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.
The president said that updated blueprints for the dam would lessen its impact on the environment and promised adequate compensation for affected communities. The main argument for the dam is that over the next four years it will create 20,000 jobs. Eighteen companies will have rights to exploit the river’s potential for 35 years.
For months now, Indigenous leaders have held meetings and protests on the area warning of the impending human tragedy and huge losses to the environment. The Xingu River is home to three times as many species as the whole of Europe. Read the Altamira Declaration here.
