The Belo Monte Dam is killing the Amazon’s ‘house of God’

The Xingu River is revered as the “house of God” by the Indigenous people living along its Volta Grande, or Big Bend, in the Brazilian Amazon. The river is essential to their culture and religion, and a crucial source of fish, transportation, and water for trees and plants.

Five years ago, the Big Bend was a broad river valley interwoven with river channels teeming with fish, turtles, and other wildlife. Today, as much as 80 percent of the water flow is gone.

That’s because, in late 2015, the massive Belo Monte Dam project began redirecting water from the Xingu River upstream from the Big Bend, channeling it through a canal to a giant new reservoir. The reservoir now powers one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world, designed with enough capacity to power around 20 million households, though it has been producing far less.

Most of the river’s flow now bypasses the Big Bend, and the Indigenous peoples who live there are watching their livelihoods and way of life become endangered. Some of the most devastating effects are during the rainy season, when wildlife and trees rely heavily on high water levels. 

The consortium of utilities and mining companies that runs the dam has pushed back on government orders to allow more water to reach the Big Bend, claiming it would cut their generation and profits. The group has argued in the past that there was no scientific proof that the change in water flow harmed fish or turtles.

There is proof of the Belo Monte Dam project’s impact on the Big Bend, though – from above....