Dam the Rainforest!

Brazil is building the world’s third largest dam in the

rainforest, the Belo Monte Dam, to produce power for their economy.

The Belo Monte Dam is the leader in a wave of 100 new dams

in the Amazon Rainforest. Dams decrease the fish and wildlife in the

rainforest, and change the lives of the Native people on the rivers. 

The people and development that come into the forest with

the dams bring deforestation, mining, and farming to the rainforest, and create

big changes in land-use for the rainforest. 

The Amazon Rainforest is an important part of the earth

because it produces rain and produces oxygen. The Belo Monte Dam has been under

consideration since the 1970s, and construction broke ground in 2011 through a difficult
license and permitting process.

The resistance lives on, and Indigenous Tribes are still

protesting and fighting with the National Guard troops at the dam site today.

NGOs like Amazon Watch and International Rivers are working against the dam,

and the dam does not have the firm support of the Brazilian public.

Join Willie O’Laughlin and the Weston Climate Group for a

discussion about the role Rainforests play in our Climate, the development and

controversy behind the Belo Monte Dam, and an outline of the resistance movement
going forward.  

For more insight on Belo Monte, visit wildxingu.tumblr.com.