Having attended the Encontro Xingu: Vivo Para Sempre” or “Xingu Encounter: Alive Forever” gathering in Altamira, Brazil in May 2008 with thousands in opposition to the Belo Monte dam, including my friends Zachary Hurwitz, Scott Fitzmorris and the late Glenn Switkes, I know the struggle is not over. I commit to doing everything I can to supporting communities in Brazil to stop this dam. Please join me and my friends at Amazon Watch and International Rivers today!

Sunrise on the Xingu River taken by Scott Fitzmorris

Brazilian Government Shoves Belo Monte Down Our Throats Ahead of Campaign Season
By Zachary Hurwitz

In July 2009, Lula da Silva promised his personal friend and Bishop of the Xingú Dom Erwin Krautler, as well as Professor Celio Bermann of the University of São Paulo, and representatives of affected indigenous and riverine communities that “we will not force Belo Monte down anyone’s throat,” But on February 1st, the Brazilian environmental agency IBAMA did just that, releasing the first of three environmental licenses required to build the Belo Monte mega-dam on the Xingu River.

IBAMA’s Provisional License approves the project’s environmental assessment (EIA), written by Brazil’s state-run electric company Eletrobras, while imposing 40 corrective mitigating conditions that will cost R$1.5 billion (US$ 794 million) to implement. In order to mitigate the dam’s social and environmental impacts and obtain an Installation License to break ground on what will be the world’s 3rd largest dam, the construction consortium that wins the project’s auction on March 30th must meet these 40 conditions.

Carlos Minc, who is expected to leave his post as Brazil’s Environment Minister this month to run for public office in Rio de Janeiro later in the year, stated that the imposition of 40 conditions proves that Belo Monte is the “most socio-environmentally advanced dam in the history of Brazil.” Meanwhile, critics like Raul Telles do Valle of Brazil’s Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) have been quick to point out the obvious: if an environmental assessment needs 40 conditions to be approved, then it’s most likely one of the worst environmental assessments written in the country’s history.

Indeed, it appears the project’s incomplete environmental assessment was rammed through IBAMA simply to obtain the agency’s rubber stamp of approval. In November 2009 two prominent IBAMA technicians were removed from the EIA for voicing their opposition to the poor quality and rushed timeline of the EIA, which they later stated was driven by political pressure from the top. In another case, six IBAMA technicians signed a letter voicing concern that Belo Monte’s impacts to the Xingu river basin and riverine and indigenous communities had not been adequately studied, nor had these communities sufficiently participated in public hearings.

In September 2009, 40 highly respected international technical specialists and academic experts produced a report that highlighted significant errors in the EIA and the current design of Belo Monte however, the 40 conditions that IBAMA has imposed on the provisional license hardly do justice to the lacuna in the EIA. Instead, the agency has buckled once again – as it did in approving the environmental licenses of the highly controversial Santo Antônio and Jirau mega-dams of the Madeira River Complex in Brazil’s Rondônia state – to a political agenda and timetable that appear to have been determined well before the environmental assessments were ever written.

Clearly, Belo Monte’s timetable, and that of 70 other large dam projects planned for the Amazon has been in the works since José Sarney (1985-1990) took office as the first democratically elected president since 1964. The history of patronage, corruption, and fraud that has played out since Sarney distributed strategic posts in Brazil’s “hydroelectocracy” to his supporters has set the stage for Belo Monte’s politically expedited provisional license. Sarney’s bloc of supporters in the country’s electric and corporate sectors, including Dilma Roussef, Lula’s Chief of Staff and hand-picked successor for this year’s election, owe their political lives to him want Belo Monte built at any cost.

Make no mistake: the provisional license was approved this week– lacking a complete and rigorous environmental assessment, while denying the people of the Xingú their right to free, prior and, informed consent (FPIC)—because of an election timeline. In part it boosts Dilma Rousseff’s campaign for President: a Dilma win would most likely assure a continuation of the marriage between Sarneyists and the PT agenda on social spending that has characterized the Lula administration since 2005. On the other hand, a José Serra win (of the right-wing PSDB) on October 3rd would swing the country’s economic policies back to the right, a risk to the PT’s social agenda.

Meanwhile, Amazon defender and Green Party candidate Marina Silva, running 8% in polls, has criticized Belo Monte for lacking a coherent socio-environmental plan to support the people of the Xingú. Yet both front runners – Serra and Rousseff – have a strong interest in building Belo Monte and many more mega-dams in the Amazon to keep hydroelectricity profits flowing into industry and government coffers. These establishment candidates – and their devotees like Environmental Minister Carlos Minc – will undoubtedly continue to play lip service to “sustainable development,” while offering wholly inadequate mitigation schemes; 40 conditions for a Provisional License will not prevent impending disasters like Belo Monte.

The strength and unity of the Xingú River’s inhabitants, as well as the Brazilian and international environmental movement, have delayed Belo Monte since the José Sarney administration took power 25 years ago. As we watch the provisional license being shoved down the throats of the people of the Xingú, and as light continues to be shed on Lula’s ties to the Sarney political machine, it’s more important than ever to stop Belo Monte. The people of the Xingú, the Amazon, and the world depend on it. We cannot wait for more politicians to take office only to buckle under pressure. The time to stop Belo Monte for good is now.

Zachary Hurwitz has a Masters degree in Geography from the University of Texas, Austin, and has worked on energy issues in the Amazon Basin since 2006.

Since Altamira and the surrounding area around the Transamazonia highway are pretty much dominated by cattle ranching, there’s not much forest there. Leaving Altamira, however, it wasn’t long before the landscape was dominated by intact rainforest for as far as the eye could see. For about three hours, we flew over the Xingu river and the great forest that surrounds it. It was truly incredible and inspiring to see. At the beginning of the trip, the forest was flat, but then we crossed an area where the forest became mountainous. Then, it became flat again. That’s around the time I noticed a road all of a sudden. According to Jacalo Kuikuro, one of the elders who flew with us, this is the road that crosses the Indigenous Reserve. It is BR-80. I looked in the distance and saw what looked like cleared land. He said it was land cleared for soy. I asked him what he thought about the soy plantations surrounding the reserve and he said that he didn’t like it because the chemicals sprayed on the soy contaminate the rivers and kill the fish. Looking down at the Xingu river and all of the small rivers and channels that lead into it, I could see how chemicals from pesticide spraying miles away could have disastrous effects on the ecology and culture of the Xingu.

It wasn’t long before the plane began to descend and I noticed the changing landscape. I noticed less vegetation and more lakes. We were reaching the transition zone where the Amazon and the Cerrado, tropical wooded grassland, meet. This is an area of extreme biological and cultural diversity. For Indigenous people, like the Kuikuro, it is a sacred place that needs to be respected and protected.

Upon arrival of the Ipatse Kuikuro village, we were greeted by the village children and then introduced to Chief Afukaka. He welcomed us and led us to his house to talk. I told him about what we had seen from the air…the expansive forest, majestic river and soy plantations in the distance. He said, “When I was young, it was all forest. There were no soy plantations, but now as soon as you leave the Reserve it’s all soy plantations and cattle ranches. The chemicals from these huge farms cause lots of harm. When it rains all of the chemicals go into the rivers. Last year, a small river near our village was full of dead fish.” He also said, “Forests near the edge of our Reserve are burnt every year. When it rains, sometimes it rains black.” I told him about our campaign and he thanked me. He asked that I keep in touch with the young people in the community who are filmmakers working with “Video in the Villages” on films to preserve the Kuikuro culture. It turns out that I had already crossed paths with a couple of the young filmmakers a couple weeks ago in DC at the premiere of some their films at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. It’s a small world!

Shortly after leaving the Kuikuro community, we began to see the changing landscape, once again. This time, however, it was a drastic change where the forest ends and agribusiness begins. According to ISA, the SocialEnvironmental Institute in Canarana, 80,000 hectares of soy are in the Canarana area; 30,000 are in Agua Boa (south of Canarana); 40,000 are in Gaucha (west of Canarana); and 160,000 are in Querencia (north of Canarana). This soy expansion has occurred in just the last 13 years and is continuing. To get a better sense of what I’m talking about, look at this map and these photos.

It’s quite incredible! After flying over the Xingu and hearing the perspectives of Indigenous people like the Kuikuro, I find it pretty reprehensible that massive deforestation for agribusiness is occurring and continues to occur. Seeing the silos of Cargill and Bunge in Canarana convince me even more that the ABC’s of Rainforest Destruction need to be held accountable for the impacts they are causing to the world’s rainforests, local communities and our global climate.