WORLD

Plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam in the Amazon have been put on hold due to concerns about its impact on the indigenous community in the region. (Guardian)

Use our fantastic hi-res map to find the proposed site of the São Luiz do Tapajós dam and an array of other human activities in the Amazon Basin.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit, including a link to today’s very simple locator map.

Discussion Ideas

• Why would businesses and the government want to construct a dam on the Tapajos River?
  • The dam would provide electricity—part of the bedrock of a modern, developed economy. The dam would generate electricity for homes and personal electronics, businesses, schools, and hospitals. Hydroelectricity, considered a source of renewable energy, accounts for 77% of Brazil’s energy output and is considered the “key to meeting the country’s climate commitments while maintaining economic growth.”
    • Take a look here to put the Tapajos River dam in perspective with other dams in Amazonia.
    • Brazil’s investment in hydroelectric energy has helped make it one of the world’s renewable energy leaders. Learn more about that here.

• Who are the Munduruku? Read through this gorgeous and informative article from Al Jazeera America for some help.
  • The Munduruku are a people and culture native to Brazil’s Tapajos River valley. In fact, “To them, the Tapajós is the equivalent of the Vatican for the Catholic Church,” says a Greenpeace campaigner in the Amazon who works with the Munduruku. For centuries, the Munduruku were nicknamed the “‘red ants’ for their deadly mass assaults on rival tribes and colonialists alike.”

• Why do the Munduruku oppose the Tapajos dam project?
  • The Munduruku oppose the Tapajos dam for two major reasons: its impact on the human community and its impact on the region’s environment.
    • Human Impact: Forced migration. The project would “flood a vast area, requiring the forced removal of at least some indigenous communities.”
    • Environmental Impact: Habitat loss. Construction of the dam would threaten the biodiversity in the most biologically rich habitat on Earth—the Amazon rain forest. This alone would threaten the Munduruku way of life:
      • “Centuries of know-how help the Munduruku stay alive in one of the most dangerous parts of the forest, filled with jaguars, snakes, alligators and scorpions. Each morning, they hunt tapirs, monkeys, deer and armadillos with arrows and knives to be skinned and roasted the same day . . . The villagers bathe in a brook off the main river. Surrounded by splayed tree roots, hovering butterflies and the distant chirping of birds, children play with abandon while women wash pots and pans and the carcasses of dead animals. The water turns from turquoise to emerald where the sun shines through the lattice of the tree branches. At night, alligators and anacondas sleep here.”

• What methods have the Munduruku used to oppose the Tapajos dam project?
  • law. For years, the Munduruku have sought the crucial “demarcation” designation for land around the proposed project. Once an area has been officially demarcated as indigenous land, government and businesses are strictly prohibited from forcing the removal of indigenous groups from it except in cases of disease epidemics and war.
  • civil disobedience. Mundurukus have taken to unofficially demarcating their land by hammering “handmade wooden signs with words in their native language stenciled in red paint onto tree trunks.”
  • kidnapping. “In 2013, the tribe captured three biologists who were in the region doing a study [associated with the development of the dam.] They were held for 48 hours until the government promised to suspend the study. ‘[The Munduruku] kept them in a cage and threatened to burn them alive unless the government explained what they were doing on indigenous land without consent’ . . . Now federal forces accompany any such mission to the region.”
  • dedication. Unlike many other indigenous groups, the Munduruku are united in their opposition to the dam. “We Munduruku will stop this dam,” says one spokesman. “Now we are fighting with documents. If the government insists, if it sends in the National Force, then we will fight with bodies. Everyone has made the decision, no one will give up.”

• Why has the Tapajos dam project been suspended? Read through the Guardian article for some help.
  • The project has been suspended for several reasons, both legal and economic.
    • First, about 170,000 hectares have been protected as Munduruku land. This prohibits the project from removing any Munduruku from the area.
    • Second, the Brazilian economic slump has made it less profitable for companies to invest in such a huge, costly hydroelectric project. “These dams were planned when the government expected a rise in energy demand based on growth of 4% a year,” says one expert. “But in 2015 GDP shrank by 3.8% and the projections for 2016 indicate a similar drop.”

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

Guardian: Brazil Amazon dam project suspended over concerns for indigenous people

Nat Geo: Amazonia: The Human Impact high-resolution map

Nat Geo: Where is the Sao Luiz Tapajos dam project? locator map

Dams in Amazonia: São Luiz do Tapajós Dam Profile

Al Jazeera America: ‘We Will Fight to the End: Amazon Tribe Faces Off Against a $9.9 Billion Dam