Waldo Valer Salas, our expedition guide, launched two firecrackers in the air, producing a loud echo that reverberated in the rainforest. That was the only way to announce the arrival…
“People need to bring cups, plates, etc., but not everyone who is coming is going to have access to facebook. And no one said this on the radio!. So we…
Brazilian judge has ruled that the Norte Energia consortium — builder and operator of the Belo Monte dam — hasn´t satisfied one of the central terms of its licensing agreement.…
do some fishing. I’ve been living off of fishing since I was old enough to understand. I’ve been fishing my whole life,” says Aureo da Silva Gomes. He is 33,…
n early August, the Brazilian government unexpectedly cancelled the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric power station, the largest of a series of major dams planned along the Tapajós River and…
ydropower development is booming, with controversial projects unfolding across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Though often presented as a green renewable energy option, dams can cause a litany of…
arlier this year, the Norte Energia Consortium completed building the gigantic Belo Monte hydroelectric project — the third biggest in the world — located within the municipality of Altimara in…
n the eve of the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, indigenous leaders and human rights advocates spoke out today to highlight the rising violence against indigenous people…
razil’s environmental agency, Ibama, has decided not to give an environmental license to the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric dam, the first of a series of dams planned for the…
ish kills, mercury contamination, the extinction of known aquatic species (along with others still not known to science), plus the physical and economic ruin of indigenous and traditional river communities.…
he Amazon rainforest is popularly known as the “the planet’s lungs” — absorbing and storing 100 billion tons of carbon and preventing it from entering the atmosphere. Maintaining that vast…
ven before the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric power station — the third largest in the world — began operation in April of this year, the harm the project was doing…
or as long as people have lived in the Amazon, turtles have likely been on the menu. But what was once low-impact subsistence hunting escalated dramatically after the arrival of…
rlindo de Oliveira worked 30 years as a bricklayer in the state of Paraná in southern Brazil. Now, he’s found a new job in the Amazon. He buys up land…
singular Amazonian catfish is capable of an amazing feat: hidden from human eyes, the species travels vast distances over its lifetime, making a round trip covering more than 8,000 kilometers…
n a decree published this April, the Brazilian government of President Dilma Rousseff awarded a large area of land to the last remnants of the Arara Indians whose cultural and…
mazonia’s surge in hydropower development threatens numerous species with extinction, and puts unique habitats at risk, warns a recent study. River dolphins, giant otters, turtles, fish, birds and monkeys will…
s night falls on the Areia Homestead Project, forty kilometers from the town of Trairão, in the western portion of Pará state, the silence is cut short by the roar…
t least eight mammals not yet cataloged by science were discovered during the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Brazil’s Sao Luiz do Tapajós hydropower plant, proposed for the western part…
magine a fish isolated in an Amazonian lake — part of the vast freshwater ecosystem of the Amazon basin, an ever-changing network of rivers, lakes and floodplains that extends to…
Protected areas are an important tool for conserving the world’s forests and biodiversity. Perhaps no country has proven that as thoroughly as Brazil, home to one-third of the world's tropical…
Commission in the Brazilian Senate — cloaked by the political turmoil in Brasilia — has quietly approved a constitutional amendment that would shred the environmental safeguards currently required for public…
atin America’s largest electrical company operates 45 hydroelectric dams, and is responsible for 34 percent of Brazil’s generating capacity. The company, Eletrobras, makes laudable claims about its corporate values, including…
The São Luiz do Tapajós mega-dam, whose construction would lead to “social and environmental disaster” according to a Greenpeace report published last week, received a significant setback on Wednesday when…
s we moved up the Iriri River, the water level rose at a gathering pace. We landed at a welcoming house one evening, scrubbed our clothes on a washing board…
razil’s BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social) is the largest development bank in the Americas. The largely taxpayer-funded bank has played a key role in Brazil’s economic development…
ndigenous peoples in Brazil are at risk from an alarming uptick in violence as well as from natural-resource development projects that threaten their existence. That's what United Nations Special Rapporteur…
e left the indigenous village of Tukaya early in the morning, and later that day reached our final destination: the ESEC-TM (Terra do Meio Ecological Station), which we’d come to…
n January 22, 2005, a big headline filled the front page of Diário do Pará, the second biggest newspaper of the northern Brazilian state of Pará. “The journalist Lúcio Flávio…
In this the fifth of sixth articles, Sue Branford delves into the history, and likely future of IIRSA and its relationship to BNDES. ore than 400 hydroelectric dams are already…
