Stop The Belo Monte Dam In The Heart Of The Amazon Rainforest

The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and her Government are pressing ahead with plans to build an enormous dam complex on the Xingu River in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The aim of the campaign is to stop the dam being built.

Why? The building of the dam would:

• Destroy (flood) 668km² of land of which 400km² is pristine rainforest.
• Force up to 1,000 indigenous Indians off the land they have been on for centuries. Up to 40,000 more people will be displaced.
• Even when complete only run at a maximum of 39% installed capacity. To run nearer to 100% it would require many more dams to be built on the river with further destruction of forest and wildlife. The Barbaquarra Dam if built would flood an area, predominantly rainforest, more than 12 times the size of Greater London!
• Encourage further destruction of neighbouring forest as the dams attract “development” to the region.
• Deny the children of today the chance to see the rainforest. By the time the children of today are my age (36), the wonderful animals and plants, which Sir David Attenborough has spent a lifetime bringing to our television screens, will be gone, gone FOREVER. You will be able to read about them, look at videos of them, look them up on the internet, but you won’t be able to see one alive. Instead you will have soya bean plantations, cattle ranching and such like.

Is it required?

• If Brazil were to invest in energy efficiency instead it could cut its expected demand for electricity by 40%. This is the equivalent of FOURTEEN of these dams!!!