Writing a letter to the Brazilian Ambassador

[DJ-don]

Hey Guys

As you all know about the belo monte dam, i am rather worried for all the fish that are affected.
I would like to write a letter to the brazilian ambassador whose son is one of my closest friends

But i'm rather ignorant on the situation and i would like to get a total low down on whats happening.
But i do know what is being affected. such as the lively hood of local tribes, the Co2 release and of course
the fish

And is it possible that someone has a list of fish that is being affected by the dam???
this includes other fish such as cichlids because i want to get stats and that in and so on

Thanks in advance
DJ

P.s. I might have missed a few key points needed for the letter please let me know
and if it's possible i will get a petition in from our school next year if we have time(last week of school this week) yeah i kinda took my time with the idea of the letter

[MatsP]

There was a thread recently, where there is a good article by Janne. There are also a couple of videos on Youtube that gives some useful information. And there are several groups on Facebook about Rio Xingu and "stop the dam".

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Mats

[DJ-don]

Thanks Mats
Do you know what the thread title was?
And i will look up those youtube videos

and i have joined every belomonte dam groups and causes on fb because im on fb all the time

[MatsP]

Here's the thread:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =2&t=30734

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Mats

[Bas Pels]

Friendly suggestion: be as polite as possible. Ambassadors are said to be rather sensitive, and the matter itself is regarded sensitive in Brasil too

[naturalart]

And perhaps you can offer some alternatives. Dams are just one of many ways to produce electricity. I am sure they are getting lots of negative criticizm for the project. Give them other possibilities to think about. Help think positively about other alternatives to the dam. Solar's gotta be high on the list.

I wish we could have been successful in thrwarting the 3 gorges dam in China. But hopefully we'll avoid the same "mistake" this time.

Good Luck

[DJ-don]

ok thanks for all the help guys.
And i got the article mats. It should basically cover all the things i need to know. I plan to compile all these articles and the sources will be acknowledged. I mayy send Janne a pm to get a more indepth picture of the situation

Thanks for the support
DJ

[PlecoCrazy]

Hans Evers George sp? at a speech he gave at the Catfish Convention had said that a good alternative to the Dam was water mills, but he said no one was interested in them because there wasn't much money in it.

[MatsP]

That would be Hans-Georg Evers.

And yes, I think that's a good suggestion in the sense that it's only diverting PART of the water, in a small scale for each "micro power plant". However, you need A LOT of them to make the same power as a large dam, and I'm uncertain as to whether it works well in rivers that change their level A LOT through the year. [But you don't have to argue against your own suggestions - I'm just thinking out loud].

Solar power and wind power should also be investigated. Both are well understood by now and can certainly be used in a country like Brazil with vast areas of land and at least some places have lots of sunshine too.

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Mats

[Viktor Jarikov]

Inorganic solar cells are not nearly cheap enough to make yet to compete with hydroelectric power; their humongous cost of manufacturing and low efficiency are the two big obstacles on their implementation way (and insufficient lifetime of only 20-30 years; and use of toxic materials)...

Organic solar cells hold a promise in that they are far more amenable to mass-manufacturing (easy coating) but their efficiency and especially lifetime (service time) are not there yet to compete with the expensive inorganic cells...