The waters of the Teles Pires River once ran so clear that Indigenous riverine villagers could fish with bow and arrow, just as their Amazonian ancestors did, and also drink safely directly from the stream, say the Apiaká, Kayabi and Munduruku peoples.
Then came the Teles Pires dam, constructed from 2011-2014, and then the São Manoel dam, which received its operating license in 2017, filling its reservoir in 2018. Afterward, water quality deteriorated, with residents reporting “dirty, polluted, muddy” water. It carried sediment, organic matter from inundated decomposing trees and vegetation, such as the toxic vine timbó, that wasn’t previously removed — plus pesticide runoff from upstream soy plantations that have replaced the rainforest.
This drastic decline in water quality impacted Indigenous health near the Teles Pires dams, with traditional communities seeing a rise in malaria due to mosquitoes breeding in stagnant pools caused by the dams’ varying flows.
There’s also been a rise in skin rashes and diarrhea, which Indigenous residents say results from bathing in, and drinking, the now-polluted river water.
Equally concerning: migratory fish decreased, and became difficult to find in the murky river waters, greatly increasing Indigenous food insecurity.
The coming of the dams brought other economic and environmental woes to the once forest-protected villages, including rapidly encroaching deforestation and expanding agribusiness and mining.
This made it harder for Indigenous peoples along the Teles Pires River to isolate themselves from the effects of the global pandemic when it hit.
Undergraduate law student Diego Paleci Kayabi, of the Kayabi Indigenous people, told Mongabay that everyone in his village of Kururuzinho, near the dams, had contracted COVID-19. Diego and teacher Arlindo Kayabi explained that by using forest home remedies, they avoided COVID deaths, though long-term effects of the virus remain to be seen.
Similar impacts of Amazon Basin hydroelectric dams on fish, water quality and health have been reported on the Xingu River as a result of the Belo Monte dam; on the Madeira River due to the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams; and dozens more.
The four mega dams on the Teles Pires River — the Teles Pires, Colíder, São Manoel and Sinop dams — built along a 400-kilometer (250-mile) stretch of river, without mandated prior consultation of Indigenous residents or cumulative impacts analysis — have disrupted traditional community governance and food sovereignty.
So when the pandemic brought a health crisis necessitating access to clean water, along with a rise in Brazilian foodstuff prices, it hit hard in dam-adjacent communities already struggling with degraded water and food security.
Brent Millikan of NGO International Rivers says, “The Teles Pires is so important, with four dams. The impacts around [them] increasing land speculation and deforestation, attacks on sacred places of indigenous peoples, have been huge.”
All of this made residents more susceptible to knock-on effects when the pandemic hit, Millikan says: “You have impacts of hydro projects on food security and income and health problems, you’ve got a precarious health system. [This] makes [Indigenous peoples] more vulnerable to other predatory actions like gold mining.”
“Land grabbers” invading their Kayabi territory, says Diego Paleci, “keep knocking down more and more trees,” not stopping for the pandemic. Have the Kayabi reached out to politicians? “Yes, but the politicians support it, so they don’t do anything.”
2021 Copyright Conservation news