Damming the Xingu

Filed 1h ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Heavy Heart

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Number 10 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Belo Monte, the Brazilian Amazon's giant hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River, is marking its tenth year of operation amid a contested environmental license renewal.

At issue is how much water the dam must release downstream: current operations can hold back up to 70% of the river's flow, straining traditional fishing communities in the Volta Grande do Xingu who depend on the river's natural rhythm.

The dispute, as reported, pits calls for revised discharge rules against the realities of water scarcity worsened by climate change, with no resolution yet in sight a decade after the turbines started spinning.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Ten years is long enough to know whether a dam keeps its promises, and long enough for the people downstream to stop waiting on good faith. A river doesn't negotiate, it just gets smaller. Whoever signs the next license should have to explain that to the fishermen directly, not in a hearing room.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Heavy Heart · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0