands.’
During the Yãkwa ritual, Enawene Nawe men spend months in the forest, building wooden dams to trap fish, then smoking the fish and taking them to their villages by canoe.
This is a key part of the tribe’s culture, and crucial to the Indians’ diet as they do not eat meat.
Brazil’s Public Ministry has implemented an ‘emergency program’ and ordered the government’s indigenous affairs department, FUNAI, and the dam construction companies, to buy fish for the tribe.
Yãkwa has been recognized as part of Brazil’s cultural and historic heritage, and UNESCO has called for it to be ‘urgently safeguarded’.
