"Hydropower plants disrupt fishers’ lives in Amazon’s most biodiverse river basin", 31 July 2024

...[F]or a decade, abrupt and frequent changes in river levels have disoriented migratory patterns. Scientists and fishers attribute these irregular pulses to the Madeira hydropower plants, two large facilities installed in the neighboring state of Rondônia. “In this month, the flood-and-dry has already happened about four times. The level was high yesterday. It’s very difficult for the fish,” Dias said.

...For 10 years now, fishing has declined. This hydroelectric plant ruined us,” the fisher said.

The Santo Antônio plant, in Porto Velho, went into operation in March 2012 and has Brazil’s fifth-highest power capacity, and Jirau, installed 115 kilometers (71.4 miles) upstream, has been operating since September 2013 and is the fourth largest in the country...

This scarcity has an impact not only on trade but on the diet of the Novo Aripuanã citizens. Fish, the main protein source for the Amazonian riverine population, has become pricier in markets and restaurants...

Artisanal fishing is also affected by the climate crisis, which intensifies meteorological phenomena...

The dams adopt the run-of-river model, which retains less water in its reservoir but still affects the hydrology of the Madeira. After analyzing discharge data from three hydrological stations, scientists found that the “dam operations significantly increased day-to-day and sub-daily flow variability.”

In 2013, more than 1,500 fishers from Humaitá went to court against the companies that owned the plants, based on studies that attributed to the dams’ impacts on fisheries and fishing. The lawsuits claimed moral and property damages.

However, the judge of Humaitá considered that the disturbances to the fishers began during the construction of the plants in 2007, so he decided that the lawsuits were prescribed because the time limit had already passed.

The fishers appealed the sentence, and the cases are now in the Amazonas Court of Justice...