Brazil Set to Flood Rainforest, Displace Thousands

The Xingu River — home to some 600 species of fish — is one of the largest tributaries running through the Amazon. But not if the Brazilian state power company has their way.

What would be the world’s third largest dam, called the Belo Monte, would flood over 200 square miles of tropical rainforest; about the size of Tucson, AZ. It would also flood the homes of 19,000 people.

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The river is lined with “a thick emerald canopy of trees” except for the spots of pastures that have been carved out for cattle. Several of the river’s fish species can only be found there.

Stephan Schwartzman, the director of tropical forest policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said that “18 percent of the Amazon, an area nearly two times the size of California, had been cleared since the mid-1960s.”

While the lush tropical forest that is the Amazon has often been under attack from logging and cattle, Brazil is still one of the world’s greenest countries in terms of renewable-energy. More than forty-six percent of Brazil’s energy is from a renewable sources compared to the global average of thirteen-percent.

Deforestation peaked in 2004 and has since declined because of falling beef and soybean prices and because the government has stepped up enforcement of protected areas. Of course, this whole flooding the Amazon thing is a bit of a FAIL. But the Brazilian government officials claim that dams like Belo Monte are necessary to expand the country’s economy as it slips in to a recession.

It seems obvious, but what happens to the Amazon rainforest has global consequences. Flooding such a huge area will hamper the planet’s ability to rid the atmosphere of greenhouse gases. Not only that, it will really suck for the 19,000 people who will lose their land and homes. Changes in the local ecology will wipe out the livelihoods of many more, killing their main food sources and destroying their raw materials.

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