On June 20th, 2022, the Commonwealth of the Beni River Basin Indigenous Communities (the Manco) finally embarked on their long-awaited cultural exchange to bring twenty indigenous community members from around the Beni River Basin to dam sites in Bolivia and Brazil. The purpose of this long journey? With the renewed threat of the Chepete-Bala dam proposals on the Beni River, locals are urged to sign onto these projects without fully understanding the scope and scale of the ramifications that such an undertaking could have. This exchange provided participants with the opportunity to observe what a mega-dam looks like, speak with local community members who had been impacted by them, and bring their findings and experiences back to their families and communities afterward.
The Manco had originally planned this journey for December, 2021, but due to the proliferation of the Omicron variant, Brazil shut down its borders. They tried again in March, only to come up against strict Covid vaccine regulations. Vaccines are difficult to acquire in the remote communities, and two vaccines were needed 4 weeks apart. To cross the border, there was also a limit to group size of 25, which shortened the Manco’s initial plan to bring 40 community members.
Finally, in late June, 2022, the exchange came to fruition. The five-day journey would take the group from Rurrenabaque, Bolivia to Porto Velho, Brazil to see the Jirau and Santo Antonio dams. From there the group would travel to Guayarámerin where a binational dam is proposed and then finally to Cachuela Esperanza in the North of Bolivia to visit yet another proposed dam site.
I was lucky to participate in the exchange for the first half of the journey before returning home to the US. Although these towns don’t appear particularly far from each other on a map, navigating through the Amazon is arduous and unpredictable. I was amazed at the level of organization and logistics that had to be planned, negotiated, and renegotiated throughout the journey. C’est la vie en la selva! We travelled for 30 hours via buses and ferries through dense jungle dirt roads just to reach our first destination, Porto Velho, Brazil. This journey is usually only possible in the dry season, or else the mud from the constant rains is too thick and treacherous for vehicles to pass. Luckily we were in the middle of the dry season. Nevertheless, the enormous three-foot grooves from logging trucks were the fossilized in the dry, caked mud, and our initially anticipated 15-hr voyage quickly crept up as we bounced along the terrain.
All in all we were 23 individuals from five indigenous nations (Uchupiamona, Leco, Tacanas, Mosetenes, Chimanes), not including the villages and indigenous groups we encountered along the way. Communities represented included: Torewa, San Miguel, Teoponte, San Jose de Uchupiamonas, Asunción, and Carmen Florida. These communities are scattered all up and down the Beni River and its tributaries. Not all would be flooded by the Chepete-Bala dams, but all would be impacted in one way or another.
When we arrived in Port Velho,we were welcomed by Kelvin, who acted as our host, guide, and translator from Portuguese to Spanish. Kelvin’s community had been impacted by the Santo Antonio dam, completed in 2012, and he testified to the many impacts his people witnessed. We stayed at a monastery and the next day visited the community San Sebastian, an indigenous community just upstream of the dam. We spoke with members of the community and heard their testimonies. While they were not relocated, they expressed how that made little difference. As one community member expressed, “We weren’t relocated, but it didn’t matter. We all experienced the same negative impacts.” They went on to explain how their town was eroding away and literally disappearing into the river. The houses we sat in front of were newly built, since the old ones had perished a few years before. The community was now restricted in their cultural and economic activities, like fishing, and were often criminalized for trying to fish. They expressed how, despite the tantalizing promises of financial benefits by the dam companies, the communities remained poor. Ten years after the construction of the Jirau and Santo Antonio Dams, the communities are still facing negative impacts.
The conversations with the communities went long into the day. There was so much information and so many experiences that these community members were eager to share. The recurring message they conveyed to the Bolivians– Don’t let this happen to you. You will not receive the benefits they will promise you. Only suffering.
One of the most striking (although unsurprising) things learned from the conversations was how similar the coercion tactics used by Bolivian and Brazilian governments on indigenous communities were. The Bolivians shared their experience of how the energy company ENDE used strategies to divide the communities and limit community development unless they sign on to the dams. They would refer to the dams as “development projects” that would bring enormous benefits to the communities, and left out details such as basic explanations of what dams are, or the fact that those communities would have to be flooded if they were built. In response to these experiences a Brazilian related,
The same thing that happened to you happened to us before the dams were built. The company came and started bribing key community members and leaders with promises of electricity, or giving them money. But only to certain people. The goal was to divide the community and turn us against each other. They never told us about the negative impacts either. Only the beautiful things.
Having these experiences be corroborated by indigenous communities far away from home is, on the one hand, horrific and outrageous, yet on the other hand, validating and hope-inspiring. These systematically divisive tactics are used all over the world when it comes to mega-dams and otherlarge-scale industrial projects. Dams are often easier to implement because of their ostensibly “green” designation. For communities that are unfamiliar with dams and their repercussions, the proposal of one can seem like a lucrative opportunity that one should not pass up. Yet, nowadays the (primarily negative) impacts of mega-dams on indigenous communities around the world are well-documented and can be predicted with reasonable confidence. The results do not look good. One of benefits of globalization is the fact that indigenous communities are now able to connect with each other easier than ever through the internet, whatsapp, and social media. Through these platforms they can share their experiences. Creating a network of indigenous groups who can collaborate, share, and watch each other’s backs is paramount to indigenous and environmental justice everywhere.
After speaking with a couple communities, we went to visit the Santo Antonio Dam. No one is allowed to get close (within a kilometer or so) for security reasons. So we all craned our necks from a faraway touristic lookout point. Still, the massive wall loomed large before us even if we couldn’t see it in its entirety. “It’s much bigger than I expected”, said one Bolivian community member.
The power that surged from this encounter between communities was palpable even on that first day. I was sad to depart after Porto Velho, but grateful to have witnessed some of these conversations. Before I left, I asked the Bolivian community members what they thought after hearing the Brazilians and seeing the dam with their own eyes. One Bolivian from San Miguel remarked, “I feel like I know what is to come now, and hearing those people makes me more willing than ever to share this knowledge. It is our duty now to tell our friends, families, and communities what we witnessed here on this journey.”
After I departed, the team continued on to Guayaramerin and then Cachuela Esperanza. Cachuela Esperanza is another proposed damsite and town in the North of Bolivia. At one point in time, it was the wealthiest town in South America due to the rubber boom (la castaña), complete with muralled opera houses and cathedrals. It even had the first hospital in all of South America, despite being located in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest far from any big city. Now the once-opulent town is overgrown with greenery and mango trees, with only one shop and one restaurant that is only open at lunch. The people of Cachuela Esperanza are going through a similar fight as the Beni Basin community members and their newfound alliance is helping to amplify the voices of Amazonian river communities everywhere.
ARA Bolivia is proud to have been able to support this exchange and hopes to continue supporting the important work of the Macomunidad. Please join our cause by donating HERE, or subscribing to our mailing list to stay up-to-date on the cause.