Project
Maíra Irigaray / Amazon WatchFazendo com que o Brasil se responsabilize pelos danos da represa Belo Monte
Quando em pleno funcionamento, Belo Monte será a terceira maior usina hidrelétrica do mundo, construída em um dos ecossistemas mais importantes do planeta: a floresta Amazônica. Localizada no rio Xingu, no Pará, um estado do norte do Brasil, o reservatório cobrirá mais de 500 quilômetros quadrados de florestas e terras agrícolas, uma área do tamanho da cidade de Chicago.
Para a população da Bacia do Xingu, a construção de Belo Monte tem significado a perda do acesso à água, à alimentação, à moradia, ao trabalho e ao transporte. Ao menos 20 mil pessoas serão deslocadas.
O governo e o consórcio encarregado do projeto começaram a construir a usina sem antes consultar primeiro as pessoas da região, muitas das quais são indígenas. Negligenciaram a normativa internacional de direitos humanos, a qual requer o consentimento prévio, livre e informado das comunidade indígenas afetadas. O Brasil também descumpriu as medidas cautelares outorgadas pela Comissão Interamericana de Direitos Humanos, as quais destinavam-se a proteger a vida, saúde e integridade das comunidades.
A represa começou a operar, ainda que não em plena capacidade. Recentemente um tribunal federal suspendeu a Licença de Operação do empreendimento devido à falta de cumprimento, por parte do consórcio, com as obras de saneamento básico em Altamira, cidade diretamente afetada pela hidroelétrica.
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Right to a Healthy Environment Global Coalition awarded UN Human Rights Prize
New York — Today the Global Coalition of Civil Society, Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and Local Communities for the Universal Recognition of the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment accepted the prestigious 2023 United Nations Human Rights Prize in a ceremony in New York. This month also marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.The coalition is recognized for its vital role in advocating for the universal recognition of the right to a healthy environment by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 2022. The UN Human Rights Prize is awarded once every five years to several recipients at a time. This year is the first time since its inception in 1966 that it has been granted to a global coalition.The prize was presented at a ceremony with UN leadership, including General Assembly President Dennis Francis, Secretary-General António Guterres, and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. The award was accepted by a delegation of representatives illustrating the diversity of the coalition’s members.The ceremony took place alongside a workshop with advocates from around the world and UN and State representatives to assess progress since the recognition of the right to a healthy environment and to discuss next steps to build on that progress and ensure the effective promotion of the right.Read reactions to the announcement from the members of the coalition here.At the ceremony, the following acceptance speech was delivered by a representative of the coalition: We, Civil Society, Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and Local Communities in coalition for the Universal Recognition of the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment are honored to receive this prestigious prize acknowledging our vital role towards the UN recognition of this human right.This incredible achievement was only possible thanks to the tireless collaborative efforts of thousands of people from 143 countries who joined for this historic milestone. A process that started fifty years ago by visionaries gained momentum in 2020 when we called the UN to finally recognize this human right.First, this prize highlights the importance of truly collaborating to advance the imperative protections of our planet and our rights. No single organization, movement, or person would have been able to make it on their own, but together, our global and diverse coalition made it possible. We are humbled and proud that our efforts are recognized, evidencing to the world that working together is possible and worth it.Cooperation is just as needed for States, none of whom can, on their own, solve today’s multiple planetary crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution, aggravated by increasing inequalities. We call on States to effectively collaborate towards the solutions needed.Second, this prize reinforces the historic recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. That requires protecting the dignity of all persons, individually and collectively, substantively and procedurally, from human-made environmental degradation and climate change impacts. Affirming also the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and the urgency to protect them from environmental threats, including systemic risks, irreversible degradation, and loss and damage.The UN recognition clarifies international human rights law and is now a powerful instrument for States to fulfill their obligations, enhance environmental justice, and guarantee all rights, especially of those in more vulnerable situations.As we witness increasing ecosystem degradation and lives lost due to pollution and climate change, this universal right can guide us toward stronger policies and practices, based on gender and intergenerational equity and the empowerment of all persons and communities. It can help in better protecting those defending the environment, including Indigenous Peoples, children, women, peasants, and other people working in rural areas.We are profoundly grateful for the recognition of our collective efforts, inspiring governments, businesses, and institutions to fulfill their responsibility and effectively protect our universal right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This is our priority, one we invite you to commit to. Thank you! Press contactsVíctor Quintanilla (Mexico), Content Coordinator at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), [email protected] Furbank, Communications Campaign Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law, [email protected] Esther de la Rosa, Communications Coordinator at ESCR-Net [email protected]
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The Alliance for the Andean Wetlands brings together organizations for the protection and conservation of wetlands
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Solidarity note for social movements, organizations, and rights advocates who are victims of criminalization attempts by the company Belo Sun Mineração Ltda.
The undersigned member organizations of the Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance (AVGX) call on partners, civil society organizations, legal experts, and researchers to support and strengthen individuals and movements that, due to their tireless defense of peoples, biodiversity, and the existence of the Volta Grande do Xingu, are facing intimidation and attempted criminalization by the company Belo Sun Mineração Ltda.We need to show large corporations that civil society in Brazil and abroad is united around this cause. We will not step back in protecting the environment and human rights in the face of threats. Sign this note and join us in the protection of the Amazon, the Xingu River, and its defenders!More information below:On October 17, 2023, the mining company Belo Sun Ltda., the Brazilian subsidiary of the Canadian company Belo Sun Mining Corp., filed a criminal lawsuit against more than 30 people, most of them small-scale farmers. These individuals, backed by are questioning the acquisition of land by the mining company within the Ressaca Settlement Project, in the municipality of Senador José Porfírio - Pará, and demanding that this land fulfill its agrarian and social function. These concerns are the basis of a lawsuit in federal court by the federal and local Public Defender’s Offices.The criminal complaint is a clear attempt to silence environmental and human rights defenders. This silencing is intensified by the presence of the company's armed security in the territory. It is also an attempt to criminalize organizations that monitor and denounce the destruction caused by large projects in the Volta Grande do Xingu. On November 15, a group of 25 local movements and organizations, mainly based in Altamira, Pará, issued an open letter condemning the criminalization of farmers, social movements, and civil society organizations promoted by the Canadian mining company Belo Sun. It is essential that the terms of this letter be strengthened and echoed nationally and internationally.This is not the first time that Belo Sun Mineração Ltda. has intimidated civil society organizations and human rights defenders. In 2022, the company filed a lawsuit against a university professor who had exposed the risks that the Volta Grande Project would pose to the Xingu River and its people. In mid-2023, Belo Sun sent an extrajudicial notice to the National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), attempting to silence the organization's complaints about the risks posed by the mining project in the Volta Grande do Xingu. This notice came shortly after the release of a report on Belo Sun by the legal team of the Apib and an international advocacy action at the UN in Geneva carried out by the Alliance for the Volta Grande do Xingu, a coalition of which Apib is a part. The action aimed to expose corporate abuses by Canadian companies in the Brazilian Amazon and in eight other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Regarding Belo Sun's activities in the Volta Grande do XinguBelo Sun aims to establish a massive open pit gold mining project overlapping the PA Ressaca region, on the banks of the Xingu River, with the goal of operating the largest gold mine in Brazil. The so-called Volta Grande Project (PVG), if approved, would substantially and potentially irreversibly impact a territory already severely affected by the Belo Monte mega-dam, as well as affecting the lands and traditional ways of life of various indigenous peoples, rural settlements, and riverside communities in this region.Several lawsuits have been filed documenting the irregularities committed by Belo Sun, including the absence of free, prior, and informed consultarions and consent from the affected indigenous and traditional communities; the illegal acquisition of plots within the PA Ressaca; the harassment and violation of the right to free movement and access to the territory of local communities; and the lack of competence of the State of Pará to issue the environmental license for the PVG. Its licensing has been suspended since 2017 by the decision of the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region, and on September 11, 2023, it was transferred to the jurisdiction of Ibama, a federal agency. DemandsWe, citizens, civil society organizations, and representatives of social movements who support this statement, condemn the criminalization promoted by Belo Sun Mineração Ltda. We express our solidarity with the victims of this process and emphasize our understanding that:We support the terms of this petition and join voices in denouncing that intimidation and criminalization of human rights defenders, activists, researchers, and leaders of social movements by Belo Sun are unacceptable, and therefore, we support the terms of this petition.The Land Reform Project (Projeto de Assentamento) Ressaca is an area designated for agrarian reform and local family farming located in a region already highly vulnerable from a socio-environmental perspective, making it incompatible with the installation of a large-scale open-pit gold mining project like Belo Sun's Volta Grande Project.The public authorities must take necessary measures to empower the families, communities, and peoples of the Volta Grande do Xingu, ensuring their effective participation in governance and the protection of the territory. The member organizations of the Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance issuing this statement and calling for endorsements are:Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil - APIBMovimento Xingu Vivo - BrasilAmazon WatchInterametican Association for Environmental Defense - AIDAInternational RiversEarthworks Justiça GlobalMiningWatch Canada Join us in protecting the Amazon, the Xingu River, and their defenders!Sign the note of international solidarity against the judicial harassment being carried out by Belo Sun: https://forms.gle/tzUzR47v72jsdEPN8
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