From "Amazon Resists"by Ciro Barros , Iuri Barcelos special for the Public Agency - Indigenous Juruna see the rare fish in their territory while Brazil's largest open-pit gold project is approaching; Juruna document requires the right to prior consultation, provided for in an international treaty in force in the country since 2003
In the area of direct influence of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant, in the Volta Grande do Xingu, the Juruna Indians join the shards. "We do not know if in the future we will be able to continue living here," says Professor Natanael Juruna, a resident of the village of Mratu, one of three in the Indigenous Territory (TI) Paquiamba. Downstream from the dam, they see their main source of income and subsistence, the fish, rarear.Independent monitoring by indigenous people in partnership with the Federal University of Par (UFPA) and the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) shows that fish production fell by almost half between January 2015 and 2016, during which time the River. According to the 11th Independent Socio-Environmental Monitoring Report, between November 2015 and June 2016, more than 19 tons of fish died - twice as much as the Juruna fish in three years.
Faced with a shortage of fish, the Juruna demand compliance with one of the several factors that have not yet been met: the allocation of an area above the dam wall that gives access to the reservoir of the plant, where there are more fishing conditions. "The fish is where we took our generation of income. Especially the ornamental fish, which today is over, "explains the chief of the village, Giliarde Juruna. "We are struggling to see if we can get this land that gives access to the lake. Today we are one of the most impacted lands in Brazil. The largest dam in Brazil is here on our side and the largest open pit mining company will also be here on our side. How are we going to survive in this region? "
The cacique refers to the arrival of Volta Grande, the country's largest open-pit gold project, which intends to set up about 10 kilometers from Belo Monte and, consequently, on the edge of the Juruna yard. Since April, the installation license, obtained in February, is suspended, but Canadian mining company Belo Sun is far from giving up on the project, as reported by Public.
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60 tons of gold in 12 years
On the Xingu River, on the way to the Juruna TI Paquiamba, the future is uncertain with Belo Monte and the arrival of Belo Sun (Photo: Iuri Barcelos / Public Agency) The Volta Grande project numbers, led by Canadian miner Belo Sun, impress. The company intends to extract 60 tons of gold in 12 years from the mining of millions of tons of ore. To do so, it already has 18 mining titles with authorization to research with the DNPM and attempts to license the extraction in four other titles that, together, occupy an area of more than 2,300 hectares - corresponding to the extraction of gold from the deposits Ouro Verde and Grota Seca, part of them already explored by garimpeiros.
The two sterile piles after the complete design in operation, summed up, will have a height of 255 m. One of the companies that formulated it - Vogbr - was involved in the Mariana (MG) disaster.
"Belo Sun is what scares the most in Belo Monte. The hydroelectric plant opens the way for this kind of mineral exploration, "says Thas Santi, a prosecutor at the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) in Altamira. The agency has filed a public civil action since 2014 against the mining company, Ibama and the government of the state of Par: on the edge of a federal river - the Xingu - and two TIs (Union areas); Secretary of Environment and Sustainability (Semas), the government of Par. The prosecutor is concerned that the miner is licensing the titles of the Volta Grande project, but still retain other titles of research that may be licensed in the future . "Environmental Impact Studies indicate that 3.16 million tonnes of ore per year will be withdrawn in the first 11 years and the company in turn announces to its shareholders the possibility of extracting up to 7 million tonnes per year "Says the prosecutor in the public civil action.
According to maps of the National Foundation of the Indian (Funai), the mining is 700 meters to more than 10 kilometers of the closest TIs - the Paquiamba and Arara of Volta Grande -, which would exempt Ibama from doing the licensing, according to an ordinance interministerial meeting of 2011 . "By the way they formulated, TI Paquiamba was 10.7 kilometers away from the project. But there is a contradiction between what is being licensed and what is being sold to investors. They have a huge area of extraction and research, they organize where they want the project area and calculate from that area the distance to the indigenous areas, "criticizes the prosecutor. "The company has been speaking since 2012 that the venture has no impact on indigenous people. For you to complete this, you assume that they have done the studies, which they have implied. But not."
The Federal Court suspended the installation license due to the lack of studies on the indigenous issue, pointed out by the MPF. Belo Sun claims that he "agreed to conduct the Study of the Indigenous Component (ECI), not for a legal or regulatory obligation, but for an exercise of cooperation with Funai." In the lawsuit, which discusses the impact studies of the enterprise on the Indians, the miner affirms that the MPF lacks the truth in affirming that no studies were done - according to her, delivered to FUNAI in April of last year. According to the MPF, however, "FUNAI, in October 2016, sent a letter to SEMAS informing that the studies presented by mining company Belo Sun were considered unfit." In April of this year, the judge Jirair Meguerian gave cause to the MPF and ordered the suspension of the license issued. "Considering that FUNAI itself, which has attributed to it, stated that the ECI [Indigenous Component Study] presented by Belo Sun Minerao LTDA. is inapt, it is concluded that the installation license could not have been issued by SEMAS / PA, "said the magistrate in his decision.
In a note to Public, Belo Sun stated that it "intends to complement the ECI in order to collect primary data from the Paquiamba and Arara ITs of Volta Grande" and that the "temporary decision of TRF1 was given without the State of Par and the company presenting arguments about the case. The mining company trusts that after being heard and, presenting the facts regarding the case in depth, the temporary decision can be reviewed, which should happen later this year of 2017.
Juruna Consultation Protocol
Natanael Juruna, from the village of Mratu: "Belo Monte did not destroy it, Belo Sun will finish destroying" (Photo: Iuri Barcelos / Public Agency) As the battle drags on, the Juruna reacted and launched, in August this year, the Juruna Consultation Protocol , based on Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which provides for prior, free and informed consultation of the populations affected by any undertaking. Brazil is a signatory to the convention , which entered into force in the country in 2003.
The Protocol of Consultation sets out in paper the way in which the natives intend to be consulted for any future enterprises that come to settle in areas close to their lands. "We will not accept any project that distances us from the Xingu River or makes our stay in the river unfeasible. We were not consulted for the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant, which diverted the Xingu River from our land to use its water in energy production.With the construction of the plant, we lost our main source of food and income, which was artisanal fishing and ornamental fish. We do not know how the river, the animals, the forest or the people will be, "says the document.
Despite the resistance effort, many Juruna demonstrate pessimism with the issue. "We suffered a lot from the impact of Belo Monte and now we have to deal with Belo Sun. It seems to us that what Belo Monte did not destroy, Belo Sun will finish destroying," says Professor Natanael Juruna.
Overlap in federal and resettlement areas
The Vila da Ressaca, in the municipality of Senador Jos Porfrio, Par, is one of the regions affected by the Belo Sun mining project (Photo: Iuri Barcelos / Agncia Pblica) If among the Indians the prevailing feeling is of fear for the arrival of Belo Sun, in the communities of the area of installation of the enterprise - Island of the Farm, Village of the Ressaca, Galo and Ouro Verde -, Public found more favorable people than against the mining company . "There is no other solution here, there are a lot of people here in the region starving", reports the baker Rmulo Amaral, resident of the Village of Ressaca. "You have to see the progress here for this region. Of course you have to comply with the conditions, but no one is able to live longer than the gold mine, no. Here in the manual mining no one takes anything else, no. It's only with a machine. And who's going to have money to put a machine? "He tells us that many families are surviving from the basic baskets offered by the beautiful Sun. In another community, Garimpo do Galo, the scenery is poor. The village looks ghost: many empty houses and closed shops. All interviewees support the mining company's arrival. "He finished all the service he had there. It only works for the mining company, it does not work for us anymore. Here we are just picking up old tail. Is it worth staying all day in the sun to get half a gram of bad gold? "Says trader Jair Alves.
On the other hand, there are also prospectors opposed to the mining project, especially those that are part of the Cooperativa Mista dos Garimpeiros da Ressaca, Galo, Ouro Verde and Fazenda Fazenda (Coomgrif). "Here we have a lot of area to work on," says Divino Alberto Gomes, a member of the Coomgrif garimpeiro. "We could install a ramp mill on the rocks here. We were not going to move where the beautiful Sun wants to move, which is the flagstone. Only after they got the mining license we never had our new one renewed. We worked in these areas, these communities here had a life of their own, everyone had money in their pockets, "he protests.
There is also a land issue on the table. The Belo Sun lands are on Gleba Ituna, collected and registered in the name of the Union in 1982, and superimposed on two settlement projects, one of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) and another of the Land Institute of Par ( Iterpa). Since 2013, the Public Defender of Par has filed a lawsuit against Belo Sun questioning the purchase of land that will be exploited by the mining company in the future. According to the Ombudsman's Office, the title deeds are invalid, although the mining company claims that the acquisition of possession was legitimate. In addition, in 2015 the Secretariat of Patrimony of the Union (SPU) declared the villages of Ressaca and Galo to be of social interest and destined them to land regularization by Incra.
Jos Pereira Cunha: "We feel threatened" (Photo: Iuri Barcelos / Public Agency) While the imbroglio is not resolved in justice, the miners struggle to survive and claim to have lost an old mining permit that was in force. "We got the mining in this area here, which was sold on December 18, 2014. When it was in September of 2013, we ran after DNPM [National Department of Mineral Production] of Belm to renew. They gave [but] thrown us 13 kilometers from here, in a place that only has hunting, bush, and has no gold, "complains Coomgrif vice president Jos Pereira da Cunha, the" Lollipop. " "Today we feel threatened, it is risky to take a shot because it is the people that are hindering the company," he says.
Asked by the Public, Belo Sun stated that "it has the information that the lands that overlap the Volta Grande Project are federal lands, which is not a legal impediment to mining activities." According to the miner, "a small portion of these federal lands is affected, constituting INCRA's Underwater Settlement Project. Approximately 5% of the total area of the PA Surf is superimposed on the project. For this reason, Belo Sun and INCRA signed a document, where Belo Sun surveyed the existing improvements in the overlapping lots, presented evaluation reports, prepared a report on socioenvironmental impacts on the Hangover PA and identified new areas for agrarian reform for the future acquisition and reallocation of the settlers of the overlapping lots, all as adjusted with INCRA in December 2016. " The company also states that it "indemnified the occupants of the lots and / or farms for the existing rights of possession and improvements" and that "the purchase and sale contracts of tenure and improvements signed by Belo Sun and its squatters were registered in the Registry Office, in law".
"After the issuance of the Installation License (LI) of the enterprise, the Reallocation, Negotiation and Social Inclusion Program will be started in relation to the two villages close to the project. This program has been submitted to the environmental agency, and the company has been talking with local communities since the survey of areas and registration of families, "completes Belo Sun.