The potassium war in Autazes

It is seated on Soares Lake and in Urucurituba, two places inside Autazes municipality in Amazonas state, a huge world-class potassium chloride mine. Potassium is feedstock for producing fertilizers, a vital element for agribusiness. The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lobbies for such an exploration to start as soon as possible. Under his administration, public agencies started to act in favor of the Potássio do Brasil company, which buys lands to start mining. The efforts of the Federal Government to trample the law and the rights of native people. Autazes mine is under the self-demarcated Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory. Who live there are the Mura people, who fought in Cabanagem, the biggest popular revolt of Northern Brazil.

Por Elaíze Farias

Autazes (Amazonas state) – A prospecting well of the Potássio do Brasil mining company which is drilled few meters far from his floating house in the shores of Soares community’s lake, on Madeirinha river’s basin, in Amazonas state, lacerates the heart of Milton Ribeiro de Menezes, from Mura indigenous people. He can’t control his emotions when he remembers the episode occurred “six or seven years ago” which caused embarrassment to his family during several months. “At the first time, they came offering 900 reais (approximately 180 dollars) to drill my land. They insisted saying it was too much money. I didn’t authorize it because I saw it was not a good thing. But later they ended up drilling somewhere else, without my consent. Afterwards they wanted to buy my land. They said I could even be expelled if I did not sell it. I didn’t accept it”, remembers Menezes, with a choked voice filled with anguish.

The Madeirinha river runs through the municipality of Autazes and is part of Madeira river basin, in Amazonas state. Soares (or Soares Lake – Lago do Soares) is a community founded in the 19th century by João Gabriel de Arcângelo Barbosa, a Mura indigenous who fought in Cabanagem. In History books, the revolt, which occurred between 1835 and 1840, is described as Brazil’s first popular uprising. The cabanos, in their majority, were indigenous, poor people who were set free and black people who fought against the conditions of misery in which they lived in the then so-called Grão-Pará province, which was formed by the current states of Pará and Amazonas. The descendents of the ones who fought in Cabanagem proudly tell how their ancestors resisted massacres, arrests and contamination of diseases brought by the colonizers.

The majority of João Gabriel de Arcângelo Barbosa’s descendents remains in the community, including one of his great-grandsons, the 83-year-old Jair dos Santos Ezogue. He, due to unfamiliarity or lobby, was one of the residents who sold their land for Potássio do Brasil. “A man came here several times and insisted a lot. He said I could lose my land. I had manioc flour houses, plantations and cattle. I regret having sold it. A lot, really. I know other people who sold their lands and I am sure they don’t live well”, tells the indigenous to Amazônia Real.

It is no big news the strategy adopted by Potássio do Brasil to advance through its areas of interest. The mining company is controlled by the Canadian bank Forbes & Manhattan, which owns the Belo Sun mining company as well, in Volta Grande do Xingu area, on the region of Belo Monte power plant, in Pará State. Opening the safe box has been their output.

The company harassed the community for the lands to be sold and could convince many of its residents. The 47-year-old Milton Ribeiro de Menezes is one of the few residents who live in the Soares’ river heads and did not give in to company lobby for mining purposes. To a resident and his family who survives from fishing, small farmings and animal breeding, the upcoming potassium mine represents a concrete, imminent threat.

“I’m surrounded on all sides by the company. I feel frightened because I’m on the island. My neighbors ended up selling their lands and I stayed here. I am afraid because I don’t want to leave. It’s very good to live here. I have my breedings, my plantations. My wife was born and raised here. My kids like it here. There is everything here. There is a plantation, surrounding waters. It is a paradise”, affirms the indigenous.

Milton Ribeiro de Menezes, from Mura people, shows the drill done by Potássio Brasil in his land without his consent in Soares village
(Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

On the shores of the calm river heads of the Soares community’s lake, it is possible to sight Potássio do Brasil’s plate in the area claimed by the Mura. From Soares central community to the acquired properties by the company for the vast mine, it takes only 15 minutes by motorboat, as it was attested by Amazônia Real. In early March 2022, the reportage visited Autazes communities during typical cloudy days of the region’s rainy season to understand the greed for potassium.

Milton Ribeiro de Menezes’ land is surrounded by properties where the company wants to explore sylvinite, the most important ore for production of potassium. According to the indigenous, the tranquility is periodically interrupted by the company’s speedboats which transit through the narrow river heads. “They use bigger speedboats, at high speed. It floods a canoe if it passes closer. The river waves caused by speedboats come even to my float house”, he says.

The almost solitary struggle of Milton to protect his land has been dragged by a true potassium war in Autazes. In the 19th century, Regency forces suffocated the Cabanagem popular uprising, killing more than 30 thousand cabanos in the confrontation and decimating whole indigenous villages. In the current 21st century, the threat is against the Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory, localized in the core of the mining enterprise and runs the risk of disappearing.

The ills of war

The Soares vice-tuxaua, Vavá dos Santos, and Mura Indigenous Council coordinator, Claudio Mura, watches potassium area. At the back, tuxaua Sérgio Nascimento (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Drill done by Potássio Brasil company inside Milton Ribeiro's land, without his consent, in Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Detail of the plate of the main drilling point, which was made by Potássio Brasil company in Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
The tuxaua Sérgio Freitas do Nascimento drives a motorboat and pass in front of one of the plates of Potássio Brasil inside Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Potássio Brasil's plate at the banks of Soares/Urucurituba lake (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
The indigenous couple Jair dos Santos and Maria Ezogue, from Soares village, was under pressure to sell their land to Potássio Brasil company and nowadays they feel regret for it (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Health agent and Mura indigenous, 34-year-old Lucilene dos Santos Sanches at her house in Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Health agent and Mura indigenous, 34-year-old Lucilene dos Santos Sanches at her house in Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Lake of the Mura's people Soares community (photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Fisherman in Mura people's Soares community's lake, located in Autazes (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Fisherman in Mura people's Soares community's lake, located in Autazes (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Fisherman in Mura people's Soares community's lake, located in Autazes (photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Children arriving by boat at the school in Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
An indigenous young man deals with fish in Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Church in the Mura people's Soares indigenous community (photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
The tuxaua Admilson Moraes Pavão, from Mura People's Urucurituba indigenous community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
The tuxaua Admilson Moraes Pavão, from Mura People's Urucurituba indigenous community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Mura people's Urucurituba indigenous community, at the banks of Madeira River, in Autazes municipality (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Mura people's Urucurituba indigenous community, at the banks of Madeira River, in Autazes municipality (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Mura people's Soares community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)
Floating house in Mura people's Soares indigenous community (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

On the contrary to what Federal Government, public authorities and businesspersons claim, the Autazes’ potassium mine is inside the Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Land, which awaits for almost 20 years for the demarcation process. Community leaders sent to National Indian Foundation (Fundação Nacional do Índio – Funai) the first claim in 2003; another one in 2007 and for the third time in 2018, then already with a self-demarcation map. Such information does not appear in the 2015’s Environmental Impact Research (Estudo de Impacto Ambiental – EIA) ordered by the company. But the interests of the mining lobby and the politicians who support the potassium exploration, such as Autazes mayor, Andreson Calvacante, the Amazonas governor Wilson Lima (PSC) and Vice-President Hamilton Mourão, erased the existence of those two communities as traditional indigenous territories.

Amazônia Real had access to the Environmental Impact Study (EIA) and the Environmental Impact Report (Relatório de Impacto Ambiental – Rima) of the Autazes Project (Projeto Autazes), as it was baptized by Potássio do Brasil. The EIA ordered by the mining company has 1.600 pages and confirms the social and environmental negative effects, impacting fauna and forest as well. The enterprise will cause a change in the quality of water, the escape of animals, real estate speculation, population increase, destruction of an archeological site, among other damages. On the other side, the EIA signals promises of both local and regional prosperity and actions to mitigate impacts.

The study is clear on the social impact of potassium exploration in the area. “The Soares community, which has the worst basic infrastructure conditions among the villages inside the influence area of the project, tends to suffer with the process of real estate speculation and loss of the access to the land”, describes. “At the Urucurituba village, the same process might repeat, though with an extension which could have a bigger magnitude due to the village’s basic infrastructure being a little better.”

The EIA/Rima was presented in 2015 to Amazonas Institute for Environmental Protection (Instituto de Proteção Ambiental do Amazonas – Ipaam), the state government’s agency which conceded the license to the enterprise. The beginning of the mining was paralysed in 2016 due to an order of the judge Jaiza Fraxe, from the 1st. Court of the Federal Justice, complying with a public civil action from the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público Federal – MPF), which accused Ipaam of irregularly issuing the license. The magistrate understands Mura people must be consulted before the beginning of any mining activity.

But the potassium war in Autazes never ceased since then, gaining dramatic outlines for Mura when the President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) did let clear his onslaught for the mining in Amazon. On the last March 2, Bolsonaro took advantage of the clamor related to the Russian war against Ukraine to lobby for the processing of the Bill 191 (Projeto de Lei – PL), which regulates the articles 176 and 231 of the Brazilian Constitution and authorizes the mining inside indigenous territories, which is considered nowadays illegal. Bolsonaro’s point is that Brazil imports potassium from Russia and such ore has always been in the Amazon.

Government supports mining company

Just eight days after Bolsonaro’s manifestation, on March 10 the Federal Attorney General (Advocacia Geral da União – AGU) sent a petition as “supporter of the defendant part” to the judge Jaiza Fraxe, pressuring her for taking a decision on Autazes Project. The defendant is Potássio do Brasil. AGU also requires Ipaam to be the licensing agency, something different from what MPF asks for, for which the competence must be Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Instituto Brasileiro de Meio Ambiente e Recursos Naturais Renováveis – Ibama)’s. It also asks for the liberation of deposited in court amounts done by the company for the realization of the indigenous’ inquiry and, finally, asks for the Federal Justice “to acquiesce with the resumption of the environmental licensing process”.

As for AGU, the obstacle to Autazes Project’s environmental licensing already has been solved with the dismemberment of mineral rights’ polygons which were assessed on the Jauary Indigenous Territory. The withdrawal of the overlaid, according to AGU, was solved in 2017 during a conciliation hearing. In other words, AGU, under Bolsonaro’s administration, does not consider as Indigenous Territory both Soares and Urucurituba localities. Beyond the Directly Affected Areas (Áreas Diretamente Afetadas), the mining will impact surrounding indigenous territories as Guapenu, Trincheira and Murutinga.

On the last January 28, thus before the Russian war against Ukraine, AGU already had sent a petition to Federal Justice, also as the “defendant supporter” affirming “the Union has direct interest on the enterprise [in Autazes] due to be a priority project for the production enlargement of a strategic ore for the country”. On a tweet on March 2, Bolsonaro affirmed: “With the Russia/Ukraine war, today we are at the risk of the lack of potassium or of the increase of its price. Our food safety and the agribusiness (Economy) demand from us, Executive and Legislative, measures which allow us to be not dependent from abroad on what we have abundantly”.

Bolsonaro’s administration specific interest on Autazes Project is not clear for indigenous leaders, researchers and even MPF’s attorneys. in the last AGU’s petition, which is on the side of the private company Potássio do Brasil, the agency argues that with the full vaccination in indigenous territories “and the cooling of the pandemic scenario, it is imperious the resumption of the consult process and, therefore, the project’s environmental licensing”.

The allegation for the overlaid withdrawal, done by AGU, ignores Potássio do Brasil’s greed in Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory, distant one hour from Autazes seat in motorboat travel. It is in this indigenous territory that the company intends to build the sylvinite mine’s industrial plant and a port of discharge for the ore, whose element is used to produce fertilizers. Mining in indigenous territories is forbidden in Brazil. That is why Autazes Project adopts the strategy of acquiring, in a pulverized way, a wide area of lands from both indigenous and non-indigenous residents in the locality.

Bolsonaro’s administration acts, inside the Legislative, to ease the life of mining companies. Two fronts, in particular, directly affect Potássio do Brasil’s interests and, indirectly, the government’s on Autazes. One is the government’s defense for the establishment of a legal landma rk , foreseen in the PL 490. According to this thesis, indigenous who were not occupying their territories before the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 would not have rights over their land. The Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory would fit itself in this thesis. The other attack front is the PL 191/2020, which started to proceed in urgency regime due to the government’s lobby and predicts a loosing up for the minings in Indigenous Territories. Anyhow, the government would assure the interests of the Canadian mining company.

Without demarcation

The tuxaua Sérgio and the vice-tuxaua, Vavá dos Santos, show a map with a demarcation of Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory which was presented to Funai (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

Since 2003, the Mura leaders from Soares and Urucurituba are united to fight for the demarcation of the Indigenous Territory and wait until nowadays for Funai’s actions. At the indigenist agency, the process did not advance. Then, in 2018, the Mura began a self-demarcation and mapped the territory supported by the Missionary Indigenist Council (Conselho Indigenista Missionário – Cimi). In the map, its name is Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory, because it reaches the neighboring community and brings points identifying Potássio do Brasil’s activities inside the territory.

In the same year of the elaboration of Soares/Urucurituba’s map, the 45-year-old Vavá Ezogue dos Santos went to Brasília to ask Funai for providences, and received only vague responses. But he came back to his land with the guarantee that the process would keep on. “At Funai, I asked what our security was. They told us that before the Potássio do Brasil’s arrival, we already existed. That our grandparents, our parents who were born and died here were our documents. The certainty is it takes a long time (to demarcate), but this will happen someday”, says Vavá to Amazônia Real.

The 40-year-old tuxaua (chief) Sérgio Freitas do Nascimento has Funai’s documents which proves the claim was requested. One, dated 2003, describes Soares in the list of “preliminary review”, together with other five Indigenous Territories. In other document, dated August 2007, the then Funai’s general coordinator of Identification and Delimitation, Paulo Santilli, confirms the Autazes communities claims, including Soares’, and asks for them to be study objects of a technical group (GT). In a December 2018 document, Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory appears under the condition of “awaiting for qualification” since 2016, without date for the formation of such a GT.

The first activities of the mining company in Soares, before their suspension due to court order, was a surprise for Mura people, as Vavá Ezogue remembers. “We saw a grand transit inside here, different people, from abroad. They started to drill. It was machine noises, speedboats transiting 24/7. We couldn’t sleep. They caused accidents and flooded canoes. We were not used to it, he says.

For the Mura people from Soares, Potássio do Brasil invaded their territory. “I think they invaded because we lived without such a problem for a long time. They came here. We didn’t call them”, says Nascimento.

Soares community is recognized by Autazes indigenous organizations. It is on the list of villages of the Mura Indigenous Council (Conselho Indígena Mura – CIM), as well as Urucurituba (there is also a municipality of the same name in Amazonas state which is in the Lower Amazon River area). According to tuxaua Sérgio Freitas do Nascimento, the community has a central grouping composed by about 50 families, totalizing over 100 people, but the territory extends itself beyond this area, reaching houses in the banks of the river heads, bifurcations and streams where numerous families live in floating houses. Only in Soares, the tuxaua affirms the Mura population is over one thousand indigenous persons. In the Autazes Project’s EIA, Soares is described sometimes as “village”, others as “traditional community” which “might suffer the main repercussions of the project’s installation and operation”.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – IBGE) 2010’s Census, Mura population is over 15 thousand people. Only in Autazes and Careiro da Várzea, neighboring cities, the population is 12 thousand people, according to CIM’s survey. Mura were some of the first native people contacted by European colonizers still in the 17th century and they became known due to their stark resistance using war strategies to combat the invaders such as building trenches under the rivers.

Sérgio Nascimento knows the existence of the PL 191, which intends to regulate mining in indigenous territory. For him, the demarcation will be the only tool to ensure the survival of the Mura from Soares in the face of the mining pressure. “We have been in this struggle since 1999, actually. Our ancestors didn’t have such knowledge. Things here were more restricted. Before that time everything was way more closed, isolated. But even though it is not a demarcated territory yet, we are native people, we have rights to it and asked them for Funai. All of this was before the mining arrival”, tells the tuxaua, who nowadays fears the indigenist agency’s omission might put in risk the community’s future.

The 34-year-old Lucilene dos Santos Sanches is indigenous health agent in Soares. She shows anxiety every time it comes to the subject and relates with concern the possible impacts on residents’ health, by the known examples from other places, such as Brumadinho tragedy, in Minas Gerais state.

“We live well here, thank God. Everybody knows each other. We have freedom and we are happy. It’s a place of peace, where there are no quarrels. I’m afraid we must get out of here. If this mining happens, which I hope it doesn’t, many diseases will come because many people from abroad will come here to work, to live. We don’t know who these people will be. It also can poison the waters. We, Mura people, live basically by fishing. We are hopeful we are going to win, that this is not gonna happen”, she relieves herself as she speaks.

Environmental damages

Potássio Brasil company’s plate, at the banks of Madeira river, besides Mura people’s Urucurituba village
(Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

The enterprise’s EIA admits the impacts in the area of the potassium reserve, accord to what says this excerpt: “As for implanting Autazes Project, it is awaited the occurrence of activities with potential to create alterations in the quality of superficial waters of the water courses located in the Local Study Area of the enterprise”. Another excerpt adds: “Besides the brine injection, another change in the quality of subterranean waters is awaited on the shallow aquifers closer to the waste heaps and the industrial area”.

The study also confirms the social impact on the directly affected communities. “Soares community, which has the worst conditions of basic infrastructure among the villages under the project’s influence area, tends to suffer with the real estate speculation and the loss of access to the land”, says the Autazes Project’s EIA. “In Urucurituba village, the same process might repeat, though with an extension that could reach a bigger magnitude, due to its basic infrastructure to be a little better”, continues.

The researcher Fernanda Frizzo Bragato, professor at the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos)’s Graduate Program in Law, affirms that one of the biggest problems presented by the enterprise is related to the potassium mining wastes. She is co-author of a study on mining impact in Autazes entitled “Case study: Potássio Amazonas Project – Autazes and its Impacts on territories inhabited by the Mura indigenous people”.

The information Fernanda and her colleagues collected derived from reports and international research which describe problems that already happened in other potassium mines. The case study says that “once the organisms of the river are adapted to the sweet water, the increase in salt concentration caused by potassium mining wastes has the potential to significantly change the rivers’ ecosystems”.

“It’s not clear how the company intends to avoid salt leaking, once the communities’ subsistence relies on water and fishes. I also don’t know to what extent the communities are conscious of such a risk. Another problem that seems disturbing to me is the soil subsidence, “disaster” that already happened at other potassium mines in Russia and at rock salt mines in Maceió. Mines are underground and very probably will reach the soil under at least the two indigenous territories surrounding the plant (Soares and Jauary)”, alerts the researcher to Amazônia Real.

Archeological sites

Archeological artifacts found in Mura people’s Urucurituba community, at the banks of Madeira river
(Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

Admilson Pavão, tuxaua of Urucurituba village, located at the left bank of the Madeira river, is worried with the future of his community and with the impacts brought by the cargo port so close to the village’s housings and to the transit of its local vessels. The Autazes Project’s port of discharge is 50 meters from the community, where about 600 families live; it is about 1.5000 people, the majority indigenous, according to him.

More known as Piraca, he is a long-time leader among Mura and he was part of the group who made the first complaints against the mining activity in the area. “They came and we saw it was not correct what was happening. They didn’t talk about what they were doing. It’s not right to come and enter without asking for permission”, affirms.

According to the tuxaua, during the company’s prospect time in Urucurituba, the population witnessed a large number of trucks and damages on the streets caused by such vehicles.

But what called most attention to the Mura people was the researchers’ interest in archeological excavations. “They came here saying they were from Iphan (Institute of Historical and Artistic National Patrimony – Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional) and did some excavations. They took the pieces away”, tells Piraca. Many of the pieces remain stored by the residents, as Amazônia Real witnessed.

The tuxaua affirms that after the charge done by the residents, the company started to inform about the enterprise, “talking about only good stuff”. “Who is going to suffer with that is us. This will be good only for the big farmers, the businesspersons of big speedboats, hotels, for the mayor, for the politicians. They will take the money. We won’t”, affirms.

According to Autazes Project’s EIA, the researchers identified 41 points with archeological vestiges in the visited areas. The Urucurituba archeological site “shelter a material register of indigenous occupations in a strip of land approximately 500 meters wide and extends through 1,5 kilometers at the right bank of Madeira river”. The Autazes Project’s study informs that, during the research for the EIA, 37 points were registered with archeological material presence in Urucurituba site, all of them, excepting one point, are inserted in the area directly affected by the port project. It identified ceramic traces and the occurrence of large quantities of Amazonian Dark Earth, organic material which characterizes soil fertility.

When Amazônia Real was in Urucurituba, it saw archeological pieces and a set of artifacts, as funerary urns and pots, in residents’ houses. The same occurrence is cited in Autazes Project’s EIA. According to the researchers, the artifacts belong to the Guarita and Manacapuru tradition and are more than one thousand years old.

For Mura people, however, the archeological site is related to their own history, related to their ancient inhabitants. The anthropologist Curt Nimuendajú (1883-1945), quoted in EIA, says the Mura would be present in the area since at least 1639.

Company denies Indigenous Territories existence

The tuxaua Sérgio Freitas do Nascimento watches the Potássio Brasil mining company’s plate, in an area bought by the company inside Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory (Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

For Potássio do Brasil, Soares is only a “settlement” or “village” and not an Indigenous Territory. In the EIA, a Indigenous Territory is described as “a region inhabited by riverside populations who live in floating houses, great part of them working with agricultural activities, and many of them migrate to drier areas during the flooding season”. In the only reference to the Mura people, the EIA affirms only that “some indigenous who lived at Soares Lake, still in the 19th century, were driven away from the banks, moving themselves to interior lands”.

The study tries to disqualify the territoriality of the Mura from Soares saying that “the urban core is very reduced and its structure has a linear form in the main axis of the wood walkway which gives access to the stilt houses”. As for Urucurituba, a community whose majority of its population is indigenous to the Mura tradition, it is described as “a village”, a “rural community” and a “Autazes district”.

Potássio do Brasil’s EIA focused itself in three Directly Affected Areas, which are interconnected and they are: Mining Plant (Soares lake area), Port (Urucurituba community) and the road between the plant and the port. In the EIA, the company confirms it bought lands. “Despite the relatively low demographic density, the project installation will cause the acquisition of certain properties and, consequently, the displacement of some people”, it describes. If the Indigenous Territory already was demarcated, such purchases and sales of properties would be prohibited.

Recently, the agribusinessman Blairo Maggi manifested his intention of making part of the enterprise, according to a Reuters article published by Forbes Agro. Maggi, former minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply during Michel Temer’s administration, affirmed he is negotiating with the investor Stan Bharti, Forbes & Manhattan owner, a partnership to run off the ore. Blairo Maggi owns the navigation company Hermana de Navegação da Amazônia, which already works for years in the basins of Madeira and Amazonas rivers.

In the area of mining activity coverage diagnosed by the EIA, Potássio do Brasil considers only Jauary (delimited) and Paracuuba (homologated), which are 10 kilometers far from the enterprise, as Indigenous Territory. Autazes Project study admits that in Soares and Urucurituba that “there is indigenous presence with harmonic convivence with other segments of regional population”, but, at the same time, it is omitted when it says such populations “don’t represent plea and/or a process of fundiary regularization”. The EIA only says that the lands can “be referred, partially, as indigenous dominial territories and receive distinguished attention by the public authority, in this case Sesai (Special Secretary of Indigenous Health – Secretaria Especial de Saúde Indígena) and Funai”.

The traditional occupation

Aerial view of Mura people’s Soares indigenous community, in Autazes
(Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

Renildo Viana Azevedo, author of the PhD thesis “Floatings’ Territory: Resistance, Mura Indigenous Territory and Potassium Mining in Autazes” by Federal University of Amazonas (Universidade Federal do Amazonas – UFAM), affirms that the territories nowadays compose the Soares Lake once were part of a vast territory the Mura occupied since at least the 17th century, when this people was systematically persecuted by Portuguese Crown.

“Despite the territories not having their limits established by the State, I consider the thesis that they are not indigenous properties is, at least, wrong, because an indigenous territory doesn’t need to be demarcated to be considered as such. Based on native rights, Soares and Urucurituba Lake, traditionally occupied by Mura for at least two centuries, are indigenous territory traditionally occupied and should be treated as such by the Brazilian State”, says Azevedo. For him, the most appropriate decision for the Brazilian State is to suspend the Autazes Project until the territory is delimited.

“For the current government, Indigenous Territory is the ones already demarcated. But it is not in this way it is written in the Brazilian Constitution. According to its article 231, the indigenous have native rights on the territories they traditionally occupy. The native rights come before other rights on territory, including the own Brazilian State’s, which, according to the Constitution, must demarcate and protect them and be respectful to all their assets”, says the researcher.

Licensing was judicialized

Potássio do Brasil’s plate at the banks of Madeira river, in Urucurituba
(photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

The Potássio do Brasil mining company started its activities in Autazes in 2009 and, six years later, had the Environmental Impact Study (EIA) approved by Ipaam. But in 2013, authorized by the former Nacional Department for Mineral Research (Departamento Nacional de Pesquisa Mineral – DNPM), the company had been done prospections close to the Jauary Indigenous Territory, which is under process of demarcation, with drills which reached the Mura indigenous graveyard. DNPM was substituted by National Agency of Mining (Agência Nacional de Mineração – ANM) at Bolsonaro’s administration. In the same year, Ipaam also issued a license for the company to begin its studies on environmental impact.

In 2016, MPF pursued an action at the Federal Court. The judge Jaiza Fraxe decided to paralyze the enterprise’s licensing until the Mura people are consulted. The territorial situation of Soares and Urucurituba, which did not make part of the beginning of ACP, started to be part of the process on the following petitions.

Since 2019, when it was ready the Consultation Protocol (Protocolo de Consulta), a tool with norms which will guide the decisions of the indigenous, there is the expectation the case would have an outcome, with the beginning of the so-called “pre-consultation”, period when the UFAM experts are going to help the Mura on the process of clarifying issues related to the enterprise. Amazônia Real found out that still there is no date to this agenda, but there is a lobby for it to begin soon. The reportage found out also that there is a divide among the Mura indigenous, either favorable or against the mining in their territories. In Soares’ case, according to the leaders, the majority is against the Autazes Project.

Called “Trenches: Yandé Peara Mura”, the protocol predicts different steps in the consultation process, with internal meetings, without the presence of non-indigenous. There will also be a general assembly to discuss the proposal. If there is consensus, the answer will be immediately presented to the entrepreneur and government agents. If there is not, the Mura will carry out new assemblies, in which includes a poll, where the winner decision must have 75% of the votes from those present.

MPF already manifested in the proceedings, placing itself against the permanence of Ipaam as licensing agency, as the Federal Government pleads. For the attorney Fernando Merlotto, the indigenous assembly must happen only after the definition that the EIA/Rima analysis competence and, consequently, the eventual licensing, must be a Ibama’s responsibility. The federal agency, under Bolsonaro’s administration, already manifested itself against this attribution. “There is no way to do such consultation without the definition of who is going to be the licensing agency. It must be Ibama. The Mura themselves made this request”, said Merlotto to the reportage.

In a spreadsheet sent to Amazônia Real filled with information on overlaid indigenous territories, ANM does not make any reference to the indigenous territory located in Autazes. “The spreadsheet which was sent (active mining titles in indigenous territories, dated 03/02/2022) was created from a intercession of ANM’s polygons, available on SIGMINE, with indigenous areas available on Funai’s website, we emphasize all this data are public”, says the agency.

According to the ANM, the Autazes/Nova Olinda’s potassium reserve is 273.422.000 tons. The agency did not inform about Autazes specifically, where there is the biggest quantity. Nova Olinda is an Amazonas state’s municipality neighbor to Autazes. At the Autazes Project’s plant, the annual production will be 8 million tons per year, according to the company’s EIA.

In a manifestation sent to Federal Court, ANM informs the processes related to Potássio do Brasil’s activity in Autazes continue on “the phase of request the mining” since the Final Research Report’s (Relatório Final de Pesquisa) approval, on April 30, 215, and that the holder has been requiring the prorogation of the term in order to exert the right to concession.

The Geological Service of Brazil (Serviço Geológico do Brasil – CPRM) says to the reportage that Autazes Project’s deposit shows “a small part inside the indigenous territory”, that the overlaid area “already is discarded by Potássio do Brasil company” and the “company still not obtained the proper environmental licenses due to be close to indigenous territories”.

Useful lifetime of 31 years

Aerial view of the road which connects Mura people’s Urucurituba community, where the port is going to be built, to Soares community
(Photo: Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real)

Potássio do Brasil’s EIA/Rima reports the enterprise has three alternatives. And, in every option, Soares (described as Soares Lake) is included. According to the EIA, the underground pit mine shows a deposit between 700 and 900 meters deep and has an area of 130 square kilometers “located in a portion of high lands between Soares lake and the existing road which connects Urucurituba to Soares lake”.

The building of a port is defined to be in Urucurituba. “As for infrastructure it is identified the Urucurituba port’s existence, in the place of the same name, at the same left bank of Madeira river”, says the EIA. Both communities are interconnected through water holes and water courses and also through a road, which Potássio do Brasil already included in its project.

“The road use represents beyond, the economic advantage – at least for the implementing, the utilization of the existing road connecting Urucurituba to Soares Lake, segment which corresponds to almost 60% of the expected total length to the link plant – mine – Urucurituba port”, says other EIA’s excerpt.

Projeto Autazes’ study affirms the mining will adopt “the method of underground mining which includes the building of shaft wells, implantation and operation of a plant where the ore is processed and an port of discharge for an useful lifetime of 31 years. The ore will be processed through hot leaching in the processing plant”. The period of implantation of the Autazes Project will be four years.

During the survey process, Potássio do Brasil did 33 holes, with a total amount of 27 thousand meters perforated. “The obtained results in these holes allowed Potássio do Brasil to confirm the discovery of a world-class potassium deposit in the area, with an average content of 30,71% of Potassium Chloride”, says the study

The silence of the government

Amazônia Real contacted Funai to talk about the demarcation process of Soares/Urucurituba Indigenous Territory, but the agency did not answer. Ibama was contacted as well to talk about the licensing competence, but did not send any answer. The reportage even asked a position from Ipaam, but the state agency did not reply.

When requested, the company answered Amazônia Real saying “Potássio do Brasil Project is 100% off Indigenous Territories and it has the steady compromise of doing an enterprise for Autazes using the most modern technologies, not forgetting the care for people and environment”. According to their declaration to the press, “Potássio do Brasil has as principle to respect the environmental norms and the rights of traditional and indigenous peoples and recognizes the importance of the Inquiry of the Mura People, who inhabits an area 8 km distant from the future Potássio Autazes Project’s industrial installations”.

On the fact of disregarding Soares and Urucurituba as indigenous territory and if it would abandon the project in case of Funai would not recognize both of them, there is the following answer: ‘Soares and Urucurituba villages are not inside the Indigenous Territories mapped by Funai, when it was requested the Reference Term for the preparation of the Potássio Autazes Project’s Indigenous Component Study”.

As for the purchases of lands in Autazes, the company says “the lands acquisition done by Potássio do Brasil were based on technical reports of evaluation done by specialized companies of the field. Therefore, the lands were acquired in a legal way and respecting Brazilian laws”. The company did not answer the question related to the lobby the Mura indigenous are saying to had suffered to sell their lands.

Potássio do Brasil also says “that it has the Preliminary License and is awaiting to obtain the Implantation License”. On the judicial agreement with Mura people, the company says Potássio do Brasil “is compromised with the implementation of Potássio Autazes Project fulfilling every environmental norm and respecting the rights of traditional and indigenous peoples”. On the social and environmental impacts predicted at project’s EIA, the company answered “the counterpart and environmental mitigation actions are expected to remain beyond the enterprise’s lifetime, aiming to give sustainability and autonomy to communities related to the enterprise, having as reference the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (ODS). It will be more than 30 programs inside the social-economical-environmental axes”.

According to the company, “it is actions that will support vocations and it will encourage the introduction to new enterprises, bringing the culture and traditional knowledge closer to its technical-scientific counterpart. Thus, through partnerships with public, private and social entities, it will be implemented programs and projects aiming to promote the economic growth, the sustainable use of natural resources and the preservation of the environment”. The company cited some projects and programs, such as the Program of Support to Local Economy; Program of Support to Public Services Improvement; Program of Labor Qualification; Projects of Support to Sustainable Fishing; Project of Implementation of Agroforestry Systems; Project of Support to Community-based Tourism, among others.

The company says “Potássio Autazes Project also will allocate resources to cultural and historical patrimony preservation areas supporting museums, archeological sites and traditional handicraft. “Yet we will have the compromise of allocating until 2% of our Potassium Chloride production to enterprises of the so-called Family Agriculture, since they fulfill some to be defined requirements, including the subsidized price for acquisition, informs, in first hand, Adriano Espeschit, Potássio do Brasil’s president”, according press release to Amazônia Real.

After this article was posted, Iphan (Institute of Historical and Artistic National Patrimony – Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional) sent a note saying it did not realize any technical visit to the Urucurituba community. According to Iphan, the archeological research work is a responsibility of the company “Arqueologika – Consultancy in Archeology and Sociocultural businesses (Consultoria em Arqueologia e Negócios Socioculturais)”, authorized by Iphan through Decree number 31, dated May 05, 2021. The company carries out research named “Potássio Autazes Project’s Saving, Archeological Monitoring and Environmental Education Program (Programa de Salvamento, Monitoramento Arqueológico e Educação Ambiental do Projeto Potássio Autazes)“.

Iphan also says it did not withdraw archeological pieces, once such an action is not part of the autarchy’s regular administrative procedure. The archeological research authorized by Iphan and conducted by “Arqueologika” company is supported by Amazon Museum – Archeology and Ethnology Nucleus (Museu da Amazônia – Núcleo de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MUSA-NAE). In this case, after the end of the work, the rescued archeological material will be under MUSA’s guard, in the city of Manaus, Amazonas state. It is worth noting the referred research is on progress and the final report was not submitted to Iphan’s technical exam”.