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The Madeira River Complex The enormous Madeira River Complex, in the tri-border region of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil is one of the Integrated Regional Infrastructure for South America's (IIRSA) anchor projects. It would transform the Madre de Dios-Beni-Mamoré-Itenez-Madeira river system into a major corridor for energy production and raw material export. The proposal includes the construction of four hydroelectric dams, most importantly the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams in Rondônia, Brazil. Together, these two dams would produce a projected 6,450 megawatts of hydroelectricity, totaling eight percent of the Brazilian energy matrix. By comparison, this is equal to half of the electricity produced by Itaipu dam in the Brazilian state of Paraná, the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant.
The Madeira project would also increase the capacity for transporting soybean, timber, and minerals to Pacific ports through the installation of navigation locks and dredging to open the river channel, and to connect with highways being built in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon. The project would result in a potential 500 percent growth of soybean transport from the current annual seven million tons to 35 million tons exported.1 Brazilian agribusiness companies such as Grupo André Maggi, the largest soybean producer in the world, have already helped build the Itacoatiara port downstream from Manaus, which is a major distribution center for soy export. The company received a loan from the International Finance Corporation, of the World Bank, in 2004 of US$30 million to expand soybean production, which is arguably the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
The Madeira Complex may also turn into an investor's nightmare, due to the enormous cost and technical challenges. Potential environmental and social impacts – including displacement, threats to food security, increased exposure to disease, pressure on already weak social services, risks to biodiversity, and deforestation leading to greenhouse gas emissions – make the Madeira Complex a "development" disaster in the making.
© 2007 IIRSA.
IIRSA map of the hydroelectric dam, port, and industrial wateryway plans for the tri-border region. |
1 Molina Carpio, Jorge, “Analisis de los Estudios de Impacto Ambiental del Complejo Hidroeléctrico del Rio Madera,” La Paz, Bolivia, April, 2006.
2 BothEnds, “Bank loans and credits to Grupo André Maggi. A research paper prepared for Fundação CEBRAC.” www.bothends.org/strategic/soy34.pdf
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