By Liliana Avila | Senior Human Rights Attorney
By next year, the management plan for the flow of the Xingu River could be implemented.
But that plan—endorsed when Belo Monte was authorized—would leave the indigenous and riverine communities of the area without the water they need to survive, and places the fish and the forests at risk of extinction.
That’s why we sent a report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights detailing the plan’s serious socio-environmental risks. In it, we requested that the Commission urge Brazil to stop the plan’s implementation and create an alternative plan that guarantees biodiversity and protects the communities’ ways of life.
Called a Consensual Hydrogram, the plan establishes the volume of water that will pass through a specific part of the river, called the Vuelta Grande, and the part that will be diverted for energy production. It is intended to artificially reproduce the natural flow of the river in times of flood and drought.
The report sent to the Commission details scientific and social evidence that demonstrates that the water levels proposed in the plan are significantly lower than the historical river flow and do not guarantee that fish and alluvial forests can survive in the short- and medium-term.
The evidence—which includes information from both the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources and community monitoring—also shows that some aquatic species, such as chelonians, can only feed and reproduce with minimum flows of 13,000 cubic meters per second in times of flooding, and that the volume proposed for the dry season could make the river unnavigable.
In 2016, with water levels higher than those proposed, the Juruna people were already reporting the mass die-off of fish.
We sent the report to the Commission as part of our formal complaint against the Brazilian State for the human rights violations caused by the dam’s construction.
In May, together with partner organizations, we presented our final arguments in the case, evidencing damages already caused, including the forced displacement of indigenous and riverine communities, the massive death of fish, differentiated damages to men and women, and threats to the survival of the communities.
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