http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/latin-america/amazon-basin/xingu-river
The Xingu River flows from the tropical savanna of central Mato
Grosso, Brazil northward to the Amazon for 1,979 km (1,230 miles).
Some 14,000 indigenous people, from nine distinct ethnic groups,
live along the Xingu. In 1989, an international mobilization, led
by the Kayapó Indians, stopped state electric company Eletronorte´s
plans to construct a six-dam complex on the Xingu and its
tributary, the Iriri.
Now, Brazil is planning the construction of a huge dam on the
Xingu, called Belo
Monte. Belo Monte would require diverting nearly
the entire flow of the Xingu through two artificial canals to the
dam´s powerhouse, leaving indigenous communities along what is
known as the Xingu´s Big Bend without water, fish, or a means of
river transport. The dam would be highly inefficient, with its
turbines grinding to a halt for three or four months every year
during the river´s lowest stream flow. Facing this reality, the
electric sector is now planning to build four additional dams
upstream to store water during the dry season, as well as to
generate electricity. Original plans for dams on the Xingu would
have meant the flooding of more than 18,000 sq km (8,300 sq mi) of
the rainforest. The latest dam plans would cause the flooding of
indigenous villages and other protected areas, as well as
irreversible impacts to the Xingu´s fish stocks.
International Rivers is working with the Kayapó and other
indigenous groups and environmental and social activists to protect
the Xingu River Basin from large dams. Indigenous peoples and their
allies are planning a huge gathering in 2008 to voice their
opposition to dams on the Xingu.
