Resurgence of Large Dams Threatens Tribal People Worldwide .. evacuation of the Kayapó Indian tribe has started.

Resurgence of large dams threatens tribal people worldwide, report says
HERE Posted by David Braun of National Geographic on August 9, 2010

“China is now the single biggest funder of dams, replacing the World Bank. The China Three Gorges Project Corporation, builder of the controversial Three Gorges Dam which displaced more than a million people from around the Yangtze River, has been contracted to build a dam on the land of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. China’s biggest state bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is considering funding Gibe III in Ethiopia, which is to be Africa’s tallest dam and will destroy the livelihood of at least eight tribes.

In 2003 the World Bank reverted from its cautious policy of the 1990s, when it stopped funding hydropower altogether, and committed itself to investing in high risk, high return hydro projects (like big dams), making an even more explicit commitment to scale up funding for hydropower in 2009.”

• Tribal peoples have suffered disproportionately from the effects of hydroelectric dams built on their land, while the potential benefits rarely reach them. the British charity that advocates for tribal peoples said in a news release.

Over 70 small hydroelectric dams are being built along the Upper Juruena River in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso in Brazil, according to Survival. The small Enawene Nawe tribe (in the pohoto above) are fiercely resisting these dams. In both 2009 and 2010 the Enawene Nawe did not catch any fish during their annual trapping season–a disaster for a tribe which does not eat meat.

An Enawene Nawe boy shows a smoked fish caught in a dam on the Adowina or Black River, which runs through rainforest claimed by the Enawene Nawe and which is being rapidly destroyed by cattle ranchers, Brazil.Posted by David Braun of National Geographic on August 9, 2010

Tribal peoples have suffered disproportionately from the effects of hydroelectric dams built on their land, while the potential benefits rarely reach them. the British charity that advocates for tribal peoples said in a news release.

Survival released its report about the situation: Serious Damage: Tribal Peoples and Large Dams (Download a pdf of the report.)

Over 70 small hydroelectric dams are being built along the Upper Juruena River in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso in Brazil, according to Survival. The small Enawene Nawe tribe (in the pohoto above) are fiercely resisting these dams. In both 2009 and 2010 the Enawene Nawe did not catch any fish during their annual trapping season–a disaster for a tribe which does not eat meat.

“This also meant they could not properly perform their most important ceremony, yãkwa, which involves the ritual exchange of fish with the spirits. The Brazilian authorities had to deliver emergency food aid in the form of farmed fish to the tribe,” Survival said in the report Serious Damage.

Highlights from the report:

• Drawing on examples from Asia, Africa and the Americas, Survival’s report Serious Damage exposes the untold cost of obtaining ‘green’ electricity from large hydroelectric dams.
• A rapid increase in global dam-building is currently underway. The World Bank alone is pouring U.S.$11bn into 211 hydropower projects worldwide.
• The impact on tribal people is profound. One Amazonian tribe, the Enawene Nawe, has learnt that Brazilian authorities plan to build 29 dams on its rivers.
• Across the Amazon, the territories of five uncontacted tribes will be affected.

“The Penan tribe in Sarawak face eviction to make way for a dam, and tribes in Ethiopia could be forced to rely on food aid if a dam being built on the famous Omo River is not halted,” Survival said in a news statement. “One man from the Omo Valley’s Kwegu tribe, said, ‘Our land has become bad. They closed the water off tight and we now know hunger. Open the dam and let the water flow.’”