I attended a meeting tonight hosted by Bay Area Tropical Forest Network and Rainforest Action Network. Leila Salazar-Lopez of Amazon Watch gave a talk about Belo Monte, a dam that will block the Xingu River in Brazil and threatens to displace thousands of residents including indigenous communities. It will also cause irreparable damage to the Amazon’s fauna and flora inhabitants, its rich and complex ecosystem, and will massively impact global climate change.
Xingu River
A boy plays with a capybara on the banks of the Xingu River near Altamira, Brazil near where the controversal hydroelectric Belo Monte dam, will be built. Photograph: Andre Penner/AP
The Borneo Project, students from Stanford University and many others attended. There was plenty to talk about not only within Brazil but other regions like Peru and Indonesia where the MSc in Primate Conservation at Oxford Brookes University including Neotropical Primate Conservation, Little Fireface Project, Selamatkan Yaki and International Animal Rescue (just to name a few) is dominating right now.
It is great to be getting more involved in conservation here in the San Francisco Bay Area! I would like to recognize my countless colleagues fighting hard on the ground. Keep up the great work! I look forward to facilitating partnerships.
Please take a look at these videos about Belo Monte, a significant dam project that is in dire need of attention at this crucial time.
Allison Hanes 