ENVIRONMENT-LATAM: The Sins and Virtues of Hydropower Plants

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 11 1999 (IPS) - More than four million people expelled from their homes each year constitute just one aspect of the damages caused by hydroelectric dams, whose role in Latin America is to be assessed at a regionwide conference Thursday and Friday in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The first Latin American consultation organised by the World Commission on Dams (WCD), under the World Bank, will analyse alternatives to hydropower plants and experiences and practical lessons to be learned from large dams. The WCD will draft a report scheduled for release next year.

The aim is to carry out a global assessment of the contribution of large dams, as well as recommend standards and guidelines for future projects.

The WCD will listen to researchers and authorities in the energy sector, environmentalists, economists and representatives of the movement of those displaced by dams, in a multifaceted evaluation of the pros and cons of large dams in Latin America.

A previous gathering to consult society at large and examine the issue in Asia was held in Sri Lanka. India and China accouunt for most of the world’s roughly 800,000 dams. Another 1,600 additional dams are currently being built worldwide.

South America, with its numerous rivers, concentrates a significant portion of hydropower plants, which move around 50 billion dollars annually worldwide.

Brazil, with 600 large dams already built, heads the list in the region, followed by Argentina and Chile.

One million Brazilians have been displaced from their homes and land by dams over the past three decades, according to official figures.

Tucurui, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon jungle region, is illustrative of the potential for serious social and environmental damages of hydropower plants. The construction of the Tucurui dam, the second largest in Brazil, caused the expulsion of 40,000 people, and will be the focus of a special study by the WCD.

In other Latin American countries, movements of affected communities and environmentalists have emerged with the aims of protecting river basins or protesting the construction of a specific dam.

The Group of Action for the Biobío, for example, is fighting to defend Chile’s largest river and protect local indigenous communities.

“The lesson from Biobío was not totally learned by the World Bank,” even though it constitutes “a symbol of its mistaken policies,” said Cristian Opaso, one of the leaders of the Chilean environmental and indigenous rights group. A second dam is presently being built on the Biobío, despite the recognised disasters caused by the first, he pointed out.

The Urra dam in Colombia, Yacyreta on the border between Argentina and Paraguay, El Cuchillo in Mexico and Bayano in Panama are other controversial dams that will receive special attention at the WCD gathering in Sao Paulo.

According to Sandra Ines Gomes Paulino, national secretary of the Brazilian movement of those affected by dams, which goes by its Portuguese acronym MAB, the official figure of one million people displaced by dams in Brazil fails to reflect reality, taking into account only those directly affected by the flooding of their land.

The statistics exclude those who did not live in the area submerged by the dam but who lost their source of income, such as fisherfolk, nearby farmers, people who live on land at risk of temporary flooding, and indigenous people whose territory was reduced, Gomes Paulino explained.

Not even those directly affected have received due indemnification, which has given rise to an “extremely serious” social problem, she added.

Brazil’s energy development programme, which projects the installation of 494 new hydropower dams by the year 2015, could displace another two million people, according to MAB, the only movement in the country working to protect the rights of those affected by dams.

MAB is calling for the creation of a Brazilian Commission on Dams, with broad participation by civil society and the authority to influence the country’s energy development policy and analyse the impact of each project, prior to approval.

The organisation also proposes a moratorium on financing for new hydroelectric dams until pending resettlement cases have been resolved, as well as a veto on construction in areas populated by indigenous communities or in “quilombos,” areas originally settled by blacks fleeing slavery.

Environmental damages, such as the submersion of forests, extinction of animal species and alteration of ecosystems, have also given rise to resistance to large dams worldwide and a search for alternative energy sources.

The WCD, created in 1998, is an independent group comprised of 12 experts and representatives of governments, construction firms, financial entities, environmental groups and affected communities.

Its president, Kader Asmal, is South Africa’s minister of education. Jose Goldemberg, a former Brazilian education and environment minister, is the only member from Latin America.