News

Source : theecologist.org
The Peruvian Government is yet again failing to protect the rights of its Indigenous citizens, and if history is anything to go by it is no wonder that the Matses tribe fear for themselves and other nearby tribal peoples. Sarah Gilbertz reports.

Source : Reuters
GUATEMALA CITY - Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty on Friday of genocide and crimes against humanity during the bloodiest phase of the country's 36-year civil war and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Hundreds of people who were packed into the courtroom burst into applause, chanting, "Justice!" as Rios Montt received a 50-year term for the genocide charge and an additional 30 years for crimes against humanity.

Source : ipsnews.net
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil , Mar 1 2013 (IPS) - March will be a key month for defining the future of the Inter-American human rights system, which has come under fire from a number of countries in the region. Mar. 22 is the deadline for members of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to present proposals for reforming the regional justice system created in 1948 with the purpose of promoting and protecting the basic rights enshrined in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Source : Xingu Vivo Para Sempre
On the International Press Freedom Day, three reporters have been prevented from providing coverage of the occupation of the hydroelectric plant's building site of Belo Monte on Friday, May 3rd, in the State of Pará. Two of them have been expelled by about a hundred federal police officers, the Shock Troops, the ROTAM (Rondas Ostensivas Táticas Metropolitanas, Military Police Force units in Brazil), and the National Police Force. A third one has been fined 1000 Brazilian Reais -approximately $500. An activist has also been expelled from the building site.

In 2003 a decree signed by the government and the firms operating on the Camisea site forbade the development of gas operations. In the next few days the government (should) will disregard that decision, thus jeopardizing local tribes, especially those living in complete isolation.

Source : Amazon Watch, International Rivers, CIMI
Tribes from Xingu and Tapajós rivers unite to protest violations of rights to prior consultations in construction of Amazon dams. Altamira, Brazil – Some 200 indigenous people affected by the construction of large hydroelectric dams in the Amazon launched an occupation today on one of the main construction sites of the Belo Monte dam complex on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon. 

Source : ecoreserva.com.br
The vision of a young woman shows the reality of the Belo Monte dam. It was 7 a.m. when I started talking with Maini while she waited with me in line for four hours at the Altamira private hospital in the remote jungle boomtown deep in the Brazilian Amazon. Maini is the second oldest of Seu Sebastião's four children. Ten years ago, her father Seu Sebastião built his life as a farmer near the banks of the Xingu River. At that time he couldn't have predicted how much his life would change because of his country's desire for "progress." 

Source : The Guardian
Government reports high levels of barium, lead, chrome and petroleum-related compounds in region that is home to oil field. Peru has declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote part of its northern Amazon rainforest, home for decades to one of the country's biggest oil fields, currently operated by the Argentinian company Pluspetrol.

Fonte : globalvoicesonline.org
Brazilian riot police violently evicted a group of indigenous people from a former museum they had occupied in Rio de Janeiro to make way for 2014 World Cup construction. Baton-wielding police agents stormed the one-time Museum of the Indian building on 22 March, 2013, launching tear gas and tussling with the indigenous people and their supporters who had set up barricades overnight to repel the invasion.

Source : lab.org.uk
As the Brazilian government steps up its efforts to clear the way for the construction of new hydro-electric dams in the Amazon basin, three LAB correspondents travelled to the area to gather first-hand testimony of recent brutal attacks by the police on indigenous communities in Mato Grosso. Five dramatic videos (edited for LAB by Nayana Fernandez) illustrate the events.

Source : whitewolfpack.com
Indians in Brazil recently participated in a public hearing on Saturday with Federal Judge Wilson Witzel, at the headquarters of the Federal Court, regarding the issue of being allowed to stay on historical museum property adjacent to the Village Maracana.

Source : guardian.co.uk
Hosts of the 2014 World Cup react to threat of Maracanã stadium not being ready for June friendly with England. Brazilian riot police armed with batons, teargas and pepper spray have forcibly evicted an indigenous community from a dilapidated museum complex next to the Maracanã football stadium.

Source : lab.org.uk
A few minutes from Maracanã stadium, urban Indigenous village struggles to save an historical building in danger as Brazil's World Cup approaches.

"AMAZON EMERGENCY", a Planète Amazone campaign, in partnership with the Instituto Raoni
During his presentation at the "Amazon Emergency"press conference on November 30th 2012, french eco-activist Nicolas Hulot gave voice to what we have been thinking for a long time: an international symbol of the protection of nature and the culture of native peoples, Chief Raoni would undoubtedly deserve the Peace Nobel Prize.

"AMAZON EMERGENCY", a Planète Amazone campaign, in partnership with the Instituto Raoni
On November 29th 2012, Chief Raoni Metuktire, Chief Megaron Txucarramae, Bemoro Metuktire, three major Indian representatives from Brazil (Kayapo people), encompassing three generations, were received by the President of the Republic, with eco-activist Nicolas Hulot and Gert-Perter Bruch (president of Planète Amazone). François Hollande is now the third president, after François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac, to welcome the great Indian Chief at the Elysée palace. It was an opportunity to trace nearly a quarter of a century of diplomatic meetings between the highest French authorities and the most famous indigenous spokesman of the planet.

Introduction : It is like a cry of raging anger from Canada's First Nations people. The ‘Idle No More’ movement is about to enter history as one of the great protest movements to move humanity forward. It is a spontaneous movement which local authorities did not see coming; in this regard it is similar in its development to the ‘Arab Spring’ because it is inspired by the people and social networks.

Protest held in Paris on the 26th February 2013 at 11am against the Ecuatorian President Rafael Correa’s duplicity - "Oil or life? : that is the question" : such is the question we, at Planète Amazone, asked and chose to symbolise the protest we held against "Ronda Sur Oriente", an auction from the Ecuadorian government of an enormous swath of pristine Amazon rainforest equivalent to the Netherlands and mostly composed of indigenous lands. These oil concessions will allow buyers to extract oil which lies under a rainforest of exceptional biodiversity, much to the dismay of the indigenous populations and the environment.

"AMAZON EMERGENCY", a Planète Amazone campaign, in partnership with the Instituto Raoni
Known and respected throughout the world for his fight to protect the Amazon rainforest, Chief Raoni is now approximately 82 years of age. To ensure the continuity of his actions after his passing, he is eager to have his right-hand men accompany him on his visits to foreign lands. It is in this context that the strongest and most faithful among them was at his side during the recent “Urgence Amazonie” (Amazon Emergency) campaign in Europe – his nephew, Chief Megaron Txucarramãe.

"AMAZON EMERGENCY", a Planète Amazone campaign, in partnership with the Instituto Raoni
Chief Raoni chose to come back again to Europe six months after Rio +20 for several reasons. Firstly, it is due to the initial support of our 'country' and the special support of presidents such as François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac that Chief Raoni's people succeeded in delimiting and therefore protecting the major part of their territory. Logically, Chief Raoni and his delegation are seeking for Europe to complete the demarcation, which remains the largest of their concerns, as deforestation now reaches the limited indigenous lands.

Source : Amazoin Watch
Public Ministry warns against licensing for Canadian mining company gold operations.
Altamira, Brazil – Brazil's Federal Public Ministry (MPF) stunned Canadian Belo Sun Mining Corporation last week when it issued recommendations warning against the issuing of environmental licenses for a gold mine in the Brazilian Amazon.

"AMAZON EMERGENCY", a Planète Amazone campaign, in partnership with the Instituto Raoni
The operation « Amazon Emergency », directed by Amazon Planet in order to support Chief Raoni, was launched on November 30th, 2012 in Paris, at the « Grenier des Grands Augustins » (Picasso’s workshop). It took the shape of a European campaign of awareness, of lobbies and of a fund raising, in order to help to protect the endangered Kayapo territories.

Source : Valor Econômico
The multimillion dollar project that plans on exploring for gold in the vicinity of the Belo Monte power plant, which is under construction on the Xingu River in Altamira in the state of Pará, is still on.

Source : Paris match (parismatch.com)
"I am tired. I am feeling tired" It was an exhausted warrior who faced journalists in Paris on the 13th December [2012]. In the Paris Foreign Press Center, Raoni Metuktire who been fighting for 40 years to save the Amazon and its indigenous populations, has confirmed that this would be his last tour.

Source : oneaction.ch
On Monday december 12 2012, for the international day of human rights, OneAction attended a press conference held in Geneva with Kayapo Chiefs Raoni, Megaron and Bemoro Metuktire. These indigenous leaders exposed the urgent need to stop the industrial invasion in the Amazon basin by the notorious Belo Monte Dam, among others. This three-week “Amazon Emergency” campaign trip to Europe is their cry for help to save their indigenous territory from destruction, and for all to respect their legal right to conserve their traditional way of life in their homeland.

Source : Het Parool
Chief Raoni on the Zuidas (The Netherlands), Brazilian Chief protests at engineering company Arcadis against dam in Amazon side-river. Chief Raoni spoke yesterday with a company that is involved with constructing a dam that will make life impossible for his people. 

Source : rijksoverheid.nl
This Friday minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Lilianne Ploumen (PvdA) had a conversation with the Native American leader Raoni Metuktire who is visiting The Netherlands. Metuktire is the leader of 5.000 Kayapó Native Americans and he draws attention to the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest and its indigenous population.

Source : happynews.nl
Friday December the 7th 2012 the Dutch minister Ploumen of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation spoke with Raoni Metuktire of the campaign ‘Amazon Emergency’.

Source : press released issued by the Presidency of the French Republic
President Hollande had a meeting at the Elysée this morning with Cacique Raoni Metuktire, accompanied by Mr Gert-Peter Bruch, President of the Amazon Planet voluntary organization, and M. Nicolas Hulot, President of the Fondation pour la Nature et pour l’Homme [Foundation for Nature and Man], who took part in the meeting. At 82 years old, Chief Raoni is visiting Europe as part of a campaign to raise awareness about protecting the Amazon forest and respecting the people who live there.

Source : Mongabay.com
Norway's $650 billion sovereign wealth fund will ask companies in which it invests to disclose their impacts on tropical forests, as part of its effort to reduce deforestation, reports Reuters. The move could usher in broader reporting on the forest footprint of operations and boost eco-certification initiatives.

Source : News source: CEBI – Biblical Studies Center
“We ask the Government and the Federal Court not to grant an order of eviction/eviction, but we ask to enact our collective death and bury us all here …”, claim the Guarani Kaiowá Kue Pyelito/Mbarakay

Source : warriorpublications
Construction on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halted again as around 150 demonstrators, most of them from nearby indigenous tribes, have occupied the main construction site at Pimental. Over a hundred indigenous people joined local fishermen who had been protesting the dam for 24 days straight. Indigenous people and local fishermen say the dam will devastate the Xingu River, upending their way of life.

Source: The Rio Times
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – The Brazilian government is planning to build at least 23 new hydroelectric dams in the country's Amazon region, of which seven are set to be installed in the heart of the region, in previously untouched areas of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, O Globo newspaper reports. After the long-running dispute over the Belo Monte dam, environment activists have expressed incredulity at the plans.

Brazil is now defying the international community, deliberately infringing the Human Rights registered in its constitution and in the international treaties Brazil has ratified. French firms which are partners in the economic development of Brazil take part in fact to these exactions. These dealings, which sully the reputation of France, the nation of the human rights, and which put Brazil on the side of dictatorships, have to stop now.

Source : techredac.info
Explore a global timelapse of our planet, constructed from Landsat satellite imagery. The Amazon rainforest is shrinking at a rapid rate to provide land for farming and raising cattle. Each frame of the timelapse map is constructed from a year of Landsat satellite data, constituting an annual 1.7-terapixel snapshot of the Earth at 30-meter resolution.

Source : Green et Vert
An investigative journalist who was reporting on illegal wood exploitation was found dead in his car. This is the second assassination of a journalist by the deforestation mafia in 2012.

Source : Mining Weekly.com
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The Toronto-listed stocks of Brazil-focused exploration company Belo Sun on Tuesday dove 11.04% on the company’s announcement that it had cancelled a $50-million financing, announced a day earlier.

Source : Rainforest Action Network
Chevron is responsible for one of the largest environmental disasters in history — the deliberate dumping of a massive amount of oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon — for which it was found guilty in February 2011 and ordered to pay $18 billion to clean up.

Source : http://amazonwatch.org
Achuar people celebrate a major victory for indigenous rights.
Calgary, Canada – Today Talisman Energy (TLM) announced its decision to cease oil exploration activities in the Peruvian Amazon and to exit the country upon completion of ongoing commercial transactions.

Source : amazonwatch.org
Just a month ago we where celebrating glorious moments of when a high-level court suspended construction of the controversial Belo Monte Dam project on the Amazon's Xingu River, citing overwhelming evidence that indigenous people had not been properly consulted prior to government approval of the project.

Source : alianzaarkana.org
The Regional Government of Loreto in Peru's Northern Amazon has just outlined plans for a first-ever independent environmental probe of areas contaminated by oil companies in the infamous oil Lot 1AB, after indigenous Quechua communities from the Pastaza River mobilized to force Peru's government into talks.

Source : en.tengrinews.kz
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday became the latest senior official to insist there is no evidence of an alleged massacre of some 80 Yanomami indigenous people, AFP reports. But the human rights commission of the Organization of American States urged his government to probe further.

Source : Rainforest fondation UK
The Peruvian Amazon is a treasure trove of biodiversity. Its aquatic ecosystems sustain bountiful fisheries, diverse wildlife, and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. White-water rivers flowing from the Andes provide rich sediments and nutrients to the Amazon mainstream.

Source : pequenaduvida.wordpress.com
A new El Dorado was revealed in the Altamira region (Brazilian State of Para), where the very controversial Belo Monte dam is being built, with catastrophic consequences for the environment and the indigenous populations.
The information had been well kept hidden from the public, but you are reading correctly. A Canadian company, Belo Sun Mining Corporation, is in fact developing the largest gold mining project in Brazil. Where? In the Grand Xingu Belt (Volta Grande), exactly 15 km from the construction of the Belo Monte factory…

Source : Fox Business (http://www.foxbusiness.com)
Following a Brazilian court order to stop construction, the company building the controversial 11,200-megawatt Belo Monte dam said Thursday that it was suspending all work on the project.

Source : bbc.co.uk
A federal court in Brazil has ordered the immediate suspension of work on the huge Belo Monte hydro-electric dam in the Amazon.
The court says local indigenous people have not been properly consulted. Officials point out that the builders of the dam will be able to appeal against the decision. Once completed, the 11,000-megawatt dam, in Brazil's Para state, would be the third largest hydro-electric dam in the world

Our official Facebook page :
http://www.facebook.com/raoni.com.en
Twitter account : http://twitter.com/Raoni_com

The mobilisation of the citizens of the world through social networks is a major ingredient in the fight to save the Amazon forest, the "green lungs" of the Earth. Joining our official Facebook page and passing on our information and our tweets contributes to tearing down the walls of silence and indifference. The media do not feel concerned by the destruction of this environment vital to all ? We do! So, do you? So let's tell it on one of the only real forums people still have access to.

In a judgement qualified of historical, the Regional Federal Court da 1ª Região (TRF1 – the Brazilian Federal Court) relied upon the violation of the ILO Convention 169 (International Labour Organization), which concerns the obligation of consulting the indigenous and tribal people affected by the project, to invalidate, on Tuesday, 14th of August, 2012, the license allowing the beginning of the works, delivered by the IBAMA in June 2011. The Public Federal Ministry also suspended the construction license of the Teles Pires dam. This event is bringing hope to all the activists, who mobilized themselves during years against all those injurious constructions in Amazon, and particularly against Belo Monte.
Even if all of them are expecting a legal response from the Norte Energia Consortium, it is of course a big victory for the indigenous people opposed to the project, especially for Chief Raoni, who never stopped fighting against Belo Monte since the reactivation of the project after a previous cancellation. During the recent Rio+20 Earth Summit, Chief Raoni repeatedly hammered his opposition to Belo Monte, in front of the whole world media. His warriors were standing next to him. We present you today the testimony of one of them, Patxon Metuktire.

A meeting was planned at the French Pavillon of the Athlets Parc during the UN Summit for sustainable development RIO+20 on the 20th June 2012 between the French President François Hollande and Raoni Metuktire, chief of the kayapo people, symbolic figure of the fight for the preservation of the rainforest and of the people living in this area. The People Summit and the Official Summit were 30 kms away from one another and the area was protected by the forces of law and order. Without escort it was impossible to make it through the traffic jam. As a result, the two men missed eachother by five minutes. Chief Raoni was quite optimistic about the possibility of meeting the French President in a near future and he addressed him this video message

Signed by Chief Raoni and other Kayapo leaders, a call from French NGO Planète Amazone has recently been given by hand, at the Rio +20 world summit, to the French President, François Hollande.

They are neglected by the major medias and forgotten by the powerful figures of this world : cacique (chief) Raoni Metuktire and the peoples of the Amazon truly have the intention of reminding these people of their presence during the imminent Rio+20 Earth Summit (20th-22nd June 2012). You have been many to sign Raoni's petition, which we administrate, the time of action has now come. You can act today in concrete terms by participating to the Rio+20 Mission of the Planet Amazon association, of which the holders and successes are detailed to you bellow. By accompanying Raoni and the peoples of the Amazon at Rio+20, Planet Amazon will make itself the ambassador of your near 350 000 signatures. Therefore, each of you will symbolically be present during each of their interventions and will contribute to deliver the world this message :

LET'S PRESERVE THE AMAZON, LET'S PRESERVE OUR FUTURE.

Source : Indian Country Today Media Network (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
In the beginning of March, indigenous struggles took several turns. The ILO criticisms echo those of indigenous and other allied activists in regards to the Belo Monte Dam project and others. This lack of prior consultation was also noted by Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States.

Source : Amazon Watch (www.amazonwatch.org)
For over a month Chief Raoni and the Kayapo have suffered threats and intimidation at the hands of cattle ranchers, illegal settlers and hired gunman who are determined to push them off their lands. Since then, we have worked to shine a spotlight on this dangerous situation, in an attempt to dispel the potential for violence and to pressure the Brazilian government to recognize the Kayapo's land rights. 

Source : The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)
Brazilian activists who inform on illegal loggers laying waste to the rainforests can expect a visit from the gunmen.
A single shot to the temple was Mouth Organ John's reward for spilling the beans. His friend, Junior José Guerra, fared only marginally better. Guerra's prize for speaking out against the illegal loggers laying waste to the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth? A broken home, two petrified children and an uncertain exile from a life he had spent years building in the Brazilian Amazon.

Source : Survival International
An investigation into the reported killing of an uncontacted Indian child by loggers, has uncovered disturbing ‘evidence of an attack’ deep in the Amazon forest. The findings suggest loggers were operating 400 meters away from an uncontacted Awá camp where the burned remains of a child were allegedly found. Brazilian NGO CIMI, The Order of Attorneys of Brazil and the Maranhão Human Rights Society, who jointly carried out the investigation, also found, ‘many indications that the Awá had been in the place of the reported incident.’

Source : vaticaninsider.lastampa.it
The Brazilian government is planning the construction of more than 60 facilities on the rivers that run through the largest and most unprotected forest in the world.
The Amazon looms as a great victim of Brazil's impetuous development process. Reported by the Missioline agency in a story by Alessandro Armato.

Source : Condé Nast Traveler
22nd Annual Condé Nast Traveler Environmental Award André Villas-Bôas has helped the Amazon's tribes protect a quarter of the earth's freshwater and its largest remaining rain forest for decades. Now, as they face their most powerful foe, the future of the planet could hang in the balance.

Source : www.forbes.com
Some 1.3 million people signed a petition calling for an end to the construction of Brazil’s massive Belo Monte dam in the Amazon. A delegation of Brazilian celebrities and activists delivered the petition Tuesday to the country’s President Dilma Rousseff and called — yet again — for the immediate suspension of the controversial hydroelectric dam in Para state, located in Brazil’s north.

Source : www.greenpeace.org
The next stage of voting on Brazil’s new Forest Code – which could have devastating impacts on the Amazon - has been once again postponed before going to President Dilma, who can either approve or veto it. The new code, which has been labelled a ‘forest protection measure’, has been so badly altered that it has become nothing more than an invitation for bulldozers and chainsaws to come to the forests.

Source : www.bbc.co.uk
A judge in Brazil has revoked a decision which had halted work on the Belo Monte dam in the Amazon region.

Judge Carlos Castro Martins reversed the order he had issued in September, which had barred any work on the Belo Monte dam that interfered with the natural flow of the Xingu river. He said the company behind the project had subsequently shown its work would not harm local fishing.

Source : www.myoo.com
Hydroelectric power is renewable but is it clean? The debate has electrified the alternative energy community.
The solar people are at war with the wind people; algal oil is the enemy of ethanol. The idea of renewable infighting is now such a cliché that it has entered the world of car advertising.

source : www.as-coa.org
Brazil continues to flex its muscles on the international stage—this week at the UN environmental summit in Durban, South Africa. But despite strong leadership on the environment and reports of decreasing Amazon deforestation, Brazil finds itself under particular scrutiny this year from environmentalists.

source : The Economist
Keeping the world’s biggest forest standing depends on greens, Amerindians and enlightened farmers working together—if lawmakers let them
Drive out of Porto Velho, the capital of the Amazonian state of Rondônia, and you see the trouble the world’s largest forest is in. Lorry after lorry trundles by laden with logs; more logs lie by the road, to be collected by smugglers who dumped them on the rumour of a (rare) roadcheck.

http://catarse.me/pt/projects/459-belo-monte-anuncio-de-uma-guerra
There's a war of sorts underway in the Brazilian Amazon, and the stakes are high. On the one side are entrenched business and political interests dead-set on building a massively impactful hydroelectric dam, unmoved by the social, environmental, and cultural upheavals the project entails.

Source : www.myoo.com
Rachel Riederer puts a spotlight on the individuals fighting back against a massive dam that would turn their homes into a lost city of Atlantis
On Wednesday, October 26th of this year Sheyla Juruna, a leader of the Juruna people, an indigenous Amazonian tribe, held a small press conference in the Washington, D.C. drizzle. In a city of suits, Sheyla Juruna stood out in her leggings, flip-flops, and feather headband, her legs painted with traditional wave designs representing the Jurunas’ connection to their river, a major tributary of the Amazon.

Source : Rainforest News
The Brazilian Senate is poised to pass measures that will strip the Amazon forest and other important ecosystems of hard won protections and open up vast amounts of the forest to agriculture and cattle ranching. Senators intent on doing away with core elements of Brazil’s long-standing Forest Code – legislation protecting the most sensitive forest areas and establishing the amount of forest that can be legally converted to different uses – are pushing to vote on a drastically revised version of the code as soon as the end of the month.

source : International Rivers
In June 2010, the Brazilian and Peruvian governments signed an energy agreement that opens the door for Brazilian companies to build a series of large dams in the Peruvian Amazon. The Ashaninka, one of the largest indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon, numbering close to 70,000, are directly impacted.

Source : www.imazon.org.br
The degraded forests in Legal Amazon totaled 658 square kilometers in September 2011. Regarding September 2010 there was an expressive increase of 33% when the forest degradation totaled 496 square kilometers.

Source : www.amnesty.org
Around 100 Guarani-Kaiowá people are encamped on their ancestral lands: on 18 November 40 gunmen attacked the camp, killing an indigenous leader and abducting three children. The indigenous group has vowed to stay on their ancestral land.

Activists in Brazil are in uproar after one of the country's best-known indigenous leaders was sacked from his job with the indigenous protection service, allegedly because of his outspoken stance against the construction of a massive hydro-electric plant in the Brazilian Amazon.

Source : AFP (Agence France Presse)
SAO PAULO — More than 400 activists occupied the site of Brazil's $11 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, demanding that construction be halted on the controversial project in the heart of the Amazon. "Everything was peaceful -- there were no guards or workers," a spokesman for the Indigenous Missionary Council, a group linked to the Catholic Church, told AFP on Thursday. The indigenous people and environmentalists at the site of what would be the third biggest dam in the world -- after China's Three Gorges dam and the Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay -- say they will stay indefinitely.

Source : www.internationalrivers.org
On Monday, federal judge Selene Maria de Almeida voted in a landmark opinion in Brazilian courts that the Belo Monte Dam licenses are illegal and must be cancelled due to what is now widely-accepted evidence that the Brazilian government did not hold proper consultations with indigenous tribes that would be affected by the project. De Almeida argued that while the dam reservoirs do not flood indigenous territories, the project's diversion of the Xingu River will directly impact the tribes' abilities to reproduce physically, culturally, and economically, as 80% of the Xingu River would be channeled away from their lands to the reservoirs. The vote shined a stark spotlight on the project's astronomical risks, and on a growing gap between the implementation of Brazil's legislative framework and the standards of international best practice. 

Indigenous leader of the Kayapo people, Raoni Metyktire, went together with Bemoro, and Ta-u Metuktire to the UN, on the 30 September 2011, to speak about his concerns, the destruction of the earth, the land, waters, rivers, forests. He firmly reaffirmed his opposition the building of dams in the amazon, such as Belo Monte. He explained that the Xingu river is contaminated and poisoned starting at the watershed of the river, by soja plantations, agro-business, cattle farms. he also informed the UN that this would be his last time that he would come to the UN, and that Bemoro would take over his position as the new chief of his people.

The Mebengôkrés warriors (Kayapos) have massively demonstrated in front of the city Council of Colider (Mato Grosso – Brazil), 3 June 2011, to show to the President of Brazil, Dilma ROUSSEF, that she did not make the Chief Raoni cry as it has been said by the press after the announcement of the authorization granted for the construction of the Belo Monte dam. The purpose of this demonstration was to show that Raoni remains steadfast/firm and strong in his struggle against the dam project on the Xingu river.

Signature of RAONI's petition

We, the indigenous people of Xingu, do not want Belo Monte. We, the indigenous people of Xingu, are fighting for our people, our land but also for the future of the planet. President Lula said he was worried about the Indians, he was concerned about the Amazon and that he did not want international NGOs to oppose the Belo Monte dam project. We are not international NGOs. We, the 62 indigenous leaders of the villages of Bacajâ, Mrotidjam, Kararaô, Terra-Wanga, Boa Vista Km 17, Tukamâ, Kapoto, Moikarako, Aykre, Kiketrum, Potikro, Tukai, Mentutire, Omekrankum, and Cakamkubem Pokaimone, have already undergone many invasions and faced many dangers.

Back in Europe (May 3-17, 2010) for the very last time, Kayapo Chief RAONI, great defender of the Amazon rainforest, will seize the opportunity to promote his memoirs, ’Raoni, Mémoires d’un chef Indien’ (Editions du Rocher), to call for help against the Belo Monte dam complex and relaunch the pilot project for an Institute bearing his name.