Dams

Featured image: Floodwaters from the Barro Blanco dam have submerged communities and forests. Photo: Chiriquí Natural By Richard Arghiris / Intercontinental Cry Indigenous Ngäbe communities living on the banks of the Tabasará River in western Panama are scrambling for their lives as flood water from the Barro Blanco hydroelectric reservoir inundates their houses, schools, farms and cultural centers. “We are without homes and without anywhere to take shelter,” said Weni Bagama in a video statement recorded on Wednesday, Aug 24, 2016. ...

Featured image: International Solidarity Mission delegates listen to testimonies by Tumandok men and women in Barangay Agcalaga, Calinog. Photo Credits: Jalaur River for the People Movement. By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya, GlobalVoices The Tumandok ( Panay-Bukidnon) indigenous peoples of the central Philippine Island of Panay are facing the real possibility of being forced from their homes due to the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam, which will leave indigenous communities in the municipality of Calinog, Iloilo underwater. ...

Featured image: On the eve of the Rio Olympics, Brazil has blocked a dam which would have destroyed forest of the Munduruku tribe © Maíra Irigaray/Amazon Watch By Survival International As the Rio Olympics kick off, Brazil has blocked the construction of a controversial dam in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The São Luiz dam, planned for the Tapajós river, threatened to flood the Munduruku Indians’ forest and force many off their land. ...

By Dan Bacher / Intercontinental Cry On May 24, the Hoopa Valley Tribe from Northern California filed its objection to two bills proposed in the House of Representatives to implement the controversial San Luis Settlement Agreement, saying the agreement would “forever condemn the Tribe to poverty.” The Tribe filed its complaint prior to a hearing on the two bills, H.R. 4366 (Rep. David Valadao) and H.R. 5217 (Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA), held by the U.S. House of Representative Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans. ...

Featured image: The Barro Blanco Dam will have a disastrous effect on Ngäbe communities inside the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle and campesino communities also living on the banks of the river. Photo Oscar Sogandares By Jennifer Kennedy/ Intercontinental Cry Ngäbe communities in western Panama are calling for support from the international community after officials from the Honduran-owned energy company, GENISA, warn that they will soon be evicted from their homes to make way for the flooding of the Barro Blanco hydro dam reservoir. ...

By Survival International Survival International has reported Italian engineering giant Salini to the OECD ( Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) over its construction of a controversial dam which is set to destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in Ethiopia and Kenya. The dam has cut off the Omo river’s regular flooding, which 100,000 people rely on to water their crops and livestock and a further 100,000 depend on indirectly. According to experts, this could also spell the end for Lake Turkana – the world’s largest desert lake – and disaster for the 300,000 tribespeople living along its shores. Salini did not seek the consent of local people before building the dam, but claimed that an “artificial flood release” would compensate them for their losses. However, this promised flood never came and thousands of people now face starvation. ...

By Claire Salisbury / Mongabay A new study finds that as many as 26 dams could put the charismatic Amazon River Dolphin and the freshwater Tucuxi Dolphin at risk. The research looked at whether particular Amazon dam projects would fragment dolphin populations and affect prey populations. Though the public is fascinated by the Amazon’s dolphins, no one knows how many are currently left in the wild, or how the dam building frenzy will impact their numbers. A dam-building boom is underway in the Amazon. More than 400 hydroelectric dams are in operation, being built, or planned for the river’s headwaters and basin. Scientists know that tropical dams disrupt water flow and nutrient deposition, with negative consequences for aquatic animals, especially migratory species. But little detailed knowledge exists as to the impacts of dams on specific species, or as to the best mitigations to prevent harm. ...

By Survival International The Baram dam, which would would have flooded 20,000 tribal people from their homes in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, has been shelved following years of protest. Sarawak’s Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem announced recently that the decision to put the dam on hold was out of respect for the views of the affected communities, adding: “If you don’t want the dam, fine. We will respect your decision.” ...

by Marcela Belchior / Adital via Intercontinental Cry What would initially appear to be the end of the line for the culture and survival of the Krenak indigenous people, impacted by the pollution of the Rio Doce, from the Mariana tragedy, in southeastern Brazil [state of Minas Gerais], could rekindle a 25 year struggle. After being left unable to live without the water of the river, the Krenak population is mobilized around a possible solution for the continuity of the community: to expand the demarcated area of the indigenous territory in the region and to migrate to a new location. ...

Elvira Nascimento Cyntia Beltrão reports from Brazil on what may be the country’s worst environmental disaster ever, at the Samarco open pit project jointly owned by Vale and BHP Billiton: Last Thursday, November 5th, two dams containing mine tailings and waste from iron ore mining burst, burying the small historic town of Bento Rodrigues, district of Mariana, Minas Gerais state. The village, founded by miners, used to gain its sustenance from family farming and from labor at cooperatives. For many years, the people successfully resisted efforts to expel them by the all-powerful mining company Vale (NYSE: VALE, formerly Vale do Rio Doce, after the same river now affected by the disaster). Now their land is covered in mud, with the full scale of the death toll and environmental impacts still unknown. ...