Banks| Policies| Dodgy Deals| Campaigns
About us| Blog| Publications| Successes| Contact us| Donate
About BankTrack
Visit us
Organisation
Our team
Our board
Guiding principles
Team up with us
Our annual reports
Funding and finances
History
BankTrack in the media
Our privacy policy
Donate
2022-06-02 00:00:00
GFANZ must tighten the screw on fossil fuel expansion
2022-05-19 00:00:00
BNP Paribas and Société Générale: stop financing climate destruction and human rights abuses
2022-05-04 00:00:00
Barclays is big on beef and burning
2022-05-04 00:00:00
Standard Chartered’s 2022 AGM dominated by shareholder alarm over fossil financing
2022-05-20 15:14:47
Seven financiers abandon TotalEnergies' EACOP pipeline in a week
2021-12-16 13:33:02
Cambo oil field "paused" following pressure on Shell & banks
2021-12-16 13:04:42
Equator Principles improve transparency after BankTrack shows the way
2021-11-02 11:03:26
ANZ launches human rights grievance mechanism in a first for the global banking sector
Connect
2022-04-05 00:00:00
The BankTrack Human Rights Benchmark Asia
2022-03-30 00:00:00
Banking on Climate Chaos 2022
2022-03-08 00:00:00
BankTrack Annual Report 2021
2022-03-03 00:00:00
Locked out of a Just Transition: fossil fuel financing in Africa
2021-12-14 00:00:00
Actions speak louder: Assessing bank responses to human rights violations
2021-10-26 00:00:00
Equator Compliant Climate Destruction: How banks finance fossil fuels under the Equator Principles
See all publications
Browse
Home
Banks
Policies
Dodgy Deals
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook
Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Instagram
Affiliate Websites
Fossil Banks No Thanks
StopEACOP
Forests & Finance
Banks & Biodiversity
Drop JBS
Bank of Coal
Don't Buy into Occupation
Home › News
Environmentalists Blast Construction License for Amazon Dam
Start
Banks
Dodgy Deals

By: Amigos da Terra Amazonia Brasileira
2008-08-14
Sao Paulo

Contact:

Glenn Switkes, Latin America Program Director, International Rivers
+1 510 848 1155, glenn@internationalrivers.org

Gustavo Pimentel, Eco-Finances Manager, Friends of the Earth, Brazilian Amazon
(Office) +55 11 3887 9369; (cell) + 55 11 8622 4682, ef@amazonia.org.br

Iremar Ferreira, Executive Director, Living Madeira Institute
+55 69 3227 7884; +55 69 3224 5926, iremafe@yahoo.com.br


Share this page:

Indigenous people in event to public discuss the project.
Go to:
Start
Related Banks
Related Dodgy Deals

Environmental organizations have condemned the Brazilian government´s approval of a license for construction of Santo Antonio Dam, on the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon. The groups say that Brazil´s environmental protection service, Ibama, has caved in to political interests, ignoring the advice of its own technical staff in licensing the dam, and approving a mitigation plan which will do little to decrease its impacts.

Santo Antonio Dam would be the first of two dams to be built on the Madeira, the Amazon´s principal tributary. Environmental impact assessments predict serious impacts on the region´s biodiversity, and on river bank communities, including indigenous tribes living close to the reservoir area.

Glenn Switkes, of International Rivers, says "Environment Minister Carlos Minc´s decision to license the dam demonstrates his mandate is to accelerate the building of large-scale, high-impact projects in the heart of Amazonia. The fact that construction will be permitted without a definitive solution in place for fish passage threatens the livelihoods of thousands of river bank dwellers who depend on high-value fish species for their income".

Ibama required the consortium building the dam to submit an impact mitigation plan to demonstrate how they would comply with 33 conditions that the agency placed on the project. But independent analyses show that the mitigation plans include vague promises that are restricted to monitoring and further studies, rather than concrete measures to reduce the project's impacts. Decisions regarding the project´s social and environmental viability, which should have been analyzed during the preliminary licensing phase, in July 2007, have been in effect deferred until later, when it will be too late to avoid the project´s most serious effects.

Despite the fact that the construction license was issued only today, communities living close to the planned worksite have already been pressured to leave their homes, and accept inadequate compensation terms.

Iremar Ferreira, Executive Director of the Living Madeira Institute in Porto Velho says "This is a serious violation of the human rights of the displaced people. The only assistance they are being given is a small payment for their land. As a result, they will have to find a way to survive on abandoned cattle ranches, miles from the banks of the Madeira where their families have lived for generations.

Friends of the Earth, Brazilian Amazon says the granting of the construction license under these conditions will mean additional challenges to the project in the courts, and predicts further project delays, meaning added risks for investors and financiers of the project.

Gustavo Pimentel of Friends of the Earth says "The project violates the Equator Principles (on project finance), and therefore should not be financed by banks such as Bradesco, Banco do Brasil, Itaú, and Unibanco that have committed to the principles. Brazilian banks have an opportunity to prove that they are truly committed to sustainability by refusing to finance the destruction of the Amazon".

-30-

Go to:
Start
Related Banks
Related Dodgy Deals

Related banks

Banco Bradesco Brazil

active

Banco do Brasil Brazil

active

Itaú-Unibanco Brazil

active
Go to:
Start
Related Banks
Related Dodgy Deals

Related Dodgy Deals

Projects

There are no projects active for this item now.
on record

Rio Madeira dams: Jirau and Santo Antonio Brazil

Hydroelectric Power Generation
Browse
Home
Banks
Policies
Dodgy Deals
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook
Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Instagram
Affiliate Websites
Fossil Banks No Thanks
StopEACOP
Forests & Finance
Banks & Biodiversity
Drop JBS
Bank of Coal
Don't Buy into Occupation
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 24 324 9220
Contact@banktrack.org
©2016 BankTrack                Webdesign by BankTrack and EASYmind
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted