A real-life Avatar conflict is playing out in the Brazilian Amazon as indigenous groups fight against the construction of a giant hydroelectric dam in the heart of the rainforest, the Oscar-winning director James Cameron has warned.
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You have a great opportunity, as a world leader, to take decisive action in the immediate short-term to demonstrate Brazil's commitment to these vital issues. I am referring to the Belo Monte Dam project, which will undergo bidding on April 20. I believe strongly that this project should not go forward, and I appeal to you on the basis of logic and compassion, to intercede to prevent its progress.
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Since the Belo Monte project has no artificial reservoir, power generation will vary according to the rain cycle in the Xingu river, where it will be located, Estado reported. During the dry season, the dam will produce less than 3,000 megawatts, the newspaper said.
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Mr. Cameron said that he was writing a letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urging him to reconsider the dam and that he would press for a meeting with the president. “They need to listen to these people here,” he said.
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The states which registered the greatest amount of deforestation were Mato Grosso, which alone amounted to 143.4 km2 deforested, followed by Roraima, 26.9 km2, and Pará, with 17.2 km2.
Please note: This article is in Portuguese.
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Brazil's government will itself build the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon region if no private firms bid for the project, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday.
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The project would involve diverting a 100-kilometer (62-mile) stretch of the Xingu river, an Amazon tributary, and directly affect 12,000 families, including residents of two indigenous hamlets whose survival would depend on the dam operator providing them excess water from the reservoir.
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The Amazon rain forest in Brazil has lost nearly 20 percent of its area since the 1970s, largely because of ranchers and farmers seeking new land for their cattle and crops.
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The decision by the Camargo Correa and Odebrecht construction groups dents government hopes for a competitive auction that would push down the price of energy production at the planned 11,000-megawatt project.
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Delivered to the United Nations last Thursday, April 1st, a document claims that flaws in the environmental licensing process for the controversial Belo Monte Dam in Brazil were overlooked due to political pressure from the Lula administration.
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Brazil has become one of the world’s leading exporters of beef, leather, and other cattle products, and the country’s government is fostering further development of this sector. If they want to keep leading the global market, it is in the Brazilian slaughterhouses’ best interest to ensure cattle do not come from newly deforested parts of the Amazon or ranches that profit from the use of slave labor.
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The Brazilian government has plans to build more than 100 large dams in the Amazon Basin over the next 20 years. Many Brazilians believe that if Belo Monte is approved, it will represent a carte blanche for the destruction of all the magnificent rivers of the Amazon - next the Tapajos, the Teles Pires, then the Araguia-Tocantins, and so on. The Amazon will become an endless series of lifeless reservoirs, its life drained away by giant walls of concrete and steel.
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