A temporary victory for the indigenous people of the Amazon rain forest and activists who stood with them, worldwide! A judge in Brazil has ordered that the construction of the Belo Monte mega-dam in the Amazon be suspended, warning that it would disrupt the lives of the indigenous and local people.
Thousands of indigenous people and many other communities living in the area around the Xingu river depend on the river as a key to the sustainability in their lives.
The judge has forbidden the company building the dam, Norte Energia S.A., from implementing “any works which will interfere with the natural course of the Xingu river”.
Read full stories at “Survival News” HERE!
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The “UK Guardian” HERE!
The World Bank estimates that forcible “development-induced displacement and resettlement” now affects 10 million people per year. According to the World Bank an estimated 33 million people have been displaced by development projects such as dams, urban development and irrigation canals in India alone.
India is well ahead in this respect. A country with as many as over 3600 large dams within its belt can never be the exceptional case regarding displacement. The number of development induced displacement is higher than the conflict induced displacement in India. According to Bogumil Terminski an estimated more than 10 million people have been displaced by development each year.
Athough the exact number of development-induced displaced people (DIDPs) is difficult to know, estimates are that in the last decade 90–100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power projects alone, with the number of people displaced by urban development becoming greater than those displaced by large infrastructure projects (such as dams). DIDPs outnumber refugees, with the added problem that their plight is often more concealed.
This is what experts have termed “development-induced displacement.” According to Michael Cernea, a World Bank analyst, the causes of development-induced displacement include water supply (dams, reservoirs, irrigation); urban infrastructure; transportation (roads, highways, canals); energy (mining, power plants, oil exploration and extraction, pipelines); agricultural expansion; parks and forest reserves; and population redistribution schemes.