Brazil's energy fever flood the Peruvian jungle megahidroeléctricas

While Alan Garcia and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met Wednesday in Manaus to put the finishing touches on Energy Integration Agreement Peru-Brazil, Peru Ashaninka communities of the Ene river, decimated and displaced from their territories during the two decades of political violence , attended a negotiation helpless she can knock them back from their ancestral territories.

This agreement, whose contents are taken with considerable reserve by both Governments, calls for the construction in the Peruvian Amazon hydroelectric plant for 30 years committed for export to Brazil a cumulative capacity of over 6000 MW.

In practice, this will, according to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), the Brazilian capital construction for up to 6 mega power plants that will flood thousands of hectares of unique biodiversity and become displaced peasants and indigenous peoples that inhabit.

In the past three decades, three million people have been displaced in Brazil for the construction of hydroelectric dams, according to the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB). Today, the unmet demand for energy giant almost 200 million people will require dams to extend beyond its borders and with them, also the social and environmental conflicts.
An agreement 'beating'

In none of the 15 articles of the 'Agreement for the supply of electricity to Peru and Brazil export surpluses' specifies how many hydroelectric projects are 'promoted' or what their exact location.

"The cumulative capacity of all generating plants that can be committed for export to Brazil will be a maximum of 6000 MW plus a 20% tolerance," according to Article 3.

"It's a very clever because the agreement did not identify the projects but the amount of energy, prevent governments can do calculations to find the total number of hectares inundated and the people to be displaced," he told ELMUNDO.es Mariano Castro, Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, who denounced the 'rush' of both leaders realize their signature.

"Peru now has a potential for clean energy nine times greater than domestic demand, therefore, there is sufficient justification to move quickly to build these plants and we have to assume all environmental and social costs," the expert report .

For its part, the leaders show off their excellent bilateral relations and avoid getting into these areas cumbersome. They simply announce that the agreement will allow Peru to have energy for the domestic market at regulated prices and only the surplus electricity will be exported to Brazil.
Without environmental safeguards

While the agreement is very explicit in setting energy export quotas, is vague as it relates to social and environmental costs. Article 9 says only that "all activities undertaken for the implementation of this Agreement (..) will be conducted in a context of sustainable development."

The lack of social and environmental safeguards of these agreements has led to the formation of a platform composed of universities and environmental organizations who claim that by flooding the Amazon forest will generate greenhouse gases, the product of the putrefaction of organic matter. Thus, they say, a dam in the Amazon 10 times more pollution than a coal plant.

According to this platform, one of the dams in Brazilian capital that will benefit from this agreement will be in Inambari export in the region of Madre de Dios, an area which houses the largest number of protected natural areas of the country.

This power plant will flood 40,000 hectares, making it the largest in Peru and the 5th largest in America. For its construction, 3400 people living in towns of the departments of Puno, Cusco and Madre would have to be displaced. Since the announcement of this hydroelectric project, has starred Inambari strikes and mass protests.
Without prior consultation with indigenous peoples

Another would be to hydro Pakitsapango in the district of Junin. Through a resolution, the Ministry of Energy and Mines has authorized a company to carry out feasibility studies necessary to initiate this project.

For the people who live Ashaninka the concession area, Pakitsapango (House of the Eagle) is a sacred territory.

"This award overlaps the territory of 10 of our native communities and the Ene River basin and was issued without informing or consulting (...), placing us in a position of vulnerability and demonstrating, once again, lack of respect Peruvian Government to our way of life and our rights, "read the public statement issued on 8 May by Ashaninka communities of the Ene River Basin

So far, the Peruvian Executive does not enact the law of prior consultation with indigenous peoples, adopted by Congress in late May. This law will force the State, as set out in ILO Convention 169, to consult indigenous communities before granting a concession project affecting them.

"I find it outrageous that the energy agreement is signed with Brazil without regard to the rights of native peoples," says Congresswoman Gloria Ramos, member of the Commission of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Congress. "There is a political calculation not to pass the bill prior consultation. With the signing of the agreement with Brazil shows that we continue with the logic that caused the Baguazo."