The International Demand Against Dams is Growing
By Jorge Cappato

On March 1997, in Curitiba, Brazil, it started to make it clear that the proliferation of large dams on the planet rivers is an evil only comparable to the multiplication of nuclear plants since the second post-war until Chernobyl. At the closure of the "1st International Meeting of affected people dams", the attendants from some twenty countries including Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Mexico, USA, Russia, India, China, Thailand, Lesotho, France and Spain, signed the "Declaration of Curitiba" and declared March 14: "International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life". Those inhabitants displaced and ruined by dams that have been built on places so distant like the Narmada river in India, the Tocantins, Amazonian tributary, the Malibamatso, in Lesotho, and the Parana in Yacyreta, had given testimony of uprooting, unemployment, illness and poverty brought by large dams to the local populations. (1) (2)

An additional result of the International Meeting of Curitiba was made concrete on the subsequent month, when the World Bank (WB) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), in Gland, Swiss, took the first step towards the creation of the World Commission on Dams, best known by its abbreviation in English WCD. Nowadays, the WCD is an independent entity that poses to examine, scientifically and objectively, the effectiveness and the impacts of large dams, and to assess alternatives for the hydrological and energetic resources.

In Argentina, the large dams issue is generating growing polemic and opposition. Mainly, since 1996 when the hydroelectric project Parana Medio (an old proposal polished up by the North American consortium EDI) re-arose; the provincial plebiscite in Misiones resulted in more than 90% against Corpus; and on the last months for the resisted dams of Bermejo as well, which would flood hectares of National Parks. Yacyreta, where environmental and social problems as a consequence of the reservoir filing and irregularities' demands still remain, is of course in the center of the scene. (4)

Conflictive Settings

The debate was re-updated in the frame of the crowded 4th. Conference of the Parts of the Climate Change Convention, the COP4 took place in Buenos Aires on last November, when an Argentinean Government report was made known, on which with the excuse of mitigating the emission of greenhouse effect gases, the construction of three new nuclear plants and three new large dams are proposed, on the energetic "scenery" of the first years of the 21st Century. (5)

Now, due to the International Day of Action, environmentalist groups of Argentina expressed their concern in front of the destructive impacts of large projects on the Parana-Plata Basin. In the first place, such mega-hydroelectric as Corpus, Garabi and Parana Medio, y the elevation of Yacyreta up to the height of 83. Not to avoid another decisive aspects on the use of the rivers and the water, as is the case of the Canal Federal. (6)

The document is signed by Greenpeace Argentina, Buenos Aires Alerta, Foro Ambiental Ciudadano, Equipo Nacional de Pastoral Aborigen, Grupo Ecologista Chaco, Comision del Rio Negro, SOS Rio Gualeguay, Cabayu Cuatia, Foro Ecologista de Parana, Taller Ecologista-Rosario, Fundacion Proteger, Red de Asociaciones Ecologistas de Misiones, Grupo Yaguarete-Salta and Salus Terrae de Santiago del Estero, among more than thirty environmentalist and social entities that work protecting rivers and the communities that find in them their way of life and sustenance.

An Unavoidable Debate

On the declaration, sent to the commissions pertinent to the Congress of the Nation and spread among the national and international press, the NGOs are also claiming to prioritize alternative energies and to stop the damming projects. "We demand that this new scene, at present in preparation, should prioritize renewable energies such as the solar and the wind power, and also the energetic efficiency", underline. By the end of '98 the Congress passed the Aeolian Law, meanwhile there are important legislative advances in several provinces to promote clean and renewable energies. It is precisely in this aspect that the declaration demands "the prompt passing of the Anti-Dam Law in the province of Santa Fe, as already happened in Entre Rios, and we urge the legislators of Chaco, Corrientes, Formosa and Misiones, to consider similar laws.

In the same sense, the necessity of protecting fluvial ecosystems is again present when is expressed "the support to the parliamentary initiatives, not only the national but also the provincial ones, which foster care, conservation and sustainable use of the Parana River, its wetlands and the associated ecosystems". (7)

Finally, the declaration claims to the National State that "the urgent implementation of an Organism of Drainage Control, which should have been constituted according to a Presidential Decree in 1993", and that as regards the deepening works on the Parana River, "the environmental impact assessment, required by the national legislation, is properly presented and spread in time and form, including public participation".

On this March 14, the claims to preserve the richness of the rivers fostering a real development, capable of keeping the resources from which society nurses itself, are going to be listened higher than ever.

Notes

1. "All around the world, dams are throwing people out of their homes, are flooding rich soils and forests, are destroying fishing and clean water supply and are also provoking cultural disintegration and economic impoverishment of local communities. All over the world, millions of people are suffering as a consequence of dams. There is an enormous gap between the economic and social benefits promised by dams' builders and the actual results once these are finished. Dams have always costed more than was projected. Dams do not control floods; however they can turn them more destructive. It is necessary to manage the water resources in a participating and sustainable way." (From the Declaration of Curitiba.)

2. P.McCully, Silenced Rivers, Zed Books, London, 1996 (partial translation into Spanish).

3. The WCD is making a list of hydroelectric projects and basins that need to be examined; 45 study cases in a first stage.

4. J.Cappato, "The World Bank acknowledged Yacyreta's impacts", El Litoral, Santa Fe, July 4 1998.

5. In the report "Mitigation of greenhouse gases effects", presented in the COP4, technicians from the Secyt propose a scenery that includes the building of dams on the Bermejo river, Garabi dam (Argentina-Brazil) on the Uruguay river, and the Corpus dam (Argentina-Paraguay) and Parana Medio dam (Argentina).

6. The Canal Federal plans to deviate the Dulce river waters, which sustain 400,000 people, towards arid and non-inhabitant zones of La Rioja.

7. An example is the bill presented in Entre Rios to declare Parana River in its medium stretch "Patrimony of Humanity", in the frame of a plan of environmental management of multiple development. Further information: Fundacion Proteger, e-mail: jcproteg@satlink.com

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Fundacion PROTEGER, Miembro de la UICN Director
Jorge Cappato, Director Reg. Sudamerica
Global 500 Environmental Forum of Laureates by United Nations
Balcarce 1450 3000 Santa Fe - Argentina
New Phone: 54-342-4558520 / New Fax: 54-342-4981745
: jcproteg@satlink.com
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