Giant hydroelectric dams pushing tribes to extinction
By JOHN VIDAL
August 10, 2010 Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru and Guyana will devastate tribal settlements by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International. The first global assessment of its kind suggests 300,000 indigenous people could be pushed towards economic ruin and, in the case of some isolated Brazilian groups, to extinction. The dams are intended to provide low-carbon electricity for burgeoning cities, but the report says tribal people living in their vicinity will gain little or nothing. At least 200,000 people from eight tribes are threatened by the Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia. Ten thousand people in Sarawak, Malaysia, have been displaced by the Bakun dam and a series of Latin American dams could force many thousands off their land. The authors say enthusiasm for large dams is resurfacing, driven by powerful lobbies presenting them as a solution to climate change. ”The lessons learned last century are being ignored, and tribal peoples worldwide are again being sidelined, their rights violated and their lands destroyed,” one author said. The report says the World Bank is one of the biggest funders of destructive dams, despite criticism in the 1990s for supporting such projects. The United Nations now subsidises dam building by the clean-development mechanism, or CDM, which allows rich countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in clean energy in poor countries. A third of all CDM projects in 2008 were for hydro power, the most common type of project seeking carbon credits.
