Source: Cool Earth
This massive 11 megawatt hydroelectric dam project - as reported recently by Cool Earth News - plans to be the biggest in the world, larger even than China's Three Gorges Dam. Over three and a half miles across, the planned dam would dislocate as many as 50,000 people, many of them indigenous communities with rights to the land.
A petition with over 600,000 signatures was presented by indigenous leaders to government representatives with much of Brazil's large population watching on television.
"This dam continues to be highly controversial", claims Matthew Owen, Director of UK rainforest charity Cool Earth. "If it goes ahead another significant chunk of Amazon rainforest will be flooded and there are also implications for climate change. The dam reservoir will kill millions of trees which are presently a store and sink for CO²; worse still, this will effectively transform the trees into emitters of carbon emissions."
"Cool Earth's rainforest protection project with the Ashaninka in Peru is also very close to another Amazonian valley threatened by a proposal for a mega-Dam," adds Owen.