Earlier this year Daniel Beard, the commissioner of the US Bureau of Reclamation, the world's leading
dam builder for five decades, declared that «the dam building era is over».
The dam builders have tried to address one of the problems with traditional dams by designing projects that divert water through tunnels to power turbines rather than constructing large reservoirs, and by capturing silt and sending it back into the riverbeds.
• Berta Cáceres, Honduras, who rallied the indigenous Lenca people to pressure the world's largest
dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.
Though Belo Monte's first turbines became operational in 2016, Belo Monte: After the Flood shows that the struggle for justice and accountability for crimes committed by
dam builders continues, and that the Amazon faces more dam threats similar to Belo Monte.
The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) is a voluntary, non-binding auditing tool that allows
dam builders to score the sustainability of their own dam projects.
The HSAP was created between 2007 and 2010 by the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF), an initiative of the International Hydropower Association (IHA), a lobbying group formed in 1995 to represent the interests of
dam builders.
Despite HSAP's weak guidelines and non-binding nature, the IHA is lobbying governments and
dam builders across the world to adopt the Protocol.
It turns out, in a counterintuitive twist that many
dam builders and governments still resist, dams do emit greenhouse gases.
In awarding the prize, the Goldman Prize committee said, «In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world's largest
dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.»
They waged a successful grassroots campaign that resulted in the world's biggest
dam builder pulling out of a plan to build on the Rio Blanco, which would have been terribly destructive for Indigenous communities.
Holding
dam builders and financiers accountable International Rivers holds
dam builders and financiers responsible for the impacts of their projects, and works to protect the rights of the people affected by them.
Not exact matches
If you want to see a beaver here's all it takes: Sneak out to a
dam and pull a couple of logs out (easier said than done — beavers are remarkable
builders).
Natural wetlands are drying out, and the only people who are happy are the
builders of
dams, desalination plants and aqueducts.