Protests Against Amazon's Belo Monte Dam Turn Out to Be Futile

Many times before we reported on how several energy companies were planning to build the world's third largest dam on the Amazon river, and about how the people living in the nearby communities did everything in their power to keep this from happening.

We also explained that the latter's main objections to the Belo Monte project were as follows: 

Firstly, 80% of the Xingu River would have to be rerouted to as to accommodate for the new construction. 

Secondly, a staggering 16,000 people would find their homes flooded by said rerouted waters. 

Moreover, natural ecosystems in this part of the world would also find themselves having to cope with the new living conditions.

Previous attempts to draw attention to the severity of this issue seemed to have had some effect on high officials worldwide, especially given the fact that representatives of Amazon's indigenous tribes directly addressed world leaders present at the Rio+20 Earth Summit.

However, not much was done to help them. Therefore, as of yesterday, the people who had taken over the Belo Monte construction site had no choice but to give up on protesting and go home.

Mongabay explains that, prior to resorting to open protests, members of the Amazon's indigenous tribes tried talking things over with representatives of the energy company in charge of this building project. However, no settlement was ever reached.

Apparently, the company tried to buy the people's acceptance of the Belo Monte dam by offering them things such as TVs and computers, yet not once did they take the time to listen to what these indigenous communities were really worried about.

Hopefully, something can still be done to prevent the destruction of the natural habitats still remaining in the Amazon region, even if for the time being local people had no choice but to quit protesting and go back to their homes.