Brazil – Mining and its impact on the Brazilian Amazon
A deepening reprimarization of our economy marks the 21st century in producing agricultural raw materials and minerals. This results from neoliberal policies adopted throughout Latin America in the late 1980s and the 1990s. A period of destruction of industrial zones, withdrawal of state participation in strategic sectors of our economy, and the loss of social, labour and social security rights.
By Monsignor Vicente de Paula Ferreira *
The extraction of minerals in Brazil is part of the general context of opening mines, relaxing environmental and mining legislation, and dismantling the sector's oversight and control bodies. This context facilitated extractive activities' expansion and drastic growth in the 2000s. However, one of the consequences of the 2008 global crisis was high capital investment related to mining, mainly in the gold and iron ore chain. There was also a rise in prices due to China's growing demand. As a result, the mining sector experienced increased conflicts in the territories, industrial accidents, environmental crimes, various types of pollution, tailings, dam breaches and leaks. Above all, the mining sector's tax evasion and tax avoidance cases increased.
Since the 2016 coup, the country's mining-related conflicts have intensified, precisely due to the Brazilian State's political decision to encourage the opening of new mines and to cut the value and amount of fines imposed on mining companies. And above all, the encouragement of invasions of protected territories (Indigenous Lands, Conservation Units, Afro-descendant territories, National Parks and Forests, among others) for mining activities.
A government that promotes environmental destruction
Since the election campaign, Jair Bolsonaro promised he would not confine indigenous and Afro-descendant land ("quilombo") anymore and focus on mining exploration in these territories. And he declared on 10 October 2019 that "the interest in the Amazon is not in the indigenous people, nor the fucking tree. It is in the mineral! [...] How can a rich country like ours, which has the entire periodic table underground, continue to see them suffer here".
Unfortunately, Bolsonaro has built his government policy for the advancement of mining in these territories. According to data published in September 2022, by MapBiomas, since 2019, it is the first time that illegal mining in the area is more extensive than industrial mining, with more than 91% of this area concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon.
This concentration has been made possible by budget cuts at Ibama and ICMBio and by dismantling combat and inspection agencies. For example, the budget released for deforestation monitoring in 2019 was R$102 million and still suffered a cut of 15.6 Million Reales. In 2020, the resource was even smaller: according to the approved Budget Bill (PLOA), the budget was R$76.8 million for Ibama's environmental control and inspection actions. This was 25.2 Million Reales less.
Conflicts that caused deaths
Another result of this policy adopted by Jair Bolsonaro's government was the number of conflicts that caused the deaths of indigenous peoples. The report "Conflicts in the Countryside Brazil 2021", released in April 2022 by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), showed that illegal mining was the main factor in violence in the countryside in 2021. These conflicts caused 92% of the conflict-related deaths recorded by the CPT.
Report "Conflicts in the Countryside Brazil 2021"- Photo: CPT
It is also important to highlight that in 2019, the phenomenon that made "day turn into night" was not a mere climate change or the rotation of the earth that caused an "eclipse", but the freedom and celebration for the Relaxation of Environmental Legislation carried out by the Federal Government. In addition, and as a sign of support, farmers celebrated the "Day of Fire" (burning of the forest).
A year later, the Brazilian Episcopal Conference published the "message on the fires in Brazilian territory." It stated that "this aggression to the Common Home resulted in a record number of destructive fires in Brazilian biomes during the years 2019 and 2020. For instance, the Cerrado (50,524 and 41,674), the Pantanal (6,052 and 15. 973) and the Amazon (66,749 and 71,499) totalling, according to INPE data, 123,325 fires in 2019 and 129,146 as of 20 September 2020. This corresponds to an increase of 5,821 fires, destroying much of the biodiversity in these biomes, threatening indigenous peoples and traditional communities" to the benefit of mining, logging and agribusiness companies.
We see that it is not only "illegal" mining and burning that cause conflicts in the Amazon region. Industrial ("legal") mining is responsible for several regional socio-environmental conflicts. For example, the Grande Carajás project of the mining company Vale was directly responsible for the collapse of the public health system in Parauapebas (State of Pará) for not having stopped its activities at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, Hydro Alunorte was responsible for the spillage of heavy metals (lead, sodium, nitrate and aluminium) in Barcarena. Also, two illegal pipes were used in the State of Pará to dump toxic waste into rivers. Unfortunately, these cases are not the exception to the region's social and environmental problems caused by "legal" mining.
* Vicente de Paula Ferreira is Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte and Secretary General of the Commission for Integral Ecology and Mining of the CNBB (National Conference of Bishops of Brazil).
Source : ADN Celam - English translation: Julio Caldeira/REPAM
Source : repam.net
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