Kwakiutl Chief Simon Dick dances for his hosts, the Kayapo Indians whose Brazilian rainforest home is threatened by hydroelectric projects
80 dams slated to drown world's richest ecosystem
Electronorte, Brazil's Northern state-owned power corporation, plans to build two dams near the town of Altamira on the Xingu tributary of the Amazon. But the already heavily-indebted country needs international loans to do it.
Construction of these dams has been pending World Bank approval of $500 million (U.S.) Second Power Sector loan (PSL II) for Brazil. Even if the World Bank does not approve funding for PSL II, Brazil can seek funding from other sources. Six Canadians Banks - the National Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto Dominion Bank, Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal-are part of an international consortium of chartered banks currently preparing a $750 million (U.S.) loan package to Brazil. Japan has also pledged an unearmarked $ 1 billion (U.S.)loan to the Brazilian government. Both of these loans could be used to finance Brazil's Amazon Hydroelectric plans.
The Altamira dams are the first of 136 which Brazil proposes to build before the year 2010, 80 of them in the Amazon. The total area which all of these dams would flood equals that of Great Britain -- 25 million hectares. Eighty five percent of this land according to the new Brazilian Constitution belongs to native Indians. If these projects go ahead, half a million people will be flooded out.
Click on image for detail.
The Tucurui Dam, site of the movie The Emerald Forest, flooded 2,000 sq. km. of rainforest, displacing over 15,000 people.
Dams built under previous loans, including the first Power Sector Loan funded by the World Bank and voted for at the World Bank by Canada, caused tremendous environmental damage and human anguish.
Balbina Dam on the Yatuma tributary of the Amazon flooded 2,400 square kilometres of virgin rainforest, resulting in the relocation of 1,000 isolated Weimiri-Ataroa Indians. Ravaged by the diseases they contracted in non-native society, less than 300 now survive.
The transmission towers from Balbina Dam march in a 500-metre-wide swath through the jungle north of Manaus. But they carry virtually no power. Faulty design left the dam's generators almost immobile because there is not enough water volume to run the turbines.
A second dam, the Itaparica on the San Francisco River, flooded out the forest homes of 40,000 natives. Relocation brought terrible disease. A single gastro-enteritis outbreak killed 50 children and put 1,500 in hospital.
A third tragic project was the Tucurui dam on the Tocantins River, made famous by the movie The Emerald Forest. This environmental nightmare flooded 2,000 sq. km. of rainforest and displaced over 15,000 people. Their future? Most moved to overcrowded towns and now live in slum conditions. One tribe, the Parakanan, has so far been relocated 11 times.
A number of people from the Tucurui area attended the March 1989 Altamira conference (see page 7). They told the people of Altamira what to expect if the dams were constructed: promises the government was making would never be kept; jobs would go to outsiders; their river would be polluted; the fish would disappear and the dream of prosperity would become a cruel joke.
Previous international loans left a shameful record in Brazil. Do Canadians want their banks to repeat this story?
