Amazon tribe blocks major Brazilian highway
Amazon tribe blocks major Brazilian highway
mongabay.com
June 8, 2007
Indigenous Amazonians have blocked a major highway in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to protest a series of hydroelectric dams planned on the Xingu river, one of the Amazon’s largest tributaries, according to Brazzil Mag and Survival International.
The Enawenê Nawê, a tribe of around 450 members, say they are concerned the dams will affect fish populations. The Enawenê Nawê eat no red meat and are highly dependent on the Xingu River and its tributaries for fish, many of which migrate upstream through areas that would be flooded.
Development interests are pushing for the damns to generate electricity to power industrial farms in Mato Grosso, a Brazilian state that has suffered the brunt of deforestation in the Amazon since the 1970s.
The Enawenê Nawê issued a statement through Survival International, an NGO that works to protect the rights of indigenous people around the world.
In defence of life and the Xingu River
 Xingu watershed in 1994
Image from the Instituto Socioambiental. A larger version is available in this PDF |
‘We wish to express our concern about the possible building of a complex of hydroelectric dams on the Xingu river. If these large dams are constructed on the Volta Grande part of the Xingu river they will affect indigenous peoples, agricultural communities, the forest and its biodiversity and harm life in the Xingu river basin.
We are totally opposed to Belo Monte [one of the large dams] because the Xingu river is our life. The death of the river threatens our lives, our future, our people, and our children and grandchildren.
Any interference with the Xingu will cause the extinction of game animals, of fish and will profoundly affect our lands and our health.
We indigenous peoples wish to live and to breath the Xingu river. Its water are the source of life and we don’t want to die. We will not give up on life and we will not abandon our struggle. Our war cries are surging in our throats to oppose the enemy.
We want to gather together the indigenous peoples of the XIngu, the Kayapó of the Upper Xingu, the indigenous peoples of the Xingu National Park and of the Amazon and Brazil, and to invite our allies to a big meeting in Altamira where we will show the government of Brazil our indignation and our position against the large scale projects which it is implementing and which are destroying Amazonia.
We ask for support and help from national and international institutions so that the communities can fully participate in this big meeting.
Altamira, 3 June 2007
