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| BBC: Kaiapo Indians protest dam |
Judge Carlos Castro Martins of the Federal Court of the First Region ordered the work on the 11,000Mw Belo Monte dam, the third largest hydroelectric project in the world, to stop. The judge cited the damage to fishing by indigenous people. The dam is one of sixty the Brazilian government wants to build in the next twenty years in the Amazon Basin. Despite the drastic effect the dam would have on fish species, some only found in the Amazon, it would be one of the most inefficient dams ever constructed in Brazil. Belo Monte would only produce electricity 39% of the year due to low flow of the Xingu River during the dry season. To insure adequate water flows, more upstream reservoirs would have to be built, affecting more people and destroying more rainforest. Campaigners against he dam say 50,000 people would be made homeless as 190 square miles would be flooded. The Brazilian environment agency
backed the proposal.
