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A Canadian gold miner has found itself under attack by a powerful environmental group seeking to starve it of investment dollars in an attempt to block it from building what would be the largest open pit mine in Brazil.
Last year, the group asked the Ontario Securities Commission to investigate Belo Sun, and last week it used the UN’s COP15 conference on biodiversity in Montreal as a platform to launch its latest volley against the company, releasing a report on Dec. 9 that condemns the Big Bend project.
Amazon Watch alleged the company has misled investors, has inadequately consulted the local Indigenous communities, and that the company’s plan to use cyanide as a reagent will have detrimental impacts on the health of humans and wildlife in the area.
“We are putting any institution or company looking to invest in or acquire Belo Sun on notice: this is a bad actor selling a dangerous project,” Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch program director, said in a statement. “Anyone looking to get involved with them will be shouldering serious risk and will be complicit in the continued threats to the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous and traditional peoples, and the global climate.”
Belo Sun’s legal counsel, Kenny Choi, declined to comment on Amazon Watch’s allegations before this article was published.
Significant foe
Amazon Watch is a significant foe. The group helped drive the now-defunct, Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. and Santiago, Chile-based GeoPark Ltd. from Achuar territory in Peru in 2012, and 2020, respectively; compelled London-based mining giant Anglo American PLC to abandon research permits on Munduruku lands in the Amazon in 2021; and prevented construction of the So Luiz do Tapajs dam in the Amazonian Tapajs river basin in 2016.
These campaigns were multifaceted, said Poirier, targeting companies through their employees, public image and investors. This campaign differs from others in that it focuses on the Canadian mining industry, specifically, and its role in the Amazon, according to Gabriela Sarmet, Brazil campaign advisor for Amazon Watch.
Amazon Watch first accused Belo Sun of misleading investors in a complaint to the OSC in July 2021, and last week amplified its concerns by taking advantage of the media spotlight shining on COP15, a conference with 20,000 delegates, where countries will try to come up with a framework to address the key drivers of nature and biodiversity loss over the next decade.
Investors put on notice
“No investor should even think of touching this company,” Sarmet said in the press release.
The report noted that in a March 2021 interview with the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce (BCCC) at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), a mining convention, Belo Sun chief executive Peter Tagliamonte neglected to mention the “ongoing suspension and potential cancellation of its environmental licenses,” instead attributing the delays to the COVID-19 pandemic.