Tag Archive for 'hydro dams'Page 2 of 5

30
May

Reportback from ‘the Xingu Encounter’

Thousands gathered in Altamira, Para-Brazil last week for the Xingu Forever Alive Encounter, an historic gathering of Indigenous Peoples and allies opposed to damming the Xingu River.

A similar gathering took place in 1989, “where the Kayapó and other tribes from the Xingu basin rejected the Brazilian government’s plans for a series of six hydroelectric dams on the river. As a result, the World Bank cancelled a loan for the dams, and plans to dam the Xingu were suspended for more than a decade,” notes survival International.

In recent years however, Brazil has again set its sights on the Xingu River, making it necessary for the Kayapo, Parakana, Asurini and others to once again come together in defense of the Xingu.

According to International Rivers, who has numerous updates about the encounter on their website, the primary focus was on protesting “the …

Published on
May 30, 2008
  0 Comments 793 views

13
May

Indigenous People set to begin “The Xingu Encounter”

Indigenous Peoples in Brazil will hold a mass 5-day rally next week, dubbed “the Xingu Encounter,” to protest against a series of hydro dams planned for the Xingu river and its tributaries.

The sacred lands website explains, there are a total of 70 large dams and dozens of smaller ones planned throughout the central and northern parts of the country. “One of these is the proposed Paranatinga II dam. Located on the Culuene River, a tributary of the Xingu, Paranatinga II would destroy an area sacred to 14 tribal groups. The same tribes also oppose the much larger proposed dam downstream, Belo Monte, which would displace indigenous communities.” If completed, Belo Monte would be the world’s third largest hydro dam.

The encounter, which will take place from May 19 to 23 in the town of Altamira, Pará, is expected to gather over a …

Published on
May 13, 2008
  0 Comments 798 views

01
May

Chixoy Dam Reparations Campaign Announced

Courtesy of Rights Action, here’s a story discussing a reparations plan for Genocide survivors and Mayan-Achi people who were massacred and forcibly evicted from their communities in the 1970s and 1980s - to make way for the Inter-American Development Bank- and World Bank-funded Chixoy hydro-electric dam.

CHIXOY DAM AGREEMENT

By Hugo Alvarado, www.prensalibre.com
Translated by Rosalind M. Gill, for Rights Action

The Government and communities affected by the construction of the Chixoy Dam have signed an agreement to set up a reparations plan. Diego Paz, representative of the OEA, Rafael Espada, Vice-president, and Juan de Dios García, sign the agreement. The Signatories agree that:

• within nine months a report will be submitted, detailing reparations for the communities affected by the construction of the largest hydroelectric dam in the country;
• besides financial compensation, productive programmes in the areas affected will form part of the …

Published on
May 1, 2008
  0 Comments 608 views

16
Apr

Letter from CONAIE to the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa

Courtesy of Red Amazon, here’s a letter that was sent last month to Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa Delgado by the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE).

This is being posted to add some proof against the myth that “only outsiders oppose development.” As it has always been, the People speak for themselves.

English Version of the Letter

Translated by Martin Allen
Spanish version available here

The full text of a letter to Señor Rafael Correa Delgado, Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador, dated 11th March 2008 and signed by Marlon Santi, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE), Humberto Cholango, President of the Confederation of Kichwa Peoples of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI), Domingo Ankuash, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE), and Flavio Calazacón, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Coast of Ecuador (CONAICE).

Fraternal …

Published on
April 16, 2008
  0 Comments 715 views

11
Apr

Ngobe: We are desperate and abandoned

Earlier this month, the Ngobe of western Panama wrote an urgent appeal that asks the international community for immediate assistance. For some time now they’ve been struggling to stop the US-based company AES from building the Changuinola dam on their traditional lands.

In recent months, the situation has become hopeless for the Ngobe. According to the appeal, the National Police have taken over their community and they are “being subjected to cruel violations of our fundamental human rights.” On top of that, the government has un-communicated them from the world; and they are quite literally being forced to sign away their lands, rights, and livelihoods — “under threat of arms and death.”

Meanwhile, according to Cultural Survival’s latest newsletter, AES has started using lights to work on the Changuinola dam around the clock.

The Ngobe say, “We are desperate and …

Published on
April 11, 2008
  3 Comments 882 views

13
Mar

Stop the Ilisu Dam Project in Southeast Turkey

Around 100 villagers gathered in front of the German, Austrian and Swiss embassies on Tuesday to protest against the construction of the Ilisu Dam on the River Tigris. Once completed, the controversial project would submerge the ancient town of Hasankeyf (it’s 12,000 years old) along with 200 nearby villages, displacing up to 78,000 people.

The government started to move ahead with the dam in the late 90s, but it was soon met with massive protests which led several companies to withdraw from the project. Nevertheless, the Turkish government remained eager to complete the dam.

Tuesdays protest was a relatively calm event, Holding signs and shouting slogans, the group delivered a letter signed by 1,500 people from the threatened villages which demanded the three governments to withdraw their funding from the dam.They also warned that they will be forced to seek asylum …

Published on
March 13, 2008
  1 Comment 1,046 views

11
Mar

Actions Taken Against Monsanto, Syngenta, Aracruz, Vale

Following up the story published last week about Via Campesina’s “week of mobilization for Agrarian Reform and against the violence of big land-owners”, the women of Via Campesina and the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil organized several other actions to report—most notably, against the transnational companies Monsanto, and Syngenta.

On Friday, hundreds of women entered a research plant near Brazil’s capital of Sao Paolo, destroying a greenhouse and an experimentation field for the MON810 strain of GM corn. Patended by Monstanto, the strain was recently banned in France over concerns that it harms the ecosystem. Brazil recently cleared MON810 and one other GM strain for commercial use.

A spokesperson for Via Campesina told Reuters that “the authorization of these varieties shows once more that (President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s) government favors agribusiness and big foreign companies, abandoning land reform and family …

Published on
March 11, 2008
  0 Comments 1,004 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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