This Thursday (27), the organization Terra de Direitos launched the second part of the report No License to Destruction – Cargill and violations of rights in Tapajós, which addresses the socio-environmental impacts of the port that the company maintains in Itaituba (PA), complementing observations on the case of Santarém (PA). Cargill is one of the leading companies in the export of commodities and, despite this, it has carried out activities that threaten the rights of the Munduruku, the indigenous people who live in the region. With the structuring of the port, just one of the 19 that sell products in the municipality, the Munduruku and other groups have needed to travel more to get food and faced difficulties in obtaining means of sustenance, due to the contamination of the waters of the river and tributaries. The Federal Public Ministry of Pará recommended that the Ministry of Health declare a public health emergency situation, due to the presence of mercury in the Tapajós River Basin, related to mining. There are also other damages and changes in the configuration of space, such as real estate speculation. According to the report, the city’s population jumped from 5,000 to 13,000 people with the opening of the port. One of the points highlighted by the entity is the fact that, in Cargill’s environmental impact studies, there are only two villages, Praia do Índio and Praia do Mangue. In reality, what should be taken into account is the set of effects that spread throughout the course of the Tapajós River, since the Munduruku inhabit the Tapajós Valley, a region known as Mundurukânia, both in officially recognized lands and in communities riverside communities, as mentioned by the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), on a page dedicated to this people. For Terra de Direitos, Cargill’s partial reference to the villages consists of erasing the existence of the Munduruku, which implies reducing the results of its activities in the area, which began in 2013, and, therefore, its responsibility. As the report mentions, when opening the port unit in the district of Miritituba, in Itaituba, the North American multinational did not consult the communities that would be affected, such as the Munduruku, a requirement provided for in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). In addition, another flaw pointed out was the lack of technical data to justify the undertaking, in the documentation submitted to the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (Semas) which, even so, approved the operating licenses. The organization also points out that, after approval for the installation of the port, the portfolio no longer required certain conditions for it to continue in operation. In the 2017 Operating License, for example, Semas established that the company could only keep the port active if it carried out the Study of the Indigenous Component in the Munduruku territories of Praia do Mangue and Praia do Índio, within four months. However, there is no evidence that this was fulfilled. In 2019, the National Foundation for the Indigenous People (Funai) issued a term of reference with guidelines for carrying out studies with indigenous people, but, as it seems, they were again ignored. In April of this year, Cargill completes one year without submitting the renewal of the operating license. While Semas is oblivious to the irregularities in Cargill’s studies, the company benefits and continues to operate in the Tapajós region, in Pará, under a pattern of irregularities and violations of human rights of traditional peoples and communities – just as it happened in the Port of Santarém. The system that the port’s work chain requires ended up bringing elements that did not exist in the place before. “We actually have a port hub in the region of the Tapajós River, where this hub did not exist. It is a hub that is a few years old and, with that, we have impacts that add up, are cumulative. All this modification, not only of the landscape, but also of the social dynamics, there is also a lack of planning”, says the coordinator of the Amazon Program and of the research, Pedro Martins, for whom the previous consultation with the communities should arrive in a simplified way, and not through notices, which he considered “already precarious” instruments. Semas informed Agência Brasil that it is investigating the information and intends to return the report. The agency also sought out Cargill and is awaiting a response.
Agência Brasil
Folha Nobre - Desde 2013 - ©