Despite high chances to kick up yet another bilateral dispute between Bolivia and Brazil, the $11.6 billion controversial hydroelectric plants are to get a green signal for construction.
Bolivia, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim seems to be more concerned about the rights of possession than his country’s citizens’ right to survive in a healthy environment.
Yes, building the two large dams in the Amazon region will lead to various environmental problems, as it always does when is interfered with.
According to the environmentalists, though the two dams with a total capacity of 6,500 megawatts will increase Brazil’s power generation leading to economic growth in the next decade, they would not only disrupt the region’s biodiversity, but the silt that would possibly accumulate along the rivers will impact both the river and its lives.
In reference to the proposed dams, Amorim told Valor newspaper,
We are not going to stop doing things that are our right.
Bolivia claims that the authorities had issued the ‘go ahead’ without studying the environmental and social impacts on the on the Madeira River on which the new dams will be built. Concerned about the project, it requested Brazil for a high-level meeting.
But, the chance for the political big guns to compromise with the business gain from the project for the cause of the environment seems grim - after all, money matters.
