Belo Monte proposes to compensate fishermen in the Xingu 4 months after Ibama opinion

Four months after a recommendation from Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), the company responsible for the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant presented a proposal for monetary compensation to fishermen on the Xingu River who had been without fish to catch since the beginning of the enterprise.

The presentation of the proposal by Norte Energia, responsible for the operation of Belo Monte, represents a change of direction for the company itself, which had diverged from the recommendation of Ibama and suggested a different solution from the one that guided the technical area of ​​the environmental agency.

Ibama analyzes whether Norte Energia complies with the conditions established for the issuance of the operating license for the plant in Pará. The federal agency has already concluded that conditions were not respected, such as the adoption of measures to mitigate the effects of damming, the formation of reservoirs and the control of water flow in the lives of fishermen.

Due to the failures in mitigation for two years and two months, Norte Energia should provide cash compensation to fishermen, concluded IBAMA.

The recommendation must be met for the operating license to be renewed. Belo Monte has been operating since November 25, 2021, with an expired license. The enterprise says that the license remains with legal validity, until possible renewal.

At the end of October, the company responsible for the plant presented a repair proposal, although it did not quote values.

Under the proposal, cash contributions will be made to 1,976 fishermen, in two installments. One will be deposited shortly after the worker is accepted and the documents are processed. The second, in 60 days. Norte Energia calls the contributions a repair budget, in line with what Ibama recommended.

The funding for production projects is added to the repair budget, according to the Norte Energia document that describes the proposal. Fishermen who express interest in developing income-generating projects will receive two annual installments to fund these initiatives, which will receive technical assistance for three years.

Norte Energia’s first proposal, after Ibama’s statement on the need to repair fishermen, was quite different.

The company had proposed the payment of three annual installments for the development of income-generating projects, without reparation funds.

In a note, Norte Energia, which has Eletrobras, Petros, Funcef, Neoenergia, Vale, Sinobras, Light, Cemig and J. Malucelli Energia in the shareholding composition, stated that “it remains in negotiations with Ibama and will present the proposal in due course to the category of fishermen”.

Report published by Sheet on October 8, it showed the shortage of fishermen in the region of Volta Grande do Xingu impacted by Belo Monte, six years after the plant started operating and three years after all its generating units started operating.

There is no more fish breeding, faced with artificial flow control — and insufficient water release.

The hydrograph adopted — the flow of water released from the dam for the operation of the plant — is insufficient for subsistence fishing, and the fishermen have not adapted to other activities, such as cocoa plantation or fish farming in ponds.

The same picture is described in the June Ibama technical report.

“Local fishing, in any of the modalities, has been going through a process of degradation”, say IBAMA technicians in the document. “This phenomenon has been eroding the ability of fishermen to generate satisfactory economic income through their activity, as well as to obtain fish as the main source of animal protein at the table of their families.”

Belo Monte had the first feasibility studies prepared during the military dictatorship, in the 1970s. The Lula government (PT) made the first licenses possible, and the works were carried out under the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government. In the first year of his mandate, the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government completed the generating units and inaugurated the complete set.

During the campaign, Lula said that he would do Belo Monte again and that only a third of the original project was put into practice under the PT administration, which reduced the impacts. On the 30th, in the second round, he was elected President of the Republic.

The proposal made by Norte Energia to repair the fishermen still does not have values ​​and includes less than half of the number of Xingu fishermen impacted by the plant, taking into account the estimate of members of the MPF (Federal Public Ministry) in Altamira (PA). By this estimate, there are more than 4,000 fishermen.

In addition, according to members of the MPF, the company’s proposal has flaws, such as the requirement for an active portfolio of fishermen, with many giving up on the activity due to the lack of fish in the stretches of the river altered by Belo Monte.

According to the Norte Energia document, assistance to fishermen begins in the second half of November. The first payments are scheduled for the first half of December, and should continue until the end of the first half of 2023, according to the proposal presented.

Norte Energia states that the alternation of water flows to the Volta Grande do Xingu simulates the natural pulse of the river and that the amounts of water were the object of study and forecast in the environmental licensing.

The company says that “it strictly complies with the commitments established within the scope of the concession and environmental licensing”. Periodic reports sent to Ibama show this, according to Norte Energia.

Also according to the company, the rate of fish consumption by riverine people is above the national and world averages, and an increase in income led to an elevation of families to the line above poverty.

“Norte Energia provided technical assistance to fish farming projects, strengthening fisheries, cocoa farming, plant extractivism,” he says.