It has begun: Belo Monte Dam

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

...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. .... they shouldn't be considered 'special', just different, which should be enough in itself to protect their right to make their own decisions.

That is the whole point. I do know that they do have issues of their own. I do believe that overall, pre-contact indigenous peoples have less disease and violent crime, that some cultures that have diversified food sources (as opposed to ones completely reyling on agriculture, fishing or herding) have little famine and that certain types of cultures do have less warfare that is more ritualized. But that does not matter in this case or in any similar case. The point is that a nation state claims by the right of conquest and occupation that the land these tribes have lived on in a sustainable way for many centuries or even milennia is now part of that nation state and that they can do with that land as they please. Of course they may have the physical power to do so, but that does not make it the right choice. They are special in that they have a culture that is sustainable, that has been there probably longer than the state of Brazil and that they obviously are still very rich people - because they inhabit a large piece of land. That is what is always happening - indigenous people are very very rich - if you would calculate how much land they live on and divide it by the number of people, I doubt many could afford that much land. If you look at all what people nowadays call "resources" on that land - trees, animals, fish, medicinal plants, minerals, clean water, soil - these people are unfathomable rich. And now the colonizers come and take that away and try to make them poor - that is not justice, that is theft. Just because people living in other countries have consumed everything and in the process grown to such large numbers that their landbase cannot support them and their lifestlye anymore does not give them the right to invade others.

[auroraglacialis]

I am just now watching a movie, called "Cultures of Resistance" from 2010. I recommend it. The first example of resistance is about the Xinghu river and the Belo Monte dam. It shows some pictures of what people there are during after the last 20 years of resistance against this project did not stop it. And I liked how they say "Stop Belo Monte dam or we stop Brazil" - and then they push around the dam company representative who is trying to sell that project to them by explaining that a dam needs a certain height and so on... and he gets hurt with a machete. And there is this indigenous women - having a child in one arm and a machete in the other which she keeps wielding in anger.

[Eana Unil]

You can still sign the petition, if you didn't do that yet: AMAZON WATCH

[Moco Loco]

Signed

[txim_asawl]

I signed it a long time ago... and even though we're just sending bits and bytes over some landlines or wireless connections, signing that petition is a thing that just has to be done...

Wiggling bare toes, while counting new signatures with them,

~*Txim Asawl*~

[auroraglacialis]

Wall Photos | Facebook

Look at this picture and reflec t that Brazil wants us all to believe they care about the environment. They are liars. This picture illustrates what they continue to be and have always been – the stealers and despoilers of the land and the sea. They are the greedy takers terrorizing indigenous communities and eradicating species as they literally eat the world’s resources.

They are what the Kayapo call the termite people – relentlessly eating away at the world.
....
This picture needs to go around the world. It needs to be spread far and wide.

The evacuation of the Kayapó tribe - an Indian people of the Amazon region in Brazil's Mato Grosso has begun.
....
Look at this picture. Look into the eyes of the soldier as he mindlessly obeys his orders to subdue the Indians. Look into his eyes and see the reflection of the prison guards at Dachau, the solders at Wounded Knee, the insanity of genocide and war, environmental degradation and species extinction.

This is the face of real eco-terrorism my friends! This is the face of madness!

[Human No More]

That really had me even more annoyed at Brazil... then they made me annoyed at the author instead with the last line. Classic way to ruin a powerful message...

[auroraglacialis]

You want to be annoyed at Brazil? --> Brazil’s Supreme Court accepts “sex work” defense for man who raped three 12-year-old girls

ok, that's unrelated to the dam of course

[txim_asawl]

OK... time to spread some news... I shared the link on my own FB page, tweeted it to Jim Cameron and Zoe Saldana and also made an entry in my blog... not much, really, but something I can do to help:

My tweet to JC and ZS:

~*Ganesha*~ ‏ @ganesha1967

@JimCameron @zoesaldana Forceful eviction of Kayapo natives documented. THIS is sad! Very sad ONLY! Please share this! Wall Photos | Facebook

Let's see, if they will reply...

Not quite in the mood to wiggle toes,

~*Txim Asawl*~

[Taronyu Eywa]

Stamped out as if they were nothing. I imagine they only feel pity for us and what we are doing. These people are one of the few remaining links we have with nature, once their knowledge is lost, it is gone forever!

[redpaintednavi]

Pictures of the destruction:








More pictures of the mindless destruction:

Pictures: Destruction of the Amazon's Xingu River begins for Belo Monte Dam

[ahoragi]

This is really sad. I sit here and see this kind of destruction and nothing I can do to help.

[Human No More]

...That's what makes it worse

[Raiden]

Don't turn this into a debate, guys....

Distilled, this issue is really simple:

Brazil needs energy, Brazil has rivers. Brazil doesn't want to spend a lot of money and know much about hydrology. Brazil proposes dam and uses graft and corrupt officials to push it through legal stuff; construction begins.

The Kayapo live where the dam is going in; they will be ruined if nobody does anything about it. So they defend the dam.

It is silly to label anyone as totally evil or good, and the Kayapo aren't perfect, but Brazil has done some pretty scummy under-the-table deals in order to

1) Pursue a dam that will only require more dams
2) Pursue a dam that will annhiliate iconic species of fish, reptiles, and mammals
3) Pursue a dam that will result in the (possible) cultural annhiliation of native peoples.

Brazil does need energy, but they are undeniably doing something very wrong here, and either they know that and don't care or are ignoring it.

Brazil could have chosen other options instead, such as algal biofuels, but they decided to do this instead.

And lets not forget the mysterious and sudden killings of important environmental activists in Brazil prior to the legalization of this dam, shall we?

Also, if you guys want another angle on this stuff, take a look here:

View topic - L46 and the Belo Monte dam

There are quite a few fish that stand to be driven to extinction because of this project, and the iconic zebra plecostomus, or Loricariid # 46 ( L 46, yet to be given a scientific name) is one of them.

I posted at the end of that thread earlier:

View topic - L46 and the Belo Monte dam

My idea is a longshot, but sometimes all you have to do is speak up to make things happen.

[txim_asawl]

Meet Nhakre Xikrin and her son, members of the Kranh Xikrin Kayapó community high on the banks of the Xingu River in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.

Last time I saw Nhakre, she told me she had heard about machines moving in and ripping through the forest, and how she had seen strange barges charging up the mighty river carrying supplies to the site of the looming Belo Monte dam. The boats had already tainted the water her family depends on; fish were becoming harder to find as the river's flow was diverted.

While world leaders gear up to talk about sustainable development at the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the Brazilian government's costs-be-damned attitude about the Belo Monte dam illustrates a frightening hypocrisy between a truly "green" economy and the human and environmental costs of schemes that destroy the Amazon and its peoples.

I'm currently in the Xingu region and will soon be headed for Rio with a host of indigenous leaders ready to speak out about the dam that threatens to destroy them.

Whether you'll also be in Rio, or following us from your living room,
please join us at this historic moment.

For the Amazon,

Christian Poirier
Brazil Program Coordinator

AMAZON WATCH » Indigenous Voices at Rio+20