Legal battling broke out over a R$8.7 billion (US$3.7 billion) dam project on Brazil’s Madeira River after authorities last month granted a permit for preliminary work to begin at a site for which an environmental-impact assessment has not been prepared. Due to the litigation, site preparation for Jirau, which at 3,300 megawatts would be the second-most-powerful dam in Brazil’s Amazon, was halted until Dec. 4, when the government won a ruling allowing the work to resume. Green advocates are accusing Ibama, the environmental licensing agency that granted the permit, of moving with reckless haste to accommodate government pressure for more hydropower. Says Pedro Bara Neto, Amazon policy director of the U.S. office of World Wild¬life Fund (WWF): “This decision... [Log in to read more]