Around 350 people from different parts of Brazil took over the headquarters of the Belgium company Tractebel in Rio de Janeiro recently according to the National Rivers Network, an environmental campaigning group. The activists were part of the Brazilian Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB). They are unhappy about unresolved problems affecting 200 families at the Ita project in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states. The Ita scheme is now fully operational.
MAB is also campaigning for compensation at Cana Brava, an Inter-American Development Bank financed project which Tractebel is building on the Tocantins river in the central-western part of the country.
Demonstrations have taken place at the Manso dam in Mato Grosso and the Fumaca dam in Minas Gerais. The headquarters of the state company Furnas was occupied but the activists left after the company agreed to review compensation and resettlement issues at Manso and at the Serra da Mesa dam. Meanwhile communities affected by the Corumba IV dam in Gaias state have taken their complaints to the federal government in Brazilia.
