Are the fights mostly about the environmental and human impacts of dams sited for electric generation purposes?
Switkes: No, hydrovias or transportation projects for agricultural products have been an equal or larger concern. Some of the richest and most unique ecologies in the world like the Pantanal of Mato Grosso and the Bananal Island on the Araguaia in Tocantins face destruction by industrial (or river channelization) projects on respectively the Paraguay, Araguaia, and Tocantins Rivers. We hope to be as successful there as our allies have been in opposing the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers on the Mississippi. Studies have shown these industrial transportation projects do not provide cheaper transportation for soybean exports than other means such as existing rail lines. Of course new Amazon basin electric projects like Belo Monte, especially since they are being heavily resisted by indigenous peoples and where transmission lines will need to cross over 1000 kilometers of the Amazon to reach connections to the North-South trunk are important too. Tucuri displaced 40,000 people; Balbina near M
