Brazilian dam receives licence

The Brazilian Government has given an environmental licence for the building of the Belo Monte dam said to be the world’s third largest hydroelectric project. Environmentalists and tribal people have condemned the decision which follows a 20 year campaign against the project which will flood large areas of forest and displace thousands of people. The dam would divert the flow of the Xingu River and be built in the Para region of Northern Brazil.

The government says the scheme has been modified to take account of fears that it would threaten the way of life of the indigenous peoples who live in the area. They have indicated that the company which carries out the construction of the dam must be prepared to pay $800m to protect the environment. However critics have warned that the project will devastate large areas of rainforest as well as fish stocks and impact up to 40,000 people as over 500sq km of forest will be flooded.

Megaron Tuxucumarrãe, a Kayapó chief, says, “We want to make sure that Belo Monte does not destroy the ecosystems and the biodiversity that we have taken care of for millennia. We are opposed to dams on the Xingu, and will fight to protect our river.”

The dam is the the largest project of the Brazilian government’s Plan to Accelerate Growth program (PAC) and is expected to provide electricity to 23m homes. Francisco Hernandez, an electrical engineer and co-coordinator of a group of 40 specialists who analyzed the project says, “Belo Monte is a project of doubtful engineering viability, an extremely complex project which would depend on the construction not only of one dam, but rather a series of large dams and dykes that would interrupt the flow of water courses over an enormous area, requiring excavation of earth and rocks on the scale of that carried out for digging the Panama Canal.” Belo Monte would generate little energy during the three to four-month low water period, “which does not justify such an enormous investment”.

Although the project is now closer to reality, the dam remains highly controversial both in Brazil, and internationally. Read more from the BBC the Times and Amazon Watch.