by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 26, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Fabiola Ortiz / Inter Press Service
The Sete Quedas or “seven waterfalls” on the Teles Pires River, which runs through the Amazon rainforest states of Mato Grosso and Pará in central Brazil, are a spiritual oasis venerated by several indigenous groups.
But the 20-metre-high rocky falls are to be covered by a reservoir created by a hydroelectric dam that is to flood an area of 95 square km.
“It’s a sacred area, our creator and mother. And the ‘pajé’ (shaman) says it is where the fish lay their eggs,” João Kayabi, 52, told IPS by phone from the area. He is the chief of Kururuzinho village, home to 106 members of the Kayabi community, who speak a Tupí-Guaraní language.
For the Kayabi, the area around Sete Quedas must be left untouched, because it is the dwelling of a god who is responsible for the natural balance.
“It will be left underwater, and will only be a memory. We are trying to keep that from happening,” Kayabi said.
Sete Quedas is also sacred to two other indigenous communities: the Apiaká and the Mundurukú. For the latter, the falls are “the mother of fish” and the dwelling-place of their ancestors.
“The Mundurukú say the river is going to dry up, there will be a shortage of food, and the fish will vanish. I hope that isn’t so,” Kayabi said.
Studies on the biodiversity in that stretch of the river, carried out by Brazil’s Energy Research Company (EPE), which conducts research for the Ministry of Mines and Energy, have identified nearly 700 plant species and more than 200 species of fish, such as the spotted sorubim (Pseudoplatystoma corruscans) catfish, the common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus), and the jau (Zungaro zungaro) catfish.
The Teles Pires has the reputation of being one of the world’s best rivers for fishing.
In the indigenous territory where João Kayabi’s village is located, nearly 300 people make a living from hunting, fishing and harvesting fruit.
“Up to now, our land has provided for us sufficiently. But we are concerned about what will happen in the future, and whether food will be scarce,” said the chief, a father of seven. “I’m worried about my children; I don’t know what will become of their lives.”
The Teles Pires plant will have a generating capacity of 1,820 MW. But the Companhia Hidrelétrica Teles Pires, the company that was granted the concession for building the dam, is fighting a judicial battle to be able to finish construction.
The project collides with the beliefs, customs and traditions of the Kayabi, Mundurukú and Apiaká Indians (a combined total of 12,000 people), said indigenous rights lawyer Juliana de Paula Batista, who advises native organisations in Brazil’s southwest Amazon region.
The case has been winding its way through the courts. In early August, a regional federal court ordered suspension of construction of the dam. But the attorney general’s office and Brazil’s environmental protection agency IBAMA appealed, and the suspension was lifted on Aug. 14.
“The natural resources that are indispensable for indigenous people to sustain their lifestyle and culture are being plundered,” Batista told IPS.
Early this year, the office of the public prosecutor brought a civil lawsuit to revoke the environmental license granted by IBAMA in August 2011 and bring construction to an immediate halt.
According to Batista, the environmental licensing process is flawed. “At no time has the magnitude of the impact on indigenous lands been fully understood.”
“The dam endangers fish stocks, the sacred site, water quality, rare and endemic species, vegetation in general, and hunting,” the lawyer said.
Although the tribes will not have to be relocated, they are afraid to remain in their villages “because in case of accidents, such as a break in the dam, the water would carry them away,” Batista said.
The Kayabi villages are only 50 km from the dam.
“There is no solution when it’s a government plan, we have no way to fight this,” Kayabi said. “The only way is to seek support and guidance. The dam will be built, and we are the ones who will be hurt by it, we could lose our rights.”
One of the irregularities noted by the office of the public prosecutor was the company’s failure to consult with the affected indigenous communities prior to the start of construction, as required by law. In March, work on the dam had already been suspended in response to the prosecutors’ request.
Read more from Inter Press Service: http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/hydropower-dam-to-flood-sacred-amazon-indigenous-site/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 14, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Zachary Hurwitz / International Rivers
Federal Judge Souza Prudente of the Federal Tribunal of Brazil’s Amazon region suspended all work today on the Belo Monte Dam, invalidating the project’s environmental and installation licenses.
While the project has been suspended previously on numerous occasions, and those suspensions overturned on political grounds, this latest decision could have some legs. The decision breaks down in the following way:
- The federal judge ruled that no consultations were held with indigenous people prior to Congress issuing Decree 788 in 2005, which effectively approved the Belo Monte Dam. Article 231 of the Brazilian Constitution requires consultations to be held directly by the Congress prior to approval. In this case, approval was given three years before publication of the environmental impact assessment, after which consultations began.
- As a result, the project’s environmental license (granted in 2010) and installation license (granted in 2011) are now considered invalid, meaning that no further work can continue on the dam.
- Brazil’s National Congress must hold a series of public hearings, or consultations, with the indigenous tribes that will be affected by Belo Monte. Only after such consultations occur and are considered satisfactory, must the Congress legislate a new approval for the dam.
- The government and project consortium Norte Energia, S.A. can appeal to Brazil’s Supreme Court, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice, the President of the Federal Tribunal, and Brazil’s Attorney General, in the next 30 days. Since this is a constitutional matter, the appeal is likely to go to the Supreme Court.
In a press conference given today late in Brasil, Souza Prudente stated that “only in a dictatorial regime does a government approve a project before holding consultations.”
The decision supports the arguments that the affected tribes have been making over the lifetime of Belo Monte: tribes will face downstream livelihood impacts as a result of a reduction in the flow of the Xingu River on the 100-km stretch known as the Volta Grande or “Big Bend,” and were never properly consulted, much less gave their consent.
In the words of the decision itself,
“installation will cause direct interference in the minimal ecological existence of the indigenous communities, with negative and irreversible impacts on their health, quality of life, and cultural patrimony, on the lands that they have traditionally occupied for time immemorial. This requires the authorization of the National Congress after holding prior consultations with these communities, as deemed by law, under the penalty of suspension of the authorization, which has been granted illegally.”
Beyond the fact that the Belo Monte Dam is now considered illegal by one of Brazil’s higher courts, the fact is that Brazil doesn’t need Belo Monte. Economic rationale for the dam is based on a projected economic growth of 5% or more a year, but over the past few quarters, GDP has been lucky to grow at even a measily rate. As far as Belo Monte’s importance to Brazil’s economic race, this is really a case of the horse following the wagon.
And, as illustrated by this historic court decision, the wagon has been trampling on indigenous people and their rights, along the way.
From International Rivers: http://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/258/belo-monte-dam-suspended-by-high-brazilian-court
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 13, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Reclamation & Expropriation
By Survival
More than 50 gunmen have launched a full-scale attack on an Indian community in southwest Brazil, shooting, threatening and then reportedly kidnapping one of their leaders.
The violence began on Friday, shortly after the Guarani community reoccupied part of its ancestral land, which is now occupied by ranchers.
A Guarani spokesman described how 50 gunmen surrounded around 400 Indians, firing shots at them, whilst laughing and shouting, ‘You Indians! Today, not one of you Indians will get out of here alive!’
He says hundreds of shots were fired at the Guarani men, women and children, who fled into the forest to try to escape injury.
The Guarani say that one of their leaders, a man in his fifties, was taken by gunmen and put into a car. He has not been seen since but the burnt remains of some of his clothes have been discovered.
The shooting stopped hours later, when a police vehicle arrived at the scene. No arrests have been made.
The Guarani of Arroio Korá community have been living in makeshift roadside camps, and in overcrowded reserves, while they wait for the government to map out their land and return it to them.
Unable to further endure the appalling living conditions in the camps and reserves, the Guarani decided to march back to their ancestral land on Friday, after two days of traditional prayer and rituals.
A community member said on Saturday, ‘We are surrounded by gunmen. They could attack us again. They could kill us all!’
Last November, Guarani leader Nísio Gomes was shot dead by gunmen when his community reoccupied some of its land. They drove off with his body, which has yet to be found. Eighteen men have been arrested in connection with his murder.
The Guarani at Arroio Korá remain fearful but resolute, saying, ‘We will not be silenced in the face of the assassinations… and the violations of our indigenous and human rights’.
From Survival International: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8581
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 26, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
By Rhett Butler / Mongabay
A directive signed Monday by Brazil’s Solicitor-General could hamper the efforts of indigenous tribes to win government recognition of their traditional lands, reports Survival International, a human rights group focused on native peoples.
The directive “opens up all indigenous areas to mineral, dams, roads, military bases and other developments of ‘national interest’ without the need to consult with or address concerns of indigenous peoples”, according to an expert familiar with the directive who asked to remain anonymous. It also restricts demarcation of new indigenous territories.
Survival International called the move “disastrous” citing the plight of the Guarani tribe, some members of which are waiting “in roadside camps or overcrowded reserves” for their ancestral lands to be mapped and allocated.
“This directive puts our survival in extreme danger,” Survival International quoted a Guarani spokesman as saying. “We are being ignored as human beings, as the first occupants of this land. It is the start of the extermination of indigenous people.”
According to the indigenous lands expert reached by mongabay.com, the directive was originally intended to overcome issues in implementing the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous area in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, but the powerful ruralista bloc in Congress pushed to apply the directive to all indigenous areas. The ruralistas also successfully pushed for a weakening of the country’s Forest Code, which mandates how much forest landowners are required to protect, earlier this year. (The final version of the Forest Code is pending).However outcry over the directive on Wednesday led Brazil’s Public Prosecutors’ Office to suspend the measure pending a court ruling on the issue. Survival International and several Brazilian indigenous organizations have called for the directive to be revoked entirely.
The directive was passed only a month after an association of more than 1,200 tropical scientists convening at the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation sounded the alarm on the potential development.
Indigenous territories cover roughly 22 percent of the legal Brazilian Amazon. Areas managed by indigenous groups have lower deforestation rates than unprotected forests.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 25, 2012 | Defensive Violence, Indigenous Autonomy
By Amazon Watch
Three engineers employed by Norte Energia, S.A (NESA), the company building the Belo Monte Dam on Brazil’s Xingu river, were detained Tuesday by Juruna and Arara tribal authorities in the remote village of Muratu after the company failed to live up to promised mitigation measures aimed at reducing the dam’s devastating impacts on local communities.
The incident occurred yesterday as Norte Energia sought to reach agreement with tribal leaders over measures to allegedly mitigate adverse impacts stemming from construction of earthen cofferdams on the Xingu river. The authorities report that the engineers are being prohibited from leaving the village but there is no use of force or violence. The dams are blocking navigation of small boats used by indigenous peoples and other local communities, especially to reach the town of Altamira, an important center for accessing markets, basic health care, education and other services.
In Tuesday’s meeting, Norte Energia representatives presented a proposal for a system for transportation of indigenous vessels around the site where cofferdams are blocking boat traffic. Tribal leaders interrupted the meeting, arguing that the proposal was ludicrous, and that such discussions would not proceed while a long list of legally required actions to mitigate and compensate the adverse impacts of Belo Monte continues to be ignored by NESA. A first phase of the earthen dams has already had negative consequences for indigenous peoples, especially on water quality and devastation of fisheries.
“Nobody understood anything that the technicians said, and they didn’t have any answers to our questions,” explained Giliarde Juruna, a leader of the Juruna tribe from the Paquiçamba territory immediately downstream from the dam. “They didn’t know how to respond when we asked them how we would bathe or how we would navigate on the river, or even how the project had changed since they presented it to us last year. In the end, the engineers agreed that our complaints were justified.”
“There was a climate of total disbelief on behalf of the tribes, since Norte Energia recognized it had yet to implement the vast majority of the legally-required measures to minimize the impacts of the project on their lands,” explained Thais Santi of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Altamira, who was an observer at the meeting. “At a certain level, even the engineers recognized that the dam is an absurdity, that the consultation was a sham, and that the mitigation projects presented by the company’s technical team didn’t make any sense,” noted Santi.
According to tribal leaders, the engineers will remain under detention until Norte Energia and government agencies have fully carried out promises to mitigate and compensate adverse impacts of Belo Monte, not only in relation to boat traffic, but also in terms of water quality, sanitation, and protection of their territories and natural resources.
On Monday, the Federal Public Prosecutors’ Office filed a lawsuit calling for the immediate suspension of the construction license for Belo Monte, granted in June 2011 by the federal environmental agency, IBAMA. Citing an abundance of evidence, including reports produced by IBAMA and municipal governments and well-documented complaints files by local indigenous leaders and NGOs, the lawsuit demands that project construction at Belo Monte be immediately halted, given the chronic non-compliance of Norte Energia with legally-required mitigation and compensation measures.
“It’s an outrage that Norte Energia has been allowed to continue construction for over a year while ignoring basic measures they are obliged to carry out in order to avoid or minimize impacts on affected communities. The developer is ignoring the impacts the project is already having on indigenous people, and in the process, running roughshod over their rights,” said Brent Millikan of International Rivers.
Last month, over 300 indigenous people from 9 tribes occupied the Belo Monte Dam construction site on the final day of the United Nations Rio+20 conference, maintaining the occupation for 21 days until Norte Energia stated it had reached an agreement with the occupiers. The tribal leaders involved in yesterday’s action claim that an agreement was never reached, and that the developer has instead created divisions among the communities.
Norte Energia consortium, while technically a “private” enterprise, is dominated by the Brazilian state-owned energy conglomerate Eletrobras. Major investments come from the public employee pension funds of Petrobras, Banco do Brasil and Caixa Econômica Federal, all entities under government control. The mining giant Vale, privatized in the mid-1990s but still highly influenced by the Brazilian government, recently purchased a 9% stake in the NESA consortium. Eighty percent of project financing for Belo Monte’s mushrooming budget, currently estimated at US$12 billion, comes from BNDES, the government-controlled development bank, financed by worker taxes and Brazilian treasury bonds.
From Amazon Watch: http://amazonwatch.org/news/2012/0725-amidst-broken-promises-indigenous-authorities-detain-belo-monte-dam-engineers
