[act-ma] TOMORROW Tue Sep 24 7pm MIT - El Quimbo Hydroelectric Dam and Its Human Rights Impacts

[Bill Spirito (BASE)]

*Colombia Vive 2013 Fall Speaking Tour*
*
*
*El Quimbo Hydroelectric Dam and Its Human Rights Impacts*

Featured Guest Speaker:
*Miller Dussán Calderón*
University of Southern Colombia,
Professor and Human Rights Defender (PhD, Sociology & Education)

Room 1-246
7PM-9PM Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Main Building, 77 Mass Ave,



In 2008 the Colombian government, through the National Economic and Social
Policy Council (CONPES), authorized the construction of several 
hydroelectric
dams in various regions of the country and simultaneously arranged 
financing
for the system. One such dam is planned for the Quimbo region, a territory
that is home to more than 300,000 inhabitants who for many years have 
organized themselves in community cooperatives that produce an estimated 
$18.5 million USD annually. Furthermore, the region boasts 842 hectares 
of riparian forest, many fish species essential to the inhabitants' food 
sovereignty, over 100 species of birds, and numerous species of reptiles 
and mammals in danger of extinction.

The construction of the Quimbo dam would cover over 8,500 hectares, more
than half of which are productive farmland, and would flood six 
municipalities, mostly located in a protected Forest Reserve in the 
Amazon and the
Colombian Massif. At the same time, it would displace more than half of the
population of the Quimbo region. Thus, the construction of the Quimbo
hydroelectric dam poses a grave humanitarian crisis for the region and a 
major
environmental disaster.

Confronted by what seems an overwhelming catastrophe for their 
communities, El Quimbo inhabitants established the Association of People 
Affected by
the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project (ASOQUIMBO), an NGO that defends the
civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental interests 
of the
territory.

During his tour in the United States, Prof. Dussán Calderón will 
describe the
actions that the local community and ASOQUIMBO have taken to prevent the
major disaster that the construction of the hydroelectric dam poses to the
region.

Come join us to learn more about the struggle of this community to prevent
their displacement, and about what you can do to help prevent this grave
humanitarian crisis in Colombia.

For more information contact Ana Zambrano, director, Colombia Vive at
contact at colombiavive.com <mailto:contact at colombiavive.com>, or visit 
colombiavive.org <http://colombiavive.org>

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