Hundreds of new Amazon dams an “ecological experiment” on global scale

A boom in dam construction is sweeping the Neotropical regions of the world. In the Amazon, the world’s largest and arguably most ecologically important river basin, hundreds of dams and reservoirs are on the drawing boards for the next few decades. Nearly every country in the region is drafting construction scenarios that in all will involve at least five of the river’s six major tributaries. Brazil, with the largest portion of the Amazon, is leading the charge. The country has put forth plans to build at least 58 dams in the near future, including a massive and controversial project underway at Belo Monte on the Xingu River. With an installed capacity of 11,233 megawatts (MW), Belo Monte would be the world’s third-largest hydroelectric facility. A series of dams proposed on the mainstem of the Tapajós River, considered one of the Amazon’s last truly wild tributaries, would flood nearly 200,000 hectares (766 square miles), including portions of two national parks and a national forest. The Tapajos River at Santarem where it meets the Amazon. Photo by Mélété licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Rising energy demands, driven by an extended period of steady economic growth, are pushing governments to look closely at the Amazon’s largely untapped hydroelectric generating potential. Hydropower is the most plentiful and inexpensive source of power in the river’s remote reaches. It is being billed as reliable “clean” energy, a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels that has the advantage of being…