Dilma

Early this morning on the Xingu River outside of Altamira, an estimated 600 indigenous people from 21 tribes, as well as fishermen, occupied the construction site of the Belo Monte Dam, demanding a definitive end to the project. Events are very fluid on the ground, and internet has been out in the region, so information is coming in bit by bit. We know that early on, the mobilization declared their intent to not leave the site until the Belo Monte Dam was cancelled for good.

In 2005, after years of fighting, the Macuxi indigenous people finally won title from the Lula administration to their own indigenous territory, called Raposa Serra do Sol. Then followed a heated legal battle to remove non-indigenous people from the lands, including ranchers and rice growers who had illegally invaded the area in the 1970s. The Brazilian Supreme Court decided to enforce the removal of the non-indigenous people from the territory in 2009. Now over 50,000 indigenous people in the area are fighting a new threat: a Dilma administration proposal to build hydroelectric dams inside of

In early July, a rather courageous 60 Minutes Australia reporter confronted IBAMA President Curt Trennepohl in Brazil about the agency's polemic approval of an installation license for the Belo Monte Dam. Mr. Trennepohl's off-camera comments made him sound like an apologist for genocide – rather damaging to the credibility of an environmental agency.

Kayapó leader on the Xingu River Christian Poirier/Amazon Watch Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA stepped further into controversy last week when it granted Belo Monte Dam consortium Norte Energia a full installation license to begin construction. By doing so, the agency drew the Belo Monte project further into what will be a long, drawn-out quagmire of doubt, legal and technical problems, growing social unrest, and – more likely than not – large cost overruns. The fight over the Belo Monte Dam is not over. It's just getting good. Lawsuits ContinueThe full installation license

Recent evidence illustrates that Norte Energia, the consortium under contract to build the Belo Monte Dam, has not completed the 66 social and environmental pre-requisites issued by IBAMA, Brazil's environmental agency, as part of the preliminary environmental license granted in 2010.