4 December 2009
The Prince of Wales Rainforests Project is work is focused on two very specific aims. The first is to raise awareness of the damaging effects of deforestation for everyone. The second is to identify appropriate incentives that will encourage rainforest nations to stop burning down vast areas of valuable forests.
On its website, the PRP is sponsoring Madeira River: Life Before the Dams” is a film produced by the World Wildlife Fund (approximately 27 minutes) documenting the livelihoods of the people directly and indirectly affected by the construction of the Santo Antonio and Jirau dams in Brazil. It documents expectations, opinions, and fears of people, whose livelihood depends on the river, including indigenous communities. The accompanying Question and Answer document (link below) encourages discussion after watching the film and will help you integrate the film into a lesson or answer any questions your pupils may have.
A second version of the film with lesson plans for 14-16 year old students can be found at:
'The Madeira River: Life before the Dams'
Q & A – WWF Madeira Dams documentary film
1) What is “The Madeira River: Life before the Dams”?
“The Madeira River: Life Before the Dams” is a film (around 27 minutes long) documenting the livelihoods of the people directly and indirectly affected by the construction of the Santo Antonio and Jirau dams, part of the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex. The film was shot both in the dry and rainy season, in Amazon “riverine” communities in Brazil and Bolivia. It documents expectations, opinions, and fears of people, whose livelihood depends on the river, including indigenous communities.
2) What is the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex?
The Madeira Hydroelectric Complex is an infrastructure project of four dams intended to generate about 10,000 MW of energy, 4,000 km of waterway and 2,500 km of transmission lines. It is the biggest infrastructure project planned by the Initiative for Regional Integration of Infrastructure in South America (www.iirsa.org).
Santo Antonio and Jirau are the first dams to be constructed. They are both located in Brazil on the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon River, which is the main element of the tri-national Madeira basin (Brazil, Bolivia and Peru). Santo Antonio is located 7 km West of Porto Velho, the capital of the Brazilian Amazon State of Rondônia. Jirau is located 84 km away from the border with Bolivia.
The construction of the Santo Antonio dam started on September, 2008. According to the Brazilian social movement of people impacted by dams, called MAB (Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens), 10,000 people will be displaced. The group of companies building the dam, called Consortium MESA (Madeira Energia S.A.), estimates that 3,000 people will have to be reallocated.
Jirau is waiting for a definitive installation license – they have started construction with a “restricted” installation permit. The consortium building the dam is ENERSUS (Energia Sustentável do Brasil).
The two other dams are Riberao, on the Mamore River (Bolivia-Brazil border), and Chachuela Esperanza, on the Beni River (Bolivia). For the latter, a feasibility study commissioned by the Bolivian government is underway.
3) How are the dams being financed?
Santo Antonio and Jirau are being financed mostly by Brazil’s national development bank, BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social).
4) What is the impact on biodiversity?
Although the extent of the impact is not clear, the dams will affect migratory fish and other species dependent on the river’s ecological flow. Also, the opening up of road infrastructure for access to the dams are predicted to have some impact on the surrounding forests.
5) What are the side effects of the dams’ construction on deforestation figures?
This will have to be monitored, but the construction is expected to increase deforestation and degradation as a result of the rampant demand for public services, land and infrastructure induced by new migration and financial flows to the region.
6) What is the purpose of this film?
With this film, WWF aims to draw attention to the potential social and environmental impacts related to the construction of the dams, and to inform potential project financers about these impacts. The film will also be used as a tool for capacity-building and knowledge-sharing with the communities directly, indirectly and potentially affected by the dams.
7) Who are the target audiences?
- Brazil and Bolivia Governments
- Energy and environmental sectors in Bolivia and Brazil
- Financers
- NGOs
- Affected Communities
8) Which are the film’s main messages?
That the people affected by the dams have not been properly informed about what will happen to them, to their communities, livelihoods, and land after the construction of the dams; that people making decisions about the dams have not been properly informed about the construction impact on communities and livelihoods, and about what will happen to them; that the construction of dams in the Amazon poses high risks and big challenges – for example, unexpectedly, in the first days of the Santo Antonio dam construction, 11 tons of fish were killed. Also, the Environmental Impact Assessments carried out before decisions were made are in no way sufficient or extensive enough.
9) Who made the film?
The film was conceived within WWF’s Amazon Network Initiative on September, 2007, with the participation of representatives from WWF Bolivia, WWF Brazil, ANI, LAC and WWF UK, which funded the film. Director David Reeks was hired as a consultant to produce it.
10) How/why did you choose the people to be interviewed?
The focus of the documentary was to give voice to the locals and to showcase their livelihoods. We chose people whose professions tied them to the place where they lived. The film crew visited the communities unaccompanied by WWF staff.
11)Why are there no interviews of local people who are in favor of the dams?
They were really quite a minority. In the film, we only show the interviews of five people. We interviewed about 20 people, and only 1 was in favor of the dams. The population living in the rural area, directly dependent on the river, will be negatively affected, and therefore are mostly against the dams. In Porto Velho, however, is easier to find people in favor, as they will profit from an increase in business. But as we focused in the rural livelihoods, favorable opinions were not dominant.
12) Did WWF give information about the dams to the interviewees before the interview?
No. The original concept of the film was to hear people speaking spontaneously about their communities and their perception of the impacts of the dams. The interviews were conducted with leading members of the potentially affected communities.
13) In which languages is the film available?
In English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
14)What is WWF position on dams in general and the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex in
particular?
WWF does not oppose the construction of dams in principle. It is acknowledged that dams provide important services to society (WWF's Dams Position).
Nevertheless, WWF believes that energy efficiency and energy conservation should be at the forefront of every nation's energy policy, which should include comprehensive analysis of all possible renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels and strategies to avoid or minimize negative social and environmental impacts.
In addition, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) should be of a high standard and conducted over an adequate area. Although not required by the Brazilian legal framework or by BNDES, the developers have commissioned a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the Madeira complex covering the whole Madeira basin.
Unfortunately, this study was never used to promote adequate civil society participation and to reach social agreements with affected local communities.
Regarding the Madeira dams specifically, there were outstanding flaws in the process that led to the construction:
a) An incomplete impact study - Only 529 km2 in Brazilian territory was considered by the proponents as the area of direct impact of the project, and therefore studied in the EIA. However, some of the indirect impacts could reach as far as the headwaters of the Madeira River.
Most of the area (over 750,000 km2) of the Madeira River basin upstream of the dams’ location is in Bolivian and Peruvian territory;
b) Insufficient studies on key issues - Comprehensive studies on sedimentation, fisheries, and health risks in Bolivia were not available until mid-2008 - when assessments of the dams’ impact on fishing
stocks and flood dynamic and mercury ration in fish in the Bolivian Amazon were conducted with the support of WWF;
c) Insufficient discussion of key issues - Because of lack of timely studies regarding key issues and short time for dissemination of even the little information available, there has not been enough discussion among stakeholders regarding these key issues;
d) Project location change without updating of studies and licensing - The Jirau dam proposal has been changed to a location about 9 km downstream of its original site. Although this obviously would require a new set of studies, assessments and licensing procedures to properly evaluate the new location’s feasibility, as stated by Brazilian law, it appears that previously completed studies and approved licenses (for the old site) were used for what clearly is a different project;
e) Efforts to notify, exchange information and consult the basin-sharing country of Bolivia were inexistent until after the first bi-national technical discussion held in São Paulo on August, 2007. Even as these technical bi-national discussions took place, the project approval processes continued nonetheless, without taking into consideration the debate’s results.
15) Did the EIA take into account reduction or increase of water, due to climate change in
the future?
No.
16) Is the construction of dams better than the construction of more carbon-intensive
energy generation infrastructure, such as coal-fired plants?
There is not a simple answer to the question dams versus thermoelectric coal plants.
According to Brazilian standards, it is possible to have dams ranging from 30 (small hydroelectric projects, or PCH in the Portuguese acronym) to thousands of MW, such as the Madeira dams being built (Santo Antonio and Jirau), which are over 3,000 MW each. The issue is not only scale, but also technology and distance to consumers. In the case of the Madeira dams, the technology adopted is “run-of-the-river”, which implies a smaller inundated area. On the other hand, these dams are located more than 2,500 km away from the most important consumers' centres, located in the Southeast of Brazil and this additional cost of generating so far is not allocated to the project costs, since these costs are shared by all consumers of the national interconnected system.
The number of options and issues involving one project or another, coal-based or not, is very complex. But, for sure, energy efficiency, other renewable sources and energy conservation should be at the forefront of every nation's energy policy, as stated before.
And to promote alternatives to the expansion or a more friendly expansion based on other renewable sources such as solar and wind power, one has to review the existing legal framework and incentives, which are not properly designed to achieve these objectives.
17) Does WWF implement projects in the area affected by the Madeira Hydroelectric
Complex?
The dams can potentially affect the whole Madeira basin and in particular the Itenez- Mamore system, which is one of WWF’s regional conservation priorities in the Amazon.
Both WWF Bolivia and Brazil implement projects in the area of the Itenez-Mamore system.
18)Who is WWF’s point person to talk about the film, dams, and the field projects related
to the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex?
Pedro Bara, the Amazon Network Initiative leader for infrastructure. ( ) He is also the recommended source for an overview of dams in the Amazon.
19)Where can I get more information about the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex?
At the links below (some are Portuguese only)
www.ibama.gov.br
www.aneel.gov.br/
www.iirsa.org
www.madeiraenergia.com.br/site/home/index.php
www.energiasustentaveldobrasil.com.br/