It has begun: Belo Monte Dam

[auroraglacialis]

They have begun to build it. Protests, petitions and legal attempts have failed.
Brazil begins preliminary damming of Xingu River as protests continue

Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the NGO International Rivers. Indigenous tribes, who have long opposed the dam plans on their ancestral river, conducted a peaceful protest that interrupted construction for a couple hours.
[...]
Indigenous tribes say they were not notified that Norte Energia (NESA) had begun constructing coffer dams until the river became red-colored with mud.
"When we learned what they were doing, it practically killed us with sadness," Josinei Arara, a member of the Arara indigenous community 10 miles downstream on the Xingu from the Pimental dam site, told International Rivers. "The dam builders have kept none of their promises to compensate our village; in they meantime, they’re assassinating our river."
[...]
Last November, a Brazilian court ruled that indigenous communities do not have a right to free, prior and informed consultation regarding the Belo Monte dam because it is physically located on tribal lands.

[ahoragi]

Goddamn it....my worst fears have come true. I feel helpless here, not being able to help the "People" in need. I could never forgive myself if I were in the Brazilian gov't and voted to go ahead despite the damage it's causing to people.

Why don't they simply take advantage of the ocean? It has unlimited power and won't disrupt the lives of the people.

[Moco Loco]

Last November, a Brazilian court ruled that indigenous communities do not have a right to free, prior and informed consultation regarding the Belo Monte dam because it is physically located on tribal lands.

That's blatant prejudice if I've ever seen it. They're indigenous, so they don't deserve their own land?

[versicolor]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

They have begun to build it. Protests, petitions and legal attempts have failed.

A very sad day.

Let's face it, they never really had any hope though did they?

The Brazilian Federal Goverment have made their agenda perfectly clear, one which will unfortunately continue regardless.

All we can do in the meantime is to continue to show our moral support and outrage no matter how futile it all may seem.

Yet another ecological disaster conceived and executed by ignorant, profiteering bastards.

[Empty Glass]

I think this sentence has a mistake and should be read as such, based off what I saw in another article there:

Last November, a Brazilian court ruled that indigenous communities do not have a right to free, prior and informed consultation regarding the Belo Monte dam because it is NOT physically located on tribal lands.

Makes a little more sense...

[Human No More]

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense, because their point was that it would block off their access to the river, but it's just upstream of them.

[Tsyal Makto]

Damn shame. Of course Big Energy and all their money would win in the end.

"The strong prey on the weak."

[Rainbowhawk1993]

Well... F*** a duck. (I'm not going to say anything sad because it's pointless)

I guess the best thing to do is to think of it this way:

We may have lost this battle but we are still in the war. Keep fighting everyone.

[CyanRachel]

This is sad, very sad only.

[Petrucho]

Eh, same crap is happening in Chile, with the stupid Hidroaysén project.

Basically a bunch of hydroelectric plants that will be built in the southern part of Chile (near the Patagonia), messing up the flora and fauna of the rainforests. Main objective of this is to give energy to the miner companies in the very north of Chile (a bit stupid since the distance between the Patagonia and the Atacama desert is ~2,300 miles).

[applejuice]

Reading a bit from the ever-present Wikipedia, I found that OAS and Queiroz-Galvao are subcontractors in the project. OAS is the Brazilian construction firm that was elected in a very dark process by our government to build a road across Tipnis. Queiroz Galvao is also another dark character here, the roads they build cost more than one million dollars a kilometer for only two lanes, ground level roads that last only a couple of months (one mile = 1.6 km and our engineers calculated an overprice of at least 25% per kilometer). OAS is pressing quite hard here to build the road across Tipnis and Morales' government is willing to go along with them. Ah, I forgot, OAS is charging the state 400 million dollars for a, supposedly planned, 69 km road across Tipnis, and the government is supposed to grant them all the pavement for the road.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by versicolor

All we can do in the meantime is to continue to show our moral support and outrage no matter how futile it all may seem.

Originally Posted by Rainbowhawk1993

We may have lost this battle but we are still in the war. Keep fighting everyone.

I am not sure if the ones who are opposing this, those who are affected by it and those who stand in solidarity with them have chosen the right weapons. Quiteobviously petitions and pleas dont really help against those people. Its about as effective as Grace asking Selfridge to please not bomb hometree - you cannot argue with these people, they are resistant to pleas and nice words. Especially if they cannot act from a free will but have to follow the will of lobbyists or economics. I guess the only way to stop them is a mass movement within the country, that has enough potential to topple the government. Like that is going to happen

So what are we doing? Standing by and watch as the world burns and indigenous people die. This goes to my heart and I feel helpless here. There has to be some way to put an end to this...

Originally Posted by Petrucho

Eh, same crap is happening in Chile, with the stupid Hidroaysén project.

Basically a bunch of hydroelectric plants that will be built in the southern part of Chile [...] to give energy to the miner companies in the very north of Chile

Yes, this is very sad as well. Same area where they want to build all these salmon fish farms (each puts out as much waste as a city of 100.000 people) and shoot the sea lions to prevent them from snacking on the fish.
BTW, the north of chile - the mining industry there - one of the major near future developments there is the mining of Lithium. This is needed for batteries mostly - in computers, cellphones, electric cars. An exploding industry that cannot have enough of this.

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

I am not sure if the ones who are opposing this, those who are affected by it and those who stand in solidarity with them have chosen the right weapons. Quiteobviously petitions and pleas dont really help against those people. Its about as effective as Grace asking Selfridge to please not bomb hometree - you cannot argue with these people, they are resistant to pleas and nice words. Especially if they cannot act from a free will but have to follow the will of lobbyists or economics. I guess the only way to stop them is a mass movement within the country, that has enough potential to topple the government. Like that is going to happen

You can't be so naive as to think that the only way of stopping this project is by overthrowing the government. I'm sure there are many other fronts that can be used to counter the dam, and wouldn't be nearly as extreme.

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

So what are we doing? Standing by and watch as the world burns and indigenous people die. This goes to my heart and I feel helpless here. There has to be some way to put an end to this...

Try not to generalize the indigenous as unequivocally good. True, they should have the right to maintain their culture and their territory, but we shouldn't only consider the viewpoint of the indigenous. Don't get me wrong, I am against the Belo Monte Dam, but it's ridiculous to treat every industry vs. nature/indigenous in a black-and-white manner.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Raptor

You can't be so naive as to think that the only way of stopping this project is by overthrowing the government

That is not what I said. I said that the government has to be afraid of being toppled over. That does not have to mean that it will actually happen and it does not even mean that it has to be a revolution. In the most benign case this could mean simply that the government fears of loosing public support so much that they will not be in office after the next election or have to resign before that due to public demand. This is the kind of strength a movement needs to actually pressure politics. No one will listen to a small minority with some demands and frankly even a large minority wont do much.
I keep pointing to the German example of the anti nuclear movement. It took decades of large scale activism, protesting, civil disobedience and uncivil disobedience, of lobbying, forming a political party (that then dumped its ideas once in power) and for many years the majority of Germans would have voted against nuclear power. But in the end the final decision was made after the Fukushima incident which enraged people so much that the people in power actually felt that if they do not act to the will of the people now, they will completly loose out, the government coalition of parties could break apart and the two ruling parties could loose all credibility to being democratic for the years to come.

Try not to generalize the indigenous as unequivocally good. True, they should have the right to maintain their culture and their territory, but we shouldn't only consider the viewpoint of the indigenous.

Yes we should. Sorry, there is almost nothing that can justify anything else. It is the land of their ancestors, it is their home, their territory, their livelihood, their world. If they are not "good" - it does not matter - then maybe we have to talk to them, discuss with them, show them things that are not so great that they are doing and explain it to them, support women, provide help if they ask for it - that is all fine. Flooding their territory, deforesting their land or building roads through it is not. That is occupation.

There are reasons that can justify conquest and occupation. I am glad that the land I live in now was conquered by an alliance of different nations. But that is an exception. And a very rare one at that.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Raptor

Try not to generalize the indigenous as unequivocally good. True, they should have the right to maintain their culture and their territory, but we shouldn't only consider the viewpoint of the indigenous. Don't get me wrong, I am against the Belo Monte Dam, but it's ridiculous to treat every industry vs. nature/indigenous in a black-and-white manner.

Well said. Romanticising people is just as bad, if they're being kept as some kind of 'human museum' where people go on about how wonderful and perfect they are and artificially provide everything to make it look as if they aren't aware of them.

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Yes we should. Sorry, there is almost nothing that can justify anything else. It is the land of their ancestors, it is their home, their territory, their livelihood, their world. If they are not "good" - it does not matter - then maybe we have to talk to them, discuss with them, show them things that are not so great that they are doing and explain it to them, support women, provide help if they ask for it - that is all fine. Flooding their territory, deforesting their land or building roads through it is not. That is occupation.

...yet that doesn't make them some kind of 'perfect people'. With how you talk about similar examples, you'd think they never had disease, famine or crime, or indeed, even warfare; yet they do. While here, the government in brazil has not considered them as it should, see my above point - they shouldn't be considered 'special', just different, which should be enough in itself to protect their right to make their own decisions.