Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/30780
Sheyla Yakarepi (right and at front left) leads protest against construction of the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River. Modern Amazons I Women fight to save Brazil’s rivers and rain forests N OCTOBER OF 2010, DILMA Rousseff became Brazil’s first woman president. But the indige- nous women of the Amazon aren’t celebrating one of Rousseff’s signature projects: They’re among the leaders of a group launching 10 lawsuits to halt a dam on the Xingu River that would put an end to their way of life. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly called Lula, had been elected president on a plat- form of change. He appointed envi- ronmentalist and union organizer Marina Silva, daughter of a rubber tapper, as minister of the environ- ment, and vowed he would listen to the indigenous people and protect their lands. Under Silva, 2 million hectares of tropical forest were certi- fied as reserves, and 170,000 square meters of illegal lumbering were shut down. It was to be the “start of a sus- tainable history,” as Silva put it. But Lula—and Rousseff, then his chief of staff—started using a new word: “developmentalism.” The word implied progress, except to those in its path, who saw “relocation” displace- ment and mega-dams like Belo Monte. www.msmagazine.com According to Amazon Watch, the dam “will divert nearly the entire flow of the Xingu River along a 62-mile stretch… flood more than 100,000 acres of rain forest and local settlements, displace more than 40,000 people and generate vast quantities of methane—a green- house gas at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.” Unless the indigenous people of the Amazon can stop it. They have founded an organization, Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre (Xingu Alive Forever), and women rank among the most vocal leaders. Thirty-six-year- old Sheyla Yakarepi of the Juruna peo- ple even speaks of armed resistance. “My own militancy,” she says, “has grown gradually” in the face of ongo- ing betrayal. “We are committed to fight with our bodies and souls to de- fend our lives and the life of our river.” Indeed, Xingu Alive Forever coordi- nator Antonia Melo has received death threats—which cannot be taken lightly in a place where Dorothy Stang, a U.S. nun who defended small farmers in the Amazon Basin against mega-ranchers, was murdered in 2005. But bullets can’t kill a social movement. Atossa Soltani, founder and executive director of Amazon Watch, says, “This is a long-term battle. Belo Monte is the symbol of resistance.” The business interests that will prof- it, ElectroBras and Alcoa, planned to break ground for the dam in 2010, but were held off by lawsuits until just re- cently. Xingu Alive Forever hasn’t giv- en up, though: It signed a petition asking the Inter-American Commis- sion on Human Rights to compel Brazil to halt the dam, citing “grave and imminent violations upon the rights of indigenous and riverine com- munities.” Melo is going door to door in the town of Altamira. Film director James Cameron and actor Sigourney Weaver have visited to publicize the fate of this “real Pandora,” referencing the mythical Eden depicted in Cameron’s film Avatar. Meanwhile, Marina Silva, ran in 2010 as a third-party candidate for president with the Green Party and won 19 percent of the vote. As the en- vironment becomes a core issue for more Brazilian voters, it may signal a change in Brazil’s energy policy. As Amazon Watch’s Soltani puts it, “Belo Monte is the line in the sand.” —VICTORIA SHORR-PERKINS SPRING 2011 | 23 ANTOINE BONSORTE/AMAZON WATCH (2)