Antonia Melo is standing on her front porch. Behind her sits a room full of memories and photos. Her grandchildren wrap their arms around her legs. She speaks with strength, energy and indignation. At first, I couldn't really feel the sadness in her tone when I spoke with her, but now I can.
We are deeply appreciative for the honor of collaborating with indigenous peoples, organizations, and activists, from around the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere. It is extraordinary to find common cause in high-stakes human dramas that, we believe, will help shape the future of the entire planet.
As the investigations of operation Lava Jato have unfolded revealing massive corruption within the Brazilian dam industry, the fundamental reasons for the federal government's obsession with destructive dam projects such as Belo Monte and São Manoel are becoming increasingly clear.
When Brazilian energy planners proposed to choke the Amazon's Tapajós river and its tributaries with dozens of large hydroelectric dams, they underrated a formidable foe: the Munduruku people. The largest indigenous group in the Tapajós Basin, the Munduruku are proving to be sophisticated adversaries who are throwing a wrench in the dam industry's...
Al Jazeera America | Environmental activists hope that São Luiz do Tapajós will not follow the same course as the Belo Monte, the Xingu River dam that is now nearly complete. Some tribal leaders opposed to that dam were bought off by the government, according to Maíra Irigaray, the Brazil coordinator of the group Amazon Watch. She fears similar tactics will be used...
An indigenous assembly held in April on the banks of Brazil's Teles Pires River, an Amazonian waterway currently being strangled by a cascade of hydroelectric dams, produced the following manifesto of resistance from the Kayabi, Apiaká, Munduruku and Rikbaktsa peoples.
Newsweek | "There is basically a climate of impunity," says Christian Poirer of Amazon Watch. "Only one percent of the fines that IBAMA levels on individuals and corporations for illegal deforestation are actually collected." This agency, which is responsible for implementing Brazil's environmental laws, is, he says, "woefully...
The Guardian | Four Amazonian tribes have joined forces to oppose the construction of hydroelectric dams in their territory as the Brazilian government ramps up efforts to exploit the power of rivers in the world's biggest forest.
"If you want to take care of the forest, you need to invest in us – indigenous peoples – because no one takes better care of the forest than we do. If it weren't for us, the cattle and the soy would have taken this whole forest. I know we are only of the size of a grain of sand but we make a huge difference. The air you breathe comes...
Ministério Público Federal Pará | Last week, the Munduruku people gathered more than 600 people in their General Assembly to discuss questions related to health, education, and the hydroelectric projects that the Brazilian federal government seeks to build on lands inhabited by more than 10,000 indigenous people.
Agência Pública | With little or no help from the state, this is not the first time that the Tapajós ribeirinhos have faced a threat to their land and their way of life from projects coming from Brasília.
Amazon Watch joined a powerful assembly in the Munduruku community of Waroapompu in the Tapajós region of Brazil to discuss how the Munduruku will strengthen themselves in resistance to dams planned within their territory.
IPS | In Brazil water and electricity go together, and two years of scant rainfall have left tens of millions of people on the verge of water and power rationing, boosting arguments for the need to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
The Ecologist | Brazil's devastating drought could have the unexpected consequence of finally prompting one of the sunniest countries in the world to take solar power seriously.
The Munduruku Protocol on consultation procedures, published couple of weeks ago and presented to the Brazilian government, is the first protocol of a consultation process proposed by an indigenous nation that I have ever seen. It is very well written, closely following international and national law.
Brasilia, Brazil – This week, imprisoned executives from one of Brazil's largest construction firms, who are implicated in an unprecedented corruption scandal involving the parastatal oil company Petrobras, promised to expose a parallel scheme of massive fraud surrounding hydroelectric dams in the Amazon.
It costs only $.03 per acre per year to support Amazon Watch's work with indigenous peoples to protect more than 60 million acres of rainforest from oil development and mega-dams. Please join us!
Mongabay.com | The Munduruku indigenous tribe have begun to mark out the limits of their land, in an action that could halt the giant São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric dam, the apple of the Brazilian government's eye.
Munich, Germany – Dozens of protestors from a coalition of German and international organizations converged today on the shareholder meeting of leading German corporation Siemens to condemn the company's role in egregious human rights violations from Brazil to Mexico.
As 2015 kicks off, it's important to reach out to our supporters and followers and to take a moment to assess our work last year and take a peek at the year to come.
Global Voices | The removal of indigenous peoples is prohibited by Article 231 of the Brazilian Constitution. In the project's defense, the government argues that since Sawré Muybu was never officially demarcated it cannot be recognized as Munduruku land – provoking the wrath of warriors and village chiefs all across the Tapajós basin.
The Guardian | After years of waiting for the Brazilian government to sort out their land rights, the 13,000 Munduruku Indians, who live beside the Tapajós river in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, have decided to take action. Besides temporarily occupying an office belonging to Funai, the Brazilian government's Indian agency, they have started to...
Santarém, Brazil – Tensions are building over the Brazilian government's polemic plans to circumvent the law in order to dam the Tapajós River. On November 27th, representatives of a diverse coalition of threatened indigenous peoples and other traditional communities assembled with religious leaders and activists to challenge a new Amazon...
This week's "Caravan to Resist Dams in the Amazon" marked the largest political action ever staged in opposition to the Brazilian government's authoritarian march to dam the Tapajós River. Assembled on the banks of the majestic river, members the region's indigenous and traditional communities joined religious leaders and activists to stand as one...
Greenpeace | Greenpeace activists joined the Munduruku deep in the Amazon rainforest to protest the construction of a major hydroelectric project. The group gathered at a beach on the banks of the Tapajos River and displayed a message in the sand that read "Free Tapajós". The beach is located near the waterfall of the "São Luiz do Tapajós" project, the first...
Today some 60 Mundurukú people and 10 activists gathered at an island near the proposed São Luiz do Tapajós dam site in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, and performed an act of strength, dedication, and perseverance demonstrating their passion at any cost to save the Tapajós region.
The Brazilian government's decision to dam the Amazon's Tapajós River demonstrates a shocking disregard for the rights of the region's indigenous and traditional peoples. Tensions continue to escalate, with the Mundurukú people carrying out an "auto-demarcation" process of their land in defiance of the government's intentional deferral of the...
New York Times | While some dams in the United States and Europe are being decommissioned, a dam-building boom is underway in developing countries. It is a shift from the 1990s, when amid concerns about environmental impacts and displaced people, multilateral lenders like the World Bank backed away from large hydroelectric power projects.
EFE | The Munduruku Indians have begun marking their ancestral lands in the Amazon region on their own, tired of waiting for the Brazilian government to get around to protecting the territory, indigenous sources said Thursday.
