After decades of protests and battles, the proposed hydroelectric Belo Monte Dam was given written approval by Brazil’s president President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The dam is to surpass the Three Gorges Dam in China in size and volume. The hydroelectric project on the mouth of the Xingu River will devastate vast regions and ecosystems in the Amazonian state of Para and displace more than 50,000 Indigenous people.
Between August 9th and 12th of 2010, over 400 Indigenous and riverine people, victims of dams, and farmers from the Amazon region gathered at the port of the city of Altamira, Pará, Brazil at the riverside of the Xingu river, to discuss the impacts of major infrastructure projects in the Amazon region, with emphasis on the Belo Monte dam.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
