Brasilia, Brazil – The technical team from Brazil’s environmental protection agency, IBAMA, has issued its long-awaited technical assessment (parecer tecnico) on the Belo Monte Dam Complex on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon strongly recommending against a partial installation license until the dam building consortium, Norte Energia complies with upwards of 40 social and environmental conditions. It remains to be seen if IBAMA will decide to accept the position of its technical staff in denying the consortium’s partial license, delaying the project, or issue the installation license which would allow for construction to begin on workers encampments, access roads, port facilities and power lines to the dam site. If issued, the license would also allow for Norte Energia to access a subsidized multi-billion dollar loan from the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES), effectively making the huge dam project a fait accompli.
The agency’s technical assessment observes that construction of even the “initial installations” of the Belo Monte Complex would attract upwards of 13,000 migrants to the region, intensifying pressures on natural resources and the already-strained capacities of municipal governments to provide basic services in health, education, sanitation, public security and environmental protection. The assessment notes that Norte Energia has complied with practically none of the required conditions thus far.
“The courageous work of IBAMA technicians and Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry are attempts to stop the Norte Energia consortium from sidestepping its legal obligations to comply with social and environmental conditions before receiving an installation license,” said Antonia Melo, a leader and spokesperson of the Xingu River Forever Alive Movement (MXVS), based in the city of Altamira, Pará, near to where the dam complex would be built.
Upset with potential delays to the project, Norte Energia recently told Valor Econômico, Brazil’s leading financial newspaper that the consortium would be doing all it can to be able “to begin construction this year.”
Last week, prosecutors from Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry (MPF) sent similar recommendation to IBAMA advising that the agency not issue an installation license until Norte Energia has complied with the obligatory set of social and environmental conditions. Norte Energia and agencies within the Brazilian government have been pressuring IBAMA to issue a “partial” installation license, which would allow the project to break ground without having complied with legally binding conditions on the dam’s provisional license. The MPF also warned that it would take legal action if the partial license is issued.
The MPF has stated that partial installation licenses are not legally allowed under Brazilian law. Even so, the Lula Government set a precedent in 2008, issuing the first “partial” installation license for a hydroelectric dam, allowing construction to begin on the Jirau Dam on Brazil’s Madeira River.
“It is a hopeful sign that the IBAMA technical team and the Federal Public Ministry are insisting that the Belo Monte dam comply with Brazilian regulatory requirements. However, ultimately President Elect Dilma Rouseff needs to reconsider Belo Monte dam all together given that the dam will be an ecological, social and financial disaster subsidized by Brazil’s public pension funds. There are countless better ways to meet Brazil’s energy needs,” says Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch.
Late last week, international and Brazilian human rights organizations filed a formal petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States, denouncing grave and imminent violations upon the rights of indigenous and river-bank communities that will be affected by the construction of Belo Monte Dam Complex. Signed by the Xingu Alive Forever Movement (MXVS) and as well as representatives of affected communities, the petition urgently calls on the Commission to adopt “precautionary measures” that would compel the Brazilian government to halt plans to build the dam, slated to be world’s 3rd largest.
For more information on the Belo Monte Dam:
xinguvivo.org.br
www.aida-americas.org
www.amazonwatch.org
www.internationalrivers.org
