This multi-billion dollar hydroelectric complex threatens one of the Amazon Basin’s main southern tributaries.
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Bolivia-Brasil
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Active
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Brazil´s Amazonian state of Rondônia is best known for the disastrous Polonoroeste colonization Project, financed by the World Bank, which accelerated the transformation of the region in the 1980’s from tropical rainforests into an environmental and social nightmare. Now, riding the wave of regional infrastructure integration fever embodied in the IIRSA plan being promoted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)and Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the state electric utility Furnas and construction conglomerate Odebrecht have drawn up plans for the most ambitious of IIRSA’s 335 projects – under which the principal river system of the northwest Amazon would be converted into a series of great lakes for hydroelectricity, in the process turning the rivers (according to the planners) into a 4,200 km-long barge channel that will hasten the conversion of Amazonia into a vast soy plantation – what the project’s proponents and the Brazilian government are calling “economic development”.
The initial two components of the project are already being railroaded through Brazil’s environmental licensing process – Santo Antonio and Jirau dams, which are now expected to cost about US$8.2 billion would have a maximum generating capacity of 7,480 MW “with nearly no environmental impact”, according to Furnas and Odebrecht. Terms of reference (TORs) for the studies were approved by environmental licensing authority Ibama ignoring new electric sector guidelines which require analysis of cumulative impacts on the river basin level. Public hearings held to discuss the studies excluded representatives of MAB, Brazil’s Dam-Affected Peoples’ Movement and local activists critical of the project. And environmental impact studies delivered to Ibama in May have yet to made public, with Ibama citing “new internal regulations” requiring the agency to assess whether the studies meet TORs before permitting public access to them.
Most alarming is the fact that Brazil’s new Mines and Energy Minister, Silas Rondeau, has already announced that the project will be offered to private investors in 2006, an indication that the ministry plans to railroad approval through Ibama.
Two additional components of the project, the bi-national (with Bolivia) Guajara’ dam on the Mamore’ river upstream, and the Cachuela Esperanza dam on Bolivia’s Beni river, which would be financed by Brazil’s national development bank, BNDES, still require feasibility studies and international treaties before they can proceed.
According to the project’s proponents, building the four dams and installing navigation locks would permit barges to travel from the Beni, Madre de Dios, Mamore’ and Orthon rivers in the upper Amazon clear down to the Amazon river. This, they say, could increase soybean production in Rondonia and neighboring Amazon states of Mato Grosso, Acre, and Amazonas from 25 million tons per year (meaning that more than 6 million hectares of rainforest, and humid savannas would become wastelands). An agricultural “boom” of similar proportions is predicted for the Beni and Santa Cruz regions of Bolivia.
Critics of the project say the damming of the Madeira and Mamore’ will seriously impact water quality, fish populations, and aquatic life in a region of high biodiversity. An increase in tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever is likely to take place. Even the life of the dams themselves should be quite limited, considering that the Madeira carries the highest sediment rate of any Amazonian river. Characteristic of the Brazilian electric sector’s disdain for local populations affected by dams, little has been stated about how many riverbank families will have to be relocated, and what their destiny will be. As with most IIRSA projects, there has been no public consultation or debate, and the supposed benefits of regional integration are likely to be enjoyed by construction companies and barge companies, lumber and soy exporters, and the dam building industry, rather than the thousands of riverbank families who will face relocation.
by Glenn Switkes, Red Internacional de Ríos,