Qualla: Belo Monte Dam

Belo Monte Dam: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1989, a young Kayapo woman named Tuira raised a machete to the cheek of Eletronorte engineer Jose Antonio Muniz Lopes in front of television cameras in Altamira. She did not strike. The gesture was enough. Behind her stood hundreds of indigenous people from across the Xingu basin, gathered to confront the Brazilian state's plan to dam their river, and the photograph ran on front pages around the world. The project, then called Kararao, was shelved. Three decades later, under a new name and a redesigned plan, most of it got built anyway.

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

Belo Monte Dam: A River Called the House of God

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Xingu winds north through the state of Para to meet the Amazon, and along a 100-kilometer stretch called the Volta Grande, or Big Bend, the river falls roughly 87 meters through rapids, braided channels and seasonally flooded forest. Eighteen ethnic groups live along this riv...

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

Belo Monte Dam: A Dam Designed Twice

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pascalg622, CC BY 3.0. Plans first emerged in 1975 under Brazil's military dictatorship, when Eletronorte commissioned a study that identified five possible dam sites on the Xingu and one on the Iriri. The scheme leaked in 1987 and met an antagonistic public. The First Encounter of the Indigenous Natio...

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Image: Pascalg622 | CC BY 3.0

Belo Monte Dam: Construction Against the Courts

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Between 2010 and 2019 the complex was built through an almost unbroken procession of federal court battles. IBAMA issued a partial installation license in January 2011 despite a FUNAI staff report warning that consultation with the Paquicamba community had been inadequate. Work s...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Belo Monte Dam: What the Numbers Do Not Hold

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Roughly 20,000 people were directly displaced by the flooding, and an estimated 100,000 migrants arrived to work the construction camps, many staying on when the jobs ended. Riverbank families report thinner catches, higher fuel costs for boats navigating altered channels, and di...

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Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Belo Monte Dam: The Machine Itself

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. By installed capacity of 11,233 megawatts, Belo Monte ranks as the fifth-largest hydroelectric complex in the world, behind China's Three Gorges and Baihetan dams, Brazil's binational Itaipu, and China's Xiluodu dam. Installed capacity is not output. Because the Xingu's flow swin...

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

Belo Monte Dam: After the Turbines

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. The dam runs now, and the argument has moved from whether it should exist to how much water it must let go. Norte Energia releases a reduced flow into the Volta Grande on an agreed hydrograph; the Juruna of the Paquicamba Indigenous Territory have been measuring what that flow ac...

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0