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Photo: Maíra Irigaray / Amazon WatchHolding Brazil accountable for the Belo Monte Dam
When fully operational, Belo Monte will be the third-largest dam in the world, constructed in one of the most important ecosystems on the planet: the Amazon rainforest. It sits on the Xingu River in Pará, a state in northern Brazil. The reservoir will cover 500 square kilometers of forest and farmland—an area the size of Chicago.
For the people of the Xingu, construction of Belo Monte has meant loss of access to water, food, housing, work and transportation. At least 20,000 people have been displaced.
The government and construction consortium began to construct the dam without first consulting the people of the region, many of whom are indigenous. They flouted international human rights law, which requires the free, prior and informed consent of affected indigenous communities. Brazil also failed to comply with precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which were intended to protect the life, health, and integrity of local communities.
Though Belo Monte began operations in May 2016, it is not yet operating at full capacity. In April 2016, a federal court suspended the dam's operating license because the consortium in charge did not complete basic sanitation works in Altamira, the city nearest to and most affected by the dam.
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Colombia’s Ministry of Environment unveils the demarcation of the Santurbán Páramo without specifying details of the measurements
With the water supply of millions of people at risk, we urge the ministry to publish details of the demarcation and ensure that this fragile ecosystem remains free of large-scale mining operations. Bogotá, Colombia. Colombia’s Ministry of Environment announced the delimitation of the Santurbán Páramo, a high-altitude wetland ecosystem that supplies water to millions of people in the country. While the ministry disclosed some aspects of the measure to the media, it has not released full details. These include the full extension of the demarcation, exact coordinates and which mining operations are inside or outside of the defined area. The ministry stated that the protected area would increase from 11,000 hectares to 42,000 hectares in the department of Santander. However, according to the Colombian Humboldt Institute’s atlas, the ecosystem has a surface area of at least 82,000 hectares in the departments of Santander and North Santander. “We do not know if the protected area covers the total area of the páramo in both departments. Nor do we know the coordinates or what mining titles will be affected. We do not even know if there is a written draft of the official decision. This seems incompatible with the right to access accurate and impartial information, as enshrined in the Colombian Constitution,” said lawyer Carlos Lozano-Acosta of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). The páramo of Santurbán supply water to nearly two million people, including the cities of Bucaramanga and Cúcuta. As is common for this ecosystem, the páramo of Santurbán has a diversity of flora and fauna and is important for storage of atmospheric carbon, helping to mitigate climate change effects. According to the law, the demarcation of this ecosystem should be formally and clearly defined in order to prevent harmful activities such as large-scale mining, which could cause irreversible damage. According to the Ministry, companies with mining concessions and environmental licenses will remain in Santurbán. The ministry said that the demarcation affects only 10 of 29 mining titles, including those of the Canadian firm Eco Oro Minerals. It did not provide any further details. Without the exact coordinates of the ecosystem, it is not possible to know precisely the extent of the demarcation and the ongoing threat that large-scale mining poses to this water source. Eco Oro has threatened to pursue legal action if the final decision affects their investment, presumably basing its arguments on the free trade agreement between Colombia and Canada that would allow the company to sue Colombia in an international tribunal. “Colombians should not pay a company for investing where it should not, much less if it threatens their water supplies. Colombian law prohibits mining in páramos. We call on Eco Oro to respect Colombians’ right to water instead of threatening legal action to protect their investment,” said Jennifer Moore of MiningWatch Canada. Kristen Genovese of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) said, “Eco Oro is not only violating Colombian law with regard to mining in the páramo, but the project is inconsistent with the social and environmental standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is financing the project. We believe that an investigation now underway regarding the IFC’s investment in Eco Oro will confirm our analysis.” According to the Ministry, the decision will not be adopted immediately, and no date has been set to implement it. “The participation of citizens in the demarcation process has not been adequate. We do not know, for example, if the Ministry used rigorous technical studies provided by the Humboldt Institute. Nor is much known about how public participation took place regarding this decision,” said Miguel Ramos of the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo. Also unknown is how Andean forest ecosystems, or cloud forests, located at altitudes of 2,200 to 2,600 meters above sea level, will be protected and managed. These are also vital to ecosystem health and water regulation. Similar to Eco Oro’s approach in Santurbán, the mining company AUX plans to carry out underground mining in these ecosystems. To date, more than 19,000 people have signed a petition (in Spanish) urging the Colombian government to protect the water of Santurbán according to scientific criteria. The government received (in Spanish) 16,000 of those signatures in November 2013. Organizations and environmentalists have also asked (in Spanish) the Colombian government to properly define the limits of the páramo ecosystem. The demarcation of Santurbán will set a precedent for protecting the country’s other páramos. Colombia is home to half of the páramos in the world, which supply water to 85% of its population. The demarcation process must take into account the minimum projected area of the páramo in the Humboldt Institute’s Atlas and its technical studies at a scale of 1:25:000. “If the Santurbán Páramo is adequately defined, it would set an important precedent for the protection of all the páramos. This would lead the way, taking another step toward respecting the right to water of all Colombians” said Carla Garcia Zendejas of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). AIDA, CIEL, the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo, MiningWatch Canada and SOMO -- as allied organizations -- ask Eco Oro to refrain from threats of legal action in an attempt to influence the demarcation of the páramo, and ask the Colombian government to provide full, truthful, and impartial information about the process and final decision.
Read moreBrazilian judicial abuses questioned on anniversary of military coup
Human rights commission hears case questioning state use of dictatorship-era legal device. Washington, D.C. Marking the 50th anniversary of Brazil’s military coup, Brazilian community representatives and their legal advocates questioned President Dilma Rousseff’s administration at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) over its flagrant use of a legal mechanism that dates to the country’s dictatorship (1964-1985). The speakers argued that the law allows for Brazil’s chief justices to arbitrarily overturn legal decisions that protect the environment and rights of indigenous and traditional peoples who are threatened by powerful economic interests. Known as “Security Suspension” (“Suspensão de Segurança”), this legal artifice permits the federal government to request the suspension of judicial decisions based on supposed threats to national security and the country’s “social and economic order”. The device has notably been used to suspend lawsuits that favor the indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent, allowing for notorious projects such as the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam to proceed in violation of the Brazilian Constitution and international conventions. Decisions based on “Security Suspension” may not be overturned until the final phase of court appeals, effectively blocking due process of the law and paving the way for controversial mega-projects to proceed as fait accompli. Indigenous leader Josias Munduruku, who represents one of the Amazon’s largest remaining tribes, traveled to the hearing to denounce Brazil’s plans to construct a complex of mega-dam projects on the Tapajos river and its tributaries, which threaten to bring devastating impacts on their lands and livelihood. “We are suffering the consequences of the dams that are being built on five of our rivers,” said Josias. “Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit to stop the Tapajós dams, but the government overruled the court’s decision using Security Suspension, allowing the projects to continue in spite of the fact that we were not consulted.” Federal judge Célia Bernardes mirrored these concerns, speaking on behalf of the Brazilian Association of Judges for Democracy, whose decision on the lack of prior consultations of the Munduruku and other indigenous peoples was overturned by “Security Suspension”, permitting controversial dam projects to proceed in violation of the law. During the hearing, representatives of the Brazilian government argued that Security Suspension has been used only to defend the public interest, including that of indigenous peoples. However, there was no mention of the specific cases raised by the delegates. Judge Célia Bernardes countered the government’s point, stating: “Security Suspension differs from other legal tools as it permits the chief justice of a regional court to override rulings based on exclusively political and economic arguments, without considering judicial opinions.” “Employing broad and subjective criteria, Security Suspension violates the American Convention on Human Rights and destroys any chance for the effective protection of human rights in the Brazilian legal system," said Alexandre Andrade Sampaio, a lawyer with the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). “Security Suspension is in flagrant violation of the rights to due process and access to justice, specifically cited in Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention." “Security Suspension is a dire remnant of Brazil’s military dictatorship that prevents the judiciary to act independently and impartially," affirmed Edward Baker, a lawyer with Global Justice. "When it comes to mega-projects that are directly linked to state policy for economic growth, the Brazilian judicial system has been used in order to deny, or simply disregard, the rights of the affected populations." The hearing before the IACHR the Organization of American States echoes another official complaint, made on March 10th at the 25th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, denouncing the Brazilian government’s systematic use of this legal instrument to the detriment of communities affected by mega-projects. The hearing was requested by the organizations Justiça Global, Justiça Nos Trilhos, the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), International Rivers, Terra de Direitos and the Sociedade Paraense de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos (SDDH). Download the civil society document presented in the hearing (in Portuguese). Watch the video of the hearing (Spanish/Portuguese).
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Organizations alert the United Nations that construction of the Las Cruces hydropower plant will violate human rights in Nayarit, Mexico
UN Special Rapporteurs are asked to urge the Mexican government to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples and coastal communities that would be affected by the project. Mexico City. The Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) has sent an urgent appeal to several United Nations Special Rapporteurs showing that construction of the Las Cruces hydropower plant will violate the human rights of communities in western Mexico. The project will affect coastal communities as well as the Cora, Tepehuano, Huichol and Mexicanero indigenous peoples along the San Pedro Mezquital river basin in the state of Nayarit. We sent the appeal to Special Rapporteurs on the issues of adequate housing, indigenous rights, extreme poverty as well as the rights to food, safe drinking water and sanitation and to the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We filed the appeal on the behalf of economic, environmental and community organizations in areas that would be affected by the project. These include the Inter-Community Council of the San Pedro River, the Náyeri Indigenous Council, the Nayarit Riverside Federation, Nuiwari, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), the Ecological Mangrove Group, SuMar and representatives of the town of Boca Camichín. In the appeal, we asked the Special Rapporteurs to urge the Mexican government “to guarantee the rights of the indigenous peoples and coastal communities of the San Pedro Mezquital river to information and participation, consultation and consent, as well as to food, clean water and sanitation, and to the right to enjoy a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.” We also asked the UN experts to visit the site of the proposed hydropower project to find out first hand the damages it will cause on the environment and human rights. The project will affect indigenous lands – mostly those of the Coras – by forcibly evicting inhabitants and damaging sacred sites. This would violate the human rights to adequate housing, water and livelihoods as well as to culture and education. “Our lands and natural resources are the most important aspects of our culture," said Julián López Cánare, coordinator of the Náyeri Indigenous Council and a member of the Intercommunity Council of the San Pedro River. “Every day we fear that our sacred sites will be flooded or damaged.” Ernesto Bolado, director of SuMar, said the appeal to the UN is a demonstration of how the Cora, Huichol, Tepehuana and Mexicanera communities were never consulted on the project as required by Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO). What is more, consent for the expropriation of land and changing its use was requested at community assemblies under false pretenses, the promise of government benefits and even with bullying. Mexico’s state-owned electric utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad plans to build and operate the Las Cruces hydropower dam on the San Pedro Mezquital river at a location 65 km north of the city of Tepic, Nayarit. The plant will have 240 MW of installed capacity generated by three turbines fed by water from a 188-meter high dam holding a reservoir measuring 5,349 hectares. The project will operate only four months a year at regular output, and it will meeting 0.9% of the energy demand of the West Central Mexico in 2026, equivalent to 0.28% of the total installed capacity in the country[1]. “The urgent appeal is a request for United Nations Rapporteurs to investigate the facts concerning the full enjoyment of human rights of the people and communities that will be affected by the hydroelectric project," said AIDA attorney Sandra Moguel. The environmental assessment report for Las Cruces acknowledges that the project will lead to the substitution of agriculture and small-scale livestock ranching for a dependence on fishing in the reservoir. “It is unthinkable to convert subsistence farmers into fishermen or tour operators,” said Marcos Moreno, an oyster farmer in Boca Camichín and a member of the Intercommunity Council of the San Pedro River. You can read the alert sent to the UN Special Rapporteurs (in Spanish). [1] Las Cruces Environmental Impact Assessment, Chapter II, pages 4-12, 18, 19 and 77.
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