IBAMA President Resigns Over Belo Monte Licensing
Thu, 01/13/2011 - 4:15pm
By Zachary Hurwitz
The President of Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA Abelardo Bayma
Azevedo submitted a letter of resignation yesterday after facing heavy
pressure to grant a full installation license for the Belo Monte
Complex, another victim in a long-running political war over
environmental licensing between Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy
and its Ministry of the Environment. The victims keep piling up, and
it's bad for the Amazon.
Brazil�s Big Bad Wolf Attacks Again
Azevedo is the latest victim of a feud between the ministries heavily
influenced by Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lob�o ("big wolf" in
Portuguese) and newly elected President Dilma Rousseff. Lob�o
recently replaced M�rcio Zimmerman as Dilma�s Minister of Mines and
Energy, returning in 2011 after a first term under Lula during
2008-2010. Lob�o has also served three consecutive terms as a senator
of the state of Maranh�o, and one as Governor of Maranh�o between
1991-1994.
To no one's surprise, Lob�o has had a particularly voracious appetite
for environmentalists and Amazon defenders.
According to yesterday�s report in O Globo, "in meetings with
Eletronorte directors, Abelardo refused to grant the definitive
license [for Belo Monte]. He argued that IBAMA could not grant the
license because the project was still full of pending environmental
problems." According to one source, Minister of Environment Izabella
Teixeira �promised� Lob�o that Bayma Azevedo would grant the
installation license during the month of February 2011, despite such
environmental problems.
IBAMA, meanwhile, fulfilling the exigencies of standard Brazilian
legislation, has refused to grant an installation license as long as
Norte Energia has failed to meet 40 conditions required by the
environmental agency. Eletrobr�s, of which Eletronorte is a
subsidiary, holds a 49.98% stake in Belo Monte consortium Norte
Energia, S.A, and since 2010 has sought a "partial" installation
license to begin construction before the "hydrological window" closes
on the Xingu river.
Marina Silva also resigned as Minister of Environment in 2008 over the
weakening of Brazil's environmental licensing
Marina Silva also resigned as Minister of Environment in 2008 over the
weakening of Brazil's environmental licensing
Bayma Azevedo is the latest high-level figure to resign in what is
becoming a long list of politicians whose attempts to protect the
Amazon have been thwarted by special interest groups that have a voice
inside the Ministry of Mines and Energy. 2010's Green Party
presidential candidate Marina Silva, herself a senator from the state
of Acre (1994-2011), resigned from her post as Lula's Minister of the
Environment in May 2008 over the progressive weakening of Brazil's
environmental licensing framework, supported by the conditions of a
Development Policy Loan to Brazil from the World Bank .
It was during Lob�o's first term as Minister of Mines and Energy in
2007 and Dilma's term as Lula's Chief of Staff that the concept of
"partial" installation license was first "invented" for the Jirau dam
on the Madeira river. At the time, highly visible public
disagreements between Dilma and Silva over the licensing of the Santo
Ant�nio and Jirau hydroelectric dams on the Madeira river, and over
the weakening and political coordination of the federal government's
long-delayed "Sustainable Amazon Plan," led to Silva's resignation.
While the ex-minister from Acre defended a stronger licensing
framework and investments in alternative markets for the Amazon, she
ultimately yielded to political pressure from Rousseff over the
licensing of the Madeira dams. In contrast, Rousseff has supported
efforts to "streamline" environmental licensing of large
infrastructure, including mega-dams. The resulting framework has
given short shrift to environmental and human rights legislation,
while catering to the interests of Brazil's state-subsidized
multinational dam-building and mining corporations.
Lob�o and newly anointed President Dilma, meanwhile, have long been
close colleagues, and share an insider's perspective of the strategies
and the political influences at the heart of the Ministry of Mines and
Energy, as Dilma led the Ministry between 2003-2005. Now, their
blueprint for weak environmental licensing is being applied once more
in an attempt to approve construction of the Belo Monte dams. The
technique will almost certainly be used to license the 12 Tapaj�s and
Teles Pires dams, which together would flood an area of 3971 square
kilometers, or almost twice the area of Tokyo, the world�s largest
city. The 12 dams would illegally directly flood the Mundurucu,
Apiak� de Pimental, Akayb�e, Rem�dio, Sai Cinza, S�o Martinho, and
Boca do Igarap� Pacu indigenous territories, among others.
However, Lob�o and Dilma are racing to take advantage of the "economic
window" provided by high world commodity prices in order to invest in
mega-dams in the Amazon. In the licensing of dams, expected returns
on commodity investments, and the corrupt promises of patronage
politics, are at stake; hence the frequent attacks on IBAMA officials
and the Ministry of the Environment, and the heavy reliance on public
coffers to subsidize BNDES loans for mega-dams such as Belo Monte.
Defenders of the Amazon, hide your children. Here comes Brazil�s big
bad wolf.
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