Recent events surrounding the Santo Antonio and Jirau hydroelectric dam schemes underway on the Amazon’s Madeira River highlight the controversial nature of these projects as well as the lack of public consensus around the Brazilian government’s “development” plans for the Amazon basin.
As the principal tributary of the Amazon River, the Madeira River represents an essential component of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), and has become the staging ground for the realization of this mega-project’s grand redesign of the region. The proposed Madeira River Complex (MRC) is widely seen by both its detractors and proponents as being a “gateway to the Amazon”: the feasibility of IIRSA’s Peru-Brazil-Bolivia development corridor is predicated on the navigability of the Madeira and the harnessing of the river’s potential to generate vast quantities of hydroelectric energy.
The two Madeira dams alone are projected to generate 6,450 megawatts of hydroelectricity, totaling eight percent of the Brazilian energy matrix, and increase the capacity for transporting soybean, timber, and minerals to Pacific ports through the installation of navigation locks to connect with highways being built in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon. While the dams are touted as essential to the region’s development and integration – both stated goals of IIRSA – the negative impacts to the river and adjacent forests and communities are enormous, including hundreds of families being displaced and forced into crowded slums, migratory fish species threatened with extinction, and accelerated deforestation as agribusiness gains access to remote areas.
The current plans for the MRC are emblematic of the Brazilian government’s Accelerated Growth Program, known as PAC. Under the logic of PAC, Brazil needs to considerably increase its capacity to generate electricity to meet rapidly rising demands for both public and industrial use. The Brazilian development bank BNDES, which views the Madeira dams as an “indispensible” component of PAC, has responded by infusing huge loans into the MRC totaling over R$ 13.3 billion (US$ 5.8 billion). The R$ 7.2 billion for the Jirau dam alone is the largest loan ever approved by BNDES for a single project while the Santo Antonio dam received R$ 6.1 billion. The overall price tag for the Madeira complex ranges from official estimates of $13 billion to as much as the $22 billion estimated by watchdog groups. Ironically, this push for massive hydroelectric projects comes at a time when Brazil’s energy demand has slumped by 4.5% due to the world economic crisis.
As a public bank, financing originating from BNDES is supposed to stimulate “social” and “sustainable” development, however a recent Manifesto on the Madeira River Complex formulated by Brazilian and international civil society organizations at the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF) asserts that financing for the dams has been characterized by a lack of transparency and “political intervention and irregularities in the use of public funds…to the detriment of workers and Brazilian society as a whole.” [1]
Critics of PAC – specifically those who are fighting the MRC – cite the grave social, economic, cultural, and environmental impacts that threaten the region if the dams move forward as planned. They point to a highly flawed environmental licensing process that not only disregards their legitimate concerns, but even disregards the findings of the government’s Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) that the projects do not meet acceptable environmental standards. This paradoxical situation has led IBAMA to recently fine the construction company responsible for the Jirau dam over R$1.45 million (US$640,000) due to illegal deforestation and unregulated dam construction. Such infractions have also led the Ministry of Environmental Development of Rondônia state to revoke Jirau’s provisional operating license, yet the dam construction continues in a spirit of impunity, largely because the MRC enjoys the support of the federal government.
Among the most controversial aspects of the Madeira dams is emerging evidence that the lands of isolated indigenous groups will be flooded. According to Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) these groups live on both banks of the Madeira River, in the states of Rondônia and Amazonas. As reported in the Washington Post [2], Ivaneide Bandeira, coordinator of Kaninde, an NGO involved with indigenous issues in the Amazon, said traces of at least three uncontacted indigenous tribes have been found in the areas to be flooded by the Santo Antonio dam. “How can the government give a license for a project without knowing if there are indigenous communities there that might be flooded? If these indigenous people are not excellent swimmers, they’re going to be killed. If this happens, it will be genocide”.
Brazilian indigenous legislation states that the government is responsible for guaranteeing that indigenous people have the right to remain in and to maintain their territory intact. The government only has the right to intervene when the survival and cultural organization of indigenous groups is jeopardized. In effect, by beginning work on the Madeira dams without the Ethno-Environmental Protections required by FUNAI in place, the Brazilian government is acting in violation of its own laws.
On March 14th, the International Day of Protest Against Dams, the Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) staged protests in Porto Velho, in Rondônia state, to denounce the construction of the Madeira dams. They were joined by Bolivian activists from the Pando Campesinos Federation and the Bartolina Sisa Campesinas Womens’ Federation, who sought to air their concerns about the inevitable cross-boundary environmental impacts threatened by the MRC. Their concern is echoed by the Bolivian government, which recently stated that it has conclusive evidence that flooding from the Jirau dam will have significant impact on their territory and natural resources, and on the health of riverine communities. Based on these findings Bolivia has asked that Brazil halt dam construction until broader studies on the projects’ impacts are undertaken, a demand that was also put forward by MAB and their Bolivian allies in Porto Velho. However, the local authorities responded harshly to the Bolivian contingent, jailing and deporting its members. This heavy-handed reaction by the Brazilian security apparatus, in violation of the rights of their Bolivian neighbors, does not bode well for the visions of “integration” put forward by the proponents of IIRSA and the Madeira River Complex.
In September 2008, Kanindé brought the case of the Madeira dams to the Latin American Water Tribunal (TLA) in Guatemala arguing that the Santo Antonio dam posed “imminent risk of irreparable damage to the environment and indigenous peoples.” After presenting considerable evidence for their claim, based largely on the violations of Brazilian law inherent to the MRC, the jury ruled in favor of Kanindé’s claims, censoring the government of Brazil and providing recommendations for the solution of the conflict. As a result of the TLA’s earlier ruling, on March 16th the Water Court of the World Water Forum held in Istanbul, Turkey, symbolically sentenced the Brazilian government for poor water management practices particularly in regards to the Madeira River Complex, “lamenting the apparent lack of concern of the Brazilian Government” and highlighting “the irregularities of the environmental licensing process of the hydroelectric dams; the social injustice forced on the forest peoples directly impacted; the threatening of physical and territorial integrity of isolated indigenous groups; and severe environmental damages….” [3]
However, the work continue on the Madeira dams – 24 hours a day in the case of the Santo Antonio installation. The time has never been more critical to act in support of traditional and indigenous riverine communities being forced from their lands. Arao Waram Xijein, a teacher and leader of a local indigenous reserve agreed: “Many people say the indigenous peoples are in favor of this project. This is a myth, a lie. We ask for the support of the world that they do not build these dams.” [4]
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Also see:
1. World Social Forum Manifesto on the Madeira River Complex
2. Washington Post: Doubt, Anger over Brazil Dams
3. The Madeira Petition and Water Tribunal Verdict from Istanbul
4. See Washington Post article
