Ploumen meets Chief Raoni

Last Friday the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Ploumen spoke with the Indian chief Raoni Metuktire about 'Amazon Emergency' campaign. Metuktire, leader of the 5,000 Kayapó Indians, fights for the preservation of the Amazon and the indigenous peoples living there. But the livelihood of the Kayapó people is under grave threat. Brazil's president, Dilma Vana Rousseff, has authorised the construction of a dam that will flood their homeland.

The Belo Monte dam will be the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam (after China's Three Gorges dam, itself with numerous problems, and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu dam). It will flood 400,000 hectares of the world's largest rainforest, displacing 20,000 to 40,000 people – including the Kayapó. The ecological impact of the project is massive: the Xingu River basin has four times more biodiversity than all of Europe. Flooding of the rainforest will liberate massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas far more damaging than carbon dioxide.

 Raoni Metuktire (Krajmopyjakare, circa 1930) is one of the great chiefs of the Kayapo tribe that lived in the heart of a protected reserve in the territory of Brazil. He is an international figure, a symbol of the struggle for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous culture.

‘The trade and investment opportunities for the Dutch are important’, says Ploumen. ‘At the same time the unique Amazon should be protected. This can easily be combined with the progress and cooperations the Dutch companies need.’

The Dutch government has close contacts with various NGOs in this field and map the rights of the indigenous population regularly with the Brazilian government. Dutch companies play a major role in the trade of timber, soy and beef.