The race for critical minerals has pushed into the Amazon and reached the United Nations Climate Summit, COP30. As mining firms and officials highlight Brazil’s potential to supply minerals essential for the energy transition, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Pará watches the developments with “concern.”
In an exclusive interview with Repórter Brasil, prosecutor Thaís Medeiros da Costa sounded the alarm over mining expansion and its possible impact on Indigenous peoples and traditional communities. “This new rush carries immense risk for the peoples of the Amazon,” she said.
Minerals like lithium, rare earth elements, copper and nickel are essential for manufacturing high-capacity batteries and magnets that support the energy transition by reducing fossil fuel use. These critical mineral projects receive preferential environmental permitting and financial incentives—like a recent BNDES initiative pledging US$8.54 billion (R$45 billion) to mining for decarbonizing the economy.
Costa sees a “dangerous disconnect” between Brazil’s National Mining Agency (ANM), which authorizes exploration, and environmental agencies that license these projects. She insists that community impacts should be a concern for both.
“A dual review is essential to ensure licenses are properly issued and all legal safeguards respected. ANM fails on many fronts, and this is one of them,” says the prosecutor.
The Kayapó Indigenous Territory is the most heavily invaded by illegal gold mining in the country, with more than 13,000 hectares occupied (Photo: Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace).
A Repórter Brasil investigation found over 7,700 applications for critical mineral exploration across Brazil’s Legal Amazon. Some are less than 10 kilometers from, or even inside, protected areas—either conservation units or Indigenous and quilombola (rural Afro-Brazilian communities) territories. The law requires consulting affected communities in these cases, but the prosecutor says this often does not happen.
In August, Costa filed a lawsuit to revoke a gold mining license in Altamira, Pará. The suit points to “serious flaws” in environmental assessments and a lack of free, prior and informed consultation with the Kayapó of the Baú and Menkragnoti Indigenous Lands.
ASSINE NOSSA NEWSLETTER
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