New Scientist Magazine - No. 3011

DA M B U S T E R SAfter a 40 year battle, Brazil’s grandiose plan to tap the hydropower of theAmazon is coming apart at the seams. Sue Branford and Maurício Torres reportABOUT 20 men, their arms painted liketortoise shells, are silently hackingaway at the forest, opening up acorridor about 4 metres wide. Whenthey have finished, the corridor will stretchfor 230 kilometres, encircling the land theycall Sawré Muybu. Every so often the men,indigenous Munduruku, erect a signasserting their ownership of the land intheir own language and in Portuguese.The ancestors of these men used todecapitate their enemies and stick theirheads on poles. Although the Mundurukugave up head-hunting long ago, some of thesigns feature a painting of a head on a pike.This is their none-too-veiled way of telling theBrazilian government they are determined todefend this tract of Amazon forest that hasbeen theirs for hundreds of years.The government has other ideas. If itgets its way, work will soon begin on a hugehydroelectric dam close to Sawré Muybu onthe Tapajós river, one of the major tributariesof the Amazon. Six other large dams are alsoon the drawing board for the Tapajós basin(see map, page 37). If the São Luiz do Tapajósdam goes ahead, parts of Sawré Muybu willbe flooded.Dreams of tapping into the immense powerof the Amazon began in the 1970s, at a timewhen little attention was paid to climate andbiodiversity. The military dictatorship inpower at the time decided to start with a chainof dams on the Xingu river, another mightytributary of the Amazon. However, after alengthy battle with environmentalists andlocal people, it scaled back its plans to a singledam, albeit a huge one.Belo Monte finally got the go-ahead in 2011.When it comes on stream in 2019 it will be thethird-largest hydroelectric dam in the world.The building site is so big that it seems as if anew Panama Canal is being carved out of theforest. Even if one harbours reservations aboutthe wisdom of this massive undertaking, onecan’t help but be impressed by the speed andefficiency with which huge layers of rock areblasted into the air and the rubble carted awayby a phalanx of giant lorries.This scene could eventually be replicatedacross large swathes of the Amazon. Accordingto ecologist Philip Fearnside, a senior researcherat the National Institute for Amazon Researchin Manaus, the government has ambitionsto turn much of the basin into chains ofreservoirs for the production of hydropower.Most of the energy will be used to power bigmineral extraction and refining projects inthe Amazon itself, particularly aluminiumsmelting and gold mining.The issues surrounding the constructionof these dams are painfully familiar: habitatdestruction, loss of biodiversity and heritage,and the trampling of the rights of vulnerableBrazil’s hydropower ambitions arecreating familiar tensions betweendevelopment, biodiversity and therights of indigenous peoplepeople. But the scale on which it could happenadds up to a huge transformation of one of theworld’s most important natural environments.No surrenderBefore they resorted to direct action to defendtheir land, the Munduruku tried to go throughthe proper channels. Brazil is a signatory tothe International Labour Organization’sConvention 169, under which indigenousand tribal people shouldn’t be removed fromtheir land without their free and informedconsent. It also states that before licensing adam, a government must canvass the opinionof all affected groups and only then undertakeviability studies. However, in early 2013 theBrazilian government authorised a researchcompany to send in teams of scientists tocarry out the viability studies, even thoughproper consultations with the Mundurukuhadn’t happened.Incensed, in June 2013 the Munduruku tookthree biologists hostage and paraded them,hands bound, in the square of Jacareacanga,a town beside the Tapajós. The government >CLOCKWORK FROM BOTTOM LUNAE PARRACHO / REUTERS, ULYSSES/WWW.AGEFOTOSTOCK.COM, DADO GALDIERI/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY, GREENPEACE/JOHN NOVIS34 | NewScientist | 7 March 2015