The Belo Monte Dam would divert nearly the entire flow of the Xingu River, drying up the “Big Bend” — the home of indigenous peoples.The Belo Monte reservoir alone will flood over 500 sq. kilometers of rainforest and agricultural lands and will directly impact the Paquiçamba Reserve of the Juruna indigenous people. They and 30 000 people face forced relocation. Belo Monte will pave the way for a series of other large dams on the Xingu and tributaries that will destroy forests and impact and threaten countless indigenous peoples and forest dependant people.

Belo Monte will generate very little energy during the 3-5 months of the dry season - making it one of the most inefficient dams in the world. Other dams upstream will be needed to guarantee an adequate, year-round flow of water into Belo Monte's turbines. Just one of the additional dams, the Altamira dam that Electronorte is planning to build - would flood more than 6,000 km2 of forests ! Various homelands and reserves of indigenous peoples such as the Kayapó, Araweté, Juruna, Assuriní and Arara would be flooded. The massive expansion of hydroelectric production on the Xingu River is part of the Brazilian government's Ten Year Plan to intensively develop the Amazon region.

(Photo: Tuíra, from the Kayapó people, speaks to Aloysio Guapindaia, director of the Buerau of Indian Affairs (FUNAI), during the public hearing of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal Senate of Brazil, that discussed the impact of the Belo Monte Dam)

The Dam In Peru will have devastating effects for the Ene River, which cuts a dramatic path through Peru’s central jungle. The Ashaninka, who lead a subsistence lifestyle in the Ene Valley, depend on the river for fishing and trade and its shores for farming and hunting. Tens of thousands of Ashaninka will lose their homes, farms, and sacred ancestral lands under a new dam’s floodwaters.

Peru has signed off rights to Electrobrás, a Brazilian electric company (and the continent’s largest,) to build several hydroelectric dams in the Peruvian Amazon. The electricity will be exported to help power Brazil’s burgeoning urban centers. The centerpiece of the project is Pakitzapango Dam, named after the narrow gorge that for the Ashaninka is the mythological birthplace of the Amazonian tribes. At least 5 more dams will follow on other rivers in the region. “Development” is the buzzword in Peru now, even as it comes at the expense of indigenous peoples and the environment.