Cranes and trucks constructing the Belo Monte dam in Pará, Brazil (Image: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
ABOUT 20 men, their arms painted like tortoise shells, are silently hacking away at the forest, opening up a corridor about 4 metres wide. When they have finished, the corridor will stretch for 230 kilometres, encircling the land they call Sawré Muybu. Every so often the men, indigenous Munduruku, erect a sign asserting their ownership of the land in their own language and in Portuguese.
The ancestors of these men used to decapitate their enemies and stick their heads on poles. Although the Munduruku gave up head-hunting long ago, some of the signs feature a painting of a head on a pike. This is their none-too-veiled way of telling the Brazilian government they are determined to defend this tract of Amazon forest that has been theirs for hundreds of years.
The government has other ideas. If it gets its way, work will soon begin on a huge hydroelectric dam close to Sawré Muybu on the Tapajós river, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon. Six other large dams are also on the drawing board for the Tapajós basin (see map). If the São Luiz do Tapajós dam goes ahead, parts of Sawré Muybu will be flooded.FIG-mg30110601.jpg
Dreams of tapping into the immense power of the Amazon began in the 1970s, at a time when little attention was paid to climate and biodiversity. The military dictatorship in power at the time decided to start with a chain of dams on the …