Bolsonaro's "Death Package" Of Deforestation, Mining, Dam Laws Speeding Through Brazilian Congress

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The Indigenous protesters marched in the streets and met with lawmakers to express their opposition to two bills that would violate their rights if approved: PL 490/2007, which would set a cutoff date for Indigenous groups to claim their territory, and PL 191/2020, which would allow mining activity and hydroelectric generation inside Indigenous territories.

“Opening Indigenous lands [to mining] will harm the Indigenous population and the environment,” Indigenous chief Aruan, president of the Pataxó and Tupinambá Indigenous Federation, told Mongabay by phone. “It will destroy our forest, the animals, the fish, and contaminate our sacred soil and waters.” He added that mining on Indigenous lands would only profit large national and international companies, while generating conflicts, violence, and prostitution among Indigenous communities.

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“Bolsonaro has used the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to justify the exploitation and mining on Indigenous lands,” Haroldo Heleno, a regional coordinator at CIMI, told Mongabay by phone. Russia is currently Brazil’s largest supplier of potassium as well as nitrogen and phosphorus, the three main elements for fertilizer production. However, an unpublished analysis currently being conducted by Raoni Rajão and Bruno Manzolli, researchers at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, has so far found that almost all of Brazil’s potassium reserves lie outside Indigenous lands. “To say the contrary is to sell a lie with ulterior motives,” Rajão said on Twitter.

Other bills being considered by Congress include one that loosens regulations on agrochemicals, which critics say will cause environmental destruction and harm consumer health. Another relaxes environmental licensing and encourages land grabbing, a practice associated with deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon. After the protests in Brasília, Pacheco, the president of National Congress, promised to take care while analyzing environmental bills and weigh up their negative impacts. Some deputies also reaffirmed their opposition to the bills and reiterated their support for Indigenous land rights.

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https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/brazil-congress-fast-tracks-death-package-bill-to-mine-on-indigenous-lands/