4,000 fishermen ask for reparations for Belo Monte – 06/15/2023 – Environment

The impact of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant on fishing on the Xingu River, in Pará, could be three times the amount admitted by the company responsible for the undertaking.

Norte Energia, which is responsible for operating the plant, sent a document to Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) in which it informs that it has received 3,909 additional requests for compensation from fishermen in the region. The letter is dated March 2023.

Until then, the operator of Belo Monte had committed to pay compensation of R$ 20,000 to 1,976 fishermen.

The company started doing what it calls case studies, with analyzes that even include a questionnaire “containing issues and cultural aspects of local fishing”. If the requests are validated, the number of fishermen entitled to compensation will reach 5,885.

The payment of compensation to thousands of workers who were left without anything to fish in the Xingu River, with the beginning of the operation of the plant, was a recommendation by Ibama in the course of the process that analyzes the request for renewal of the hydroelectric operating license.

Belo Monte works with a license that has expired since November 25, 2021 – a year and a half ago, therefore.

Ibama’s decision will be the second in the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) administration to provoke clashes between groups opposed and favorable to large undertakings in the Amazon, including within the government.

The first was the decision by the president of Ibama, Rodrigo Agostinho, to deny a request made by Petrobras to drill in the basin at the mouth of the Amazon River with the aim of exploring for oil in the region.

He followed the opinion of the technical area. The decision was handed down and made public in May.

Petrobras insists on oil exploration in the basin. The well sought by the state-owned company is 179 km from the coast of Amapá and 500 km from the mouth of the Amazon River. The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, has come under political pressure since the decision was taken, which she classified as technical.

Now, Ibama will have to decide whether or not to renew the operating license for Belo Monte, even with a liability from fishermen claiming compensation in cash due to the significant decrease in fish, especially in Volta Grande do Xingu.

In a note, Norte Energia said it had registered new fishermen, for case studies, by May 31. The company did not say how many registrations were made. “The company will start the analyzes according to the criteria established by Ibama”, he stated.

Of the 1,976 fishermen registered between 2017 and 2019 and identified as impacted by the project, 1,405 have already received the repair money, according to Norte Energia. The remainder must seek the company to be reimbursed.

“The company maintains its respect and permanent dialogue with the entire category and has been scheduling meetings with representatives of the group for discussion and analysis of the actions in execution”, he said in the note.

Regarding the operating license, Norte Energia stated that the authorization remains valid until a decision by Ibama, which has “prerogatives” to analyze the renewal and to define a deadline for it, according to the company.

Ibama did not respond to questions in the report.

The licenses for Belo Monte were made possible during Lula’s second term and during the governments of Dilma Rousseff (PT), when the works took place. In the first year of office, 2019, the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government completed the generating units and inaugurated the complete set.

Colonies of fishermen sent letters to Ibama, throughout the first half of 2023, asking the agency not to automatically renew the operating license, “until the environmental impacts not addressed by Norte Energia are equated”.

Among these colonies are fishermen from Senador José Porfírio, Porto de Moz and Gurupá, in Pará.

“In pursuit of their rights to compensation for the impacts on their livelihoods and subsistence, the colonies, with no prospect of seeing the reparations due through negotiation, file lawsuits before the Federal Court in Altamira (PA)”, states a letter addressed to in April to the president of Ibama.

“It is evident that the communities below Senador José Porfírio suffer impacts on the fishing activity, the basis of their economy and the support of their ways of life”, quotes the document.

Fase (Forum of Electricity Sector Associations), also in a letter sent to Agostinho, stated that Belo Monte has the capacity to serve 53 million consumers – a quarter of the Brazilian population – and plays a “preponderant role in energy security”.

The plant generated on average, according to the associations, 13% of all the electricity consumed in Brazil.

The forum defends the renewal of the hydroelectric power plant’s operating license: “The signatories of this letter trust that the representatives of the government and governmental bodies have the sensitivity to seek the balance of the plant’s permanence with the environment and take into account, in the decision-making processes, the terms set forth herein.” Seventeen associations are cited in the letter.

To Ibama, in March, Norte Energia said it had made 5,244 calls since January, of which 1,335 referred to terms of discharge signed with fishermen and 3,909 to requests for case studies by other fishermen.

Among the payments already made, so far, 875 people have been awarded, distributed as follows: Altamira (601), Vitória do Xingu (162), Senador José Porfírio (103) and Anapu (9).

Self-declaration as a fisherman is not enough for compensation, according to Norte Energia. It is necessary to present witnesses, active fisherman’s license and documentary proof of the exercise of the trade.

Ibama analyzes whether Norte Energia complies with the conditions established for issuing the plant’s operating license. The federal agency pointed out that some conditions were not respected, such as the adoption of measures to mitigate the effects of damming, the formation of reservoirs and control of water flow in the lives of fishermen.

Due to failures in mitigation for two years and two months, Norte Energia must provide compensation in cash to fishermen, concluded Ibama.

Report published by Sheet on October 8, 2022 it showed that fishermen no longer have enough fish; fish disappeared from the diets of riverside and indigenous people; piracemas —the reproduction processes of fish– ceased to occur; and the water released by the plant is insufficient even for the navigability of riverside dwellers.

Norte Energia’s shareholding structure includes Eletrobras, Petros, Funcef, Neoenergia, Vale, Sinobras, Light, Cemig and J. Malucelli Energia.