Finally! A Victory for Indigenous Resistance | World News |Axisoflogic.com

Munduruku warriors of Brazil and their children head for Sao Luiz do Tapajos to express their deep dissent with a mega-dam project. | Photo: Reuters

Finally a victory in Brazil for Indigenous resistance as the mega-dam project in the country's Amazon basin which would have flooded an area the size of New York City and displaced Indigenous communities has been suspended, a measure that has been welcomed by land rights campaigners .

The Sao Luiz do Tapajos dam would have forced Munduruku indigenous people out of their traditional territory while disrupting the Amazon ecosystem, a campaigner said on Friday.

The move by Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA to suspend construction permits for the dam followed a report by the country's National Indian Foundation which said the project would have violated indigenous land rights protected under Brazil's constitution.

"The areas that would have been flooded include sites of important religious and cultural significance," Brent Millikan, a Brasilia-based campaigner with the non-profit rights group International Rivers told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"The local communities have a huge amount of knowledge about the resources where they are — if they were forced off the land and into cities they would become unskilled workers."

Brazil's environment agency said this week that it suspended licensing due to "the unfeasibility of the project from the perspective of indigenous issues". The dam would have flooded 178,000 hectares of land.

Supporters of the dam now have 90 days to appeal the suspension and submit revised plans on the size of the flooded area and how to deal with the local indigenous population, Millikan said.

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