Page

Kayapó warriors, Xingu River, Brazil Terence Turner The sci-fi epic Avatar has not only broken records at the box office, but also triggered a wide-ranging debate about the exploitation of the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples. Director James Cameron described his movie as "a broader metaphor (of) how we treat the natural world." Destructive dams are one way in which the natural world is mistreated. By the end of the 20th century, about 50,000 large dams had choked more than half of the earth's major rivers. This massive engineering program has wiped out

The Gibe 3 Dam, now under construction on the Omo River in Ethiopia, is already fanning tensions over natural resources, all the way downstream to Kenya. By dramatically changing water flows in the river, the dam will wreak ecological and social havoc for half a million people living downstream of it, including Kenyan communities around Lake Turkana, which gets virtually all of its water flow from the Omo. Local activists are at the forefront, and working hard to keep this critical fight in the public eye. Watch our slideshow narrated by Ikal Angelei of the Kenya-based Friends of Lake Turkana

Villagers Protest Tipaimukh Dam Photo Courtesy of ACATP For more than 15 years, communities in both Manipur State (northeast India) and Bangladesh have resisted the proposed Tipaimukh Dam on the Barak River. The 163-meter dam has sparked controversy in both countries over India’s failure to provide public consultations and information sharing with both Bangladesh and indigenous communities. The Indian state-owned utility North East Electric Power Corporation Ltd. (NEEPCO) originally planned to build the dam to control floods but now plans to generate electricity with the dam, which has a ca

Esta Guia Ciudadana sobre el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio ayuda a entender el origen de este mecanismo, como funciona, los problemas que existen con relacion a que las represas reciban estos creditos y lo que pueden hacer las comunidades para intentar parar creditos para los proyectos. Bajar powerpoint

Le invitamos a ustedes, nuestros amigos y colegas alrededor del mundo, a participar en el 13o Día  Internacional de Acción contra las Represas y para los Ríos, el Agua y la Vida, el 14 de marzo 2010. Celebremos Nuestro movimiento internacional ha logrado grandes avances para proteger los ríos del mundo y los derechos de las comunidades que dependen de ellos. En junio, nuestros colegas en México lograron retreasar la construcción de la represa de La Parota. La oposición keniana a la represa Gibe 3 en Etiopía ha impedido que los inversionistas aprueben el financiamiento del

Glenn in Patagonia International Rivers is mourning the loss of our Amazon program director Glenn Switkes, a dear friend, respected colleague, and a river warrior of unbreakable passion. Glenn died on December 21 in a São Paolo hospital of complications linked to lung cancer. He was 58. Glenn was a man of rare integrity, great humor, and political savvy. He was a much-loved inspiration and teacher to river defenders, and an effective thorn in the side of river-wrecking politicians and bureaucrats. Heartfelt tributes to Glenn have been flowing in to International Rivers from activists t

  The Victims Speak Out (Reuters) Take action to stop Belo Monte! The proposed Belo Monte Dam on the Amazon's Xingu River is proving to have all of the intrigue of a thriller novel. It involves the powerful Lula government, warrior tribes of the Amazon, environmental and human rights groups such as International Rivers, and even pop star Sting, who recently spoke out about the project.  The culprit: the Brazilian government, which is trying to push through the project at all costs. So desperate is the government that two of the environmental agency&

The UN Climate Change Conference is in Copenhagen from December 7-18, 2009 Governments and civil society from the world over will be converging on Copenhagen, December 2009 Climate Action Network For months, governments, lobbyists, and civil society have been gearing up for the "big one," and now it's finally here - the UN climate conference in wintry Copenhagen. Governments are meeting in the Danish capital to negotiate what is to follow the "first commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012. Unfortunately, many industrialized country governments have been

The Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project, currently under construction in Central Laos, is displacing thousands of people from their homes and land, and depriving thousands more of access to fertile rice fields, riverbank vegetable gardens, grazing lands, forests and fisheries. International Rivers and BankTrack have published a report which documents how three private banks that are financing the project - Australia's ANZ Bank, Belgium's KBC Bank, and France's BNP Paribas - are violating their own guidelines and Lao law in supporting the project. The banks funding the project have promised that