Fish gasp, gills working furiously, as they lie stranded in mere inches of muddy water, trapped in the isolated pools of Xingu River tributaries within the influence area of the Belo Monte dam and its reservoirs.
That was the scene at the end of October and start of November, 2020, as the Trindade, Ambê, and Altamira creeks all dwindled to a trickle, preventing fisherfolk from getting their boats to the Xingu River to fish, even as uncounted thousands of fish died.
Lorena Curuaia, of the Curuaia Indigenous people, went to Ambê Creek with friends to try to rescue fish scooping up the stranded and moving them to the Xingu. But where was Norte Energia? she asked, referring to the absence of the dam’s owner and operator. Teams from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, appeared in some stream stretches to save fish. But it wasn’t sufficient. There are 130 kilometers [81 miles of impacted river]. How many fish died?
Both Lorena and Bel Juruna, of the Juruna (Yudjá) Indigenous people, told Mongabay that Norte Energia did no ecological monitoring in 2020 as its operating license requires, coronavirus precautions notwithstanding. Norte Energia did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
Authorities have documented major fish kills on the Xingu River near the mega-dam since 2016, with residents there linking repeated episodes of fish death to Norte Energia’s meager year-round low water releases creating conditions experts say have hindered fish reproduction, reduced fish and turtle populations, and negatively impacted the once vibrant commercial and subsistence fishery in the river’s Volta Grande (Big Bend).
Norte Energia controls not just water but people. We’re the most impacted. There’s no more [fish] reproduction. We’re fighting for that to occur in 2021, Lorena Curuaia told Mongabay via phone on December 6.
Riverine people have reacted to Norte Energia’s actions with anger and protest: From November 9-12, Lorena and 150 residents Juruna, Curuaia and Xipaya Indigenous peoples and traditional non-Indigenous fisherfolk blocked the nationally vital Transamazonian highway near Altamira.
Their demands to IBAMA include a Xingu Basin Committee of independent scientists and residents to review and make dam water release decisions, and the definitive determination of a hydrogram’ to guarantee the survival of the river, fauna, flora, and riverside residents. Riverine residents have urged IBAMA to suspend the dam’s operation license due to its violation of human and environmental rights.
The Xingu River hasn’t flowed freely here since 2015; instead the stream has been dependent on Norte Energia’s artificial hydrological regime. The term consensus hydrogram (hidrograma de consenso) refers to Norte Energia’s controversial proposed plan to drastically reduce the rate of Xingu River flow (expressed in cubic meters per second; m3/s).
Last month, protestors blocked the Transamazonian highway and paraded banners reading: FOR TWO YEARS, FISH HAVEN’T DONE THE PIRACEMA, a word referring to the annual period during which fish migrate a time when the seasonally swelling Xingu River flows out into the alluvial forest, rich with guava, fig, and other just-ripening fruits, supplying essential calories that help fish with spawning and the raising of fry sheltered amid the inundated forest.
As fisherfolk, formerly accustomed to using fishing rods, find fish disappearing, they now must travel further afield, using boats and nets in a desperate search for food, spreading environmental impacts over a wider geographical area.
2020 Copyright Conservation news