Doubt, Anger in Brazil Over Amazonian Dams. By Joshua Partlow, WashPost, October 14, 2008. "Construction began late last month on one of two massive hydroelectric dams that are to span the Madeira River, a main tributary of the Amazon River and a major waterway that runs from the Andes across the rain forests of South America. For the Brazilian government, this is prudent preparation, more than six years in planning, for a burgeoning economy's appetite for electricity. The two dams, the $5 billion Santo Antonio and the planned Jirau dam, will eventually produce 6,450 megawatts of electricity, according to the state electric company participating in the project... But the prospect of damming the Madeira has been widely criticized by social and environmental groups for its potential damage to the environment, river residents and nearby indigenous tribes. The Brazilian company working with Furnas on the Santo Antonio En among critics of the projects in Brazil... 'It's extremely depressing to think that they're going to be able to build this dam,' said Glenn Switkes, the Brazil-based Latin America program director for the environmental organization International Rivers, which has studied the Madeira dams. 'This is an area that is one of the world's hotbeds of biodiversity'... Ivaneide Bandeira, coordinator of Kaninde, a nonprofit group involved in indigenous issues in the Amazon, said traces of at least three uncontacted Indian tribes have been found in the lands along the Madeira River that could be flooded... The Madeira dams are two of at least 70 planned in the Amazon basin through 2030..The Brazilian government is finishing an environmental impact study on the Belo Monte dam, which would be the third-largest in the world, spanning the Xingu River in the central Amazon."
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