Environment

Dispute raises doubts over Brazil's Amazon dams

by Sanjay Jha | August 13, 2008 at 11:02 pm

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Brazilian government's permission to go ahead for the construction of two hydro-electric dams has met with stiff protest from enviornmental groups. The Madeira River projects have been most enviormentally sensitive issue and dogging the Brazil for many years. Enviormentalist allege that the river has one of the most diverse fish stocks in the world and they could be threatened by the development of the dams costing billions of dollars. The issue to contruct the dam has been such sensitive that it has been pending for more than one year even after getting initial go ahead. Recent news of power shortages have necessiated the urgncy to construct the dam.

Environmentalists were dismayed this week when Brazil approved construction of one of two dams planned in the Amazon, but possible legal challenges and a dispute between construction groups threaten to delay both projects.

The Brazilian government sees the dams on the Madeira river, one of the Amazon river's biggest tributaries, as crucial to prevent energy shortages in its fast-growing economy over the next decade.

Beyond that, the $13 billion Jirau and Santo Antonio projects are seen as a key step in regional integration, creating a waterway that would cut transport costs for Brazil's agriculture exports and for farming areas in Bolivia and Peru.

Brazil's new environment minister, Carlos Minc, who has vowed to slash the time taken to license big projects, attached 40 provisions to Monday's approval of the installation of the Santo Antonio dam.

But environmentalists see the dams as a potential disaster that will flood up to 494,200 acres (200,000 hectares) of forest, dramatically changing the ecosystem. They say the government has not provided enough safeguards.

"Minc is blowing a lot of smoke and pretending his agency is demanding a lot of rigorous measures," said Glenn Switkes, Latin America Program Director for International Rivers Network, a California-based group that protects rivers and the communities that depend on them.

"We're dealing with a principal tributary of the Amazon ... which has maybe the highest biodiversity of fish and among the highest biodiversity of birds in the world."

Environmentalists said the dams violate the Equator Principles on project finance that were signed by several banks potentially funding the projects, possibly opening the way for legal challenges.