Brazil gives go-ahead to massive Amazonian hydro project

Brazil’s government has green-lighted the construction of what will be the world’s largest hydroelectric dam across a tributary of the Amazon.

Proposals to dam the Xingu river have a long and chequered history and at one point were even abandoned in the 1990s.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has spoken out against the proposed dam on several occasions. But on signing the construction contract with Norte Energia, the consortium that will build the dam, he admitted he hadn’t looked in detail at the scheme before and hailed it as “a victory for Brazil’s energy sector”.

Environmental groups are angry at da Silva’s volte-face, claiming the dam will destroy natural habitat and render 50,000 indigenous people homeless.

The dam will be 6km long and flood 500 sq km of land upstream.

The president now says the dam is necessary for development and to create jobs.