The following letter came out of a three-day meeting organized by the Plataforma BNDES, a group of Brazilian and South American civil society organizations and social movements pushing to reform Brazil's Development Bank (BNDES) from a highly questionable and destr
The Washington Post | LUCAS DO RIO VERDE, BRAZIL – For nearly 20 years, Luiz Alberto Bortolini cleared trees and planted soybeans as fast as he could, one of many pioneers who turned this barren outpost into prosperous farmland.Now, he and hundreds of other successful farmers are replanting trees as part of an ambitious initiative to
Plataforma BNDES | November 11, 2009 - From the 23rd to the 25th of November, the Plataforma BNDES, a representative body of more than thirty organizations, social movements and networks from Brazilian civil society, will be hosting the first annual 'Meeting of Populations Affected by BNDES Financed Projects' at the Circo Voador in Rio de Janei
Photos from a November gathering of Brazilian and other South American community representatives negatively affected by projects financed by BNDES.
The following declaration, entitled "Towards a Democratic BNDES," is authored by a group of Brazilian civil society organizations and social movements, called the "Plataforma BNDES".
Jirau and Santo Antonio promise to cost much more than the stated financial value of their construction: deforestation, disease, damage to fish populations, just to name a few.
Written By Cristiano Navarro, Brasil de FatoTranslated by Natalia TaddeiBolivians will be affected by the dam projects, yet their lands have been not included Brazil's environmental impact study.
By: Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch Brazil Program CoordinatorAlong the banks of Brazil's Madeira River, the rusty remnants of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad, built a century ago to run steam engines from Porto Velho to Guajará-Mirim in Bolivia, lay in ruins.
Written by: Cristiano Navarro, Brasil de FatoTranslated by: Natalia TaddeiPorto Velho (RO)Once a year, Pierre-Louis de Catheu, a farmer in the South of France, enjoys the duck-hunting season. In the last two seasons, he has had problems with his ammunition.
Recharge News | Civil lawsuits have been filed against Brazil's environment institute for ignoring environmental concerns when issuing licenses to allow the construction of two dams on the Amazon's Madeira River.
Photos from an Amazon Watch trip through the Madeira River basin to bring back stories of anguish and hope in the fight to stop the construction of two mega-hydroelectric dams on the Amazon's principal tributary.
Washington, D.C., May 14, 2009- Spain's Banco Santander, which has been facing growing criticism for being a lead financier in a highly controversial dam project in the Brazilian Amazon, recently signed on to the "Equator Principles," a set of socially and environmentally responsible financing guidelines adopted by a growing
EFE | Washington, 14 mayo - Una coalición de organizaciones medioambientales instaron hoy al Banco Santander a retirarse de un consorcio que construye una presa en la Amazonía que, a su juicio, provocará graves daños ecológicos y sociales."Si (el Santander) quiere ser considerado como un banco responsable, no puede fina
The Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) issued the following statement to denounce the treatment of riverine communities who are being impacted by the construction of the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams on the Madeira River in Brazil's Rondônia state.
Climate Wire | Indigenous people from around the world are meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, this week to discuss climate change – which has led to conditions they didn't create but that they often suffer from disproportionately, many said.And as the world negotiates a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, indigenous groups say they w
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.
Members of the riverbank communities on Brazil’s Madeira River sent a letter to Brazil’s President Lula da Silva prior to his visit to see work on the two dam sites of Santo Antonio and Jirau, key projects of the Initiative for the Regional Integration of Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA).
The coordinator-general of the National Indigenous Organization of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), Jecinaldo Satere, delivered a document to the heir of the British throne detailing the position of indigenous peoples on environmental issues.
BELEM, Brazil – Indigenous people from across Latin America today led over 1700 participants of World Social Forum to form a human banner, using their bodies to draw attention to the increasingly precarious situation of the Amazon rainforest.
Interpress Service | BELÉM, Brazil, Jan 27 (IPS) - A human banner made up of more than 1,000 people, seen and photographed from the air, sent the message "SOS Amazon" to the world, in the first action taken by indigenous people hours before the opening in northern Brazil on Tuesday of the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF).The mass message ref
View photos of indigenous people from across Latin America leading over 1000 participants of the World Social Forum to form human banners, using their bodies to draw attention to the increasingly precarious situation of the Amazon rainforest.
The Washington Post | Porto Velho, Brazil – It is quiet here on the wrong side of progress. Hot wind blows dust across the dry bluffs. The brown river runs wide and placid.In his painted wooden skiff, Francisco Evangelista de Abreu, a fisherman, motors up-current. Two river dolphins crest and submerge. His mind is elsewhere.
The Independent | The uncontacted tribes in the forest borderlands of Peru and Brazil, such as those pictured last week pointing a bow and arrow at a plane, are facing a threat from something beyond their wildest imagining. It comes from a thing of which they've never heard, being built to serve a people who they have no idea even exist.
The Independent | Three near-naked figures are visible in the forest clearing. Two of them are men, their bodies daubed with a red dye, and they are aiming their bows at the sky.
São Paulo and BrasíliaThe NGO Friends of the Earth - Brazilian Amazon filed a civil lawsuit on Wednesday (Dec. 5th) in the Federal Courts, requesting the suspension of the Santo Antônio Hydro Power Plant auction, in the Madeira River (state of Rondônia, in the Amazon), scheduled for December 10th .
Celso Amorim, Foreign Relations Minister, BrazilDilma Roussef, Presidential Chief-of-Staff, BrazilCc: David Choquehuanca, Foreign Relations Minister, BoliviaJuan Pablo Ramos Morales, Vice Minister for Biodiversity, Forestry Resources and Environment, BoliviaMarina Silva, Environment Minister, Brazil
The Guardian | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – The destruction of the world's largest rainforest last year fell to its lowest rate in nearly two decades, according to figures announced by the Brazilian government.
Scotsman www.news.scotsman.com | Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency Ibama has said it has licensed a unit of the state-run oil company Petrobras to start building a controversial gas pipeline cutting through pristine Amazon forest.Petrobras and environmentalists have quarrelled since 2001 over the planned 550-kilometre (345-mile) pipeline from t
Inter Press Service News Agency | Manaus, Brazil - While Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras has taken great pains to limit the environmental impact of gas pipelines in the Amazon region, it has proven more difficult to curb the social repercussions of large-scale projects in the midst of dire poverty.The discovery in 1986 of natural gas in Urucú
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