Santarém, Brazil – Today, hundreds of Amazonian Indigenous peoples, representatives of traditional communities, social movements, researchers, and inhabitants of Tapajós and Xingu River regions staged a “People’s Tribunal” whose jury judged the Ferrogrão megaproject and its political and corporate enablers including Brazil’s agribusiness lobby and leading commodity traders such as Cargill.
By voicing broad opposition to the 1,000-kilometer freight railway, slated to cut through the eastern Brazilian Amazon impacting dozens of Indigenous lands and conservation units, the event aimed to influence a pending ruling in Brazil’s Supreme Court that could determine the viability of the project.
The People’s Tribunal’s verdict (English translation here) denounced the failure of project planners to consult threatened Indigenous communities, in flagrant violation of ILO Convention 169, to which Brazil is a signatory. It showed that the Ferrogrão’s faulty environmental studies gravely underestimate its regional and global socio-environmental risks, particularly in regards to climate change, and ignore the project’s role in driving the reckless expansion of the agribusiness and industrial mining frontiers into the region’s remaining forests. It also singled out the enabling role of major commodity traders such as Cargill, which have publicly backed the railway project. These companies’ business practices drive deforestation, water pollution, and land grabbing.
“Since the beginning of the Ferrogrão process, hearings have only been held in cities, none within Indigenous villages,” said Goldman Prize winner Alessanda Korap Munduruku. “Since the Munduruku, Kayapó and Panara peoples have consultation protocols that need to be respected, they are our defense weapon. Therefore, we are joining together in an alliance against this railway.”
Before the symbolic trial, representatives from Indigenous peoples and other local communities threatened by the Ferrogrão staged a protest alongside allies in front of one of Cargill’s soy ports in Santarém, demanding that the company publicly renounce the project and that the Brazilian government cancel it to preserve the Amazon and Indigenous ways of life.
“We call on Cargill to withdraw their support for the project,” said Mathew Jacobson, Campaign Director at Stand.earth. “Cargill cannot claim to have a deforestation-free supply chain while that very supply chain is being bulldozed through the Amazon.”
The project itself supports the expansion of the agricultural and industrial mining frontier in a threatened and critically-important biome. Studies show that at least 16 Amazonian Indigenous lands and 104 rural settlements will be affected by the synergistic and cumulative impacts of the railroad, which would profoundly affect the ways of life and rights of the region’s inhabitants, who project planners have failed to consult.
“Ferrogrão does not consider the development potential of the forest,” said João Andrade, representative of the Socio-environmental Infrastructure Working Group (GT Infraestrutura Socioambiental). “And it ignores the local economy coming from family farming, riverside communities and other Amazon communities. It is a project in the Amazon and not for the Amazon.”
“The Popular Tribunal against Ferrogrão revealed the strength and determination of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities and social movements in defending their rights and the future of the planet,” said Pedro Charbel, campaign advisor at Amazon Watch. “The Brazilian government should pay attention to the Court’s ruling and immediately cancel the Ferrogrão project, otherwise it will be choosing to deepen the destruction of the Amazon, the Cerrado and the rights of the inhabitants of these regions.”
The People’s Tribunal’s jury ruled: “Considering the serious defects in Ferrogrão’s planning, the violations of the rights of nature and of the region’s traditional peoples and communities, as well as the need to protect Brazilian biomes and the future of the planet from the interests of multibillion-dollar transnational companies, this People’s Court determines the immediate and definitive cancellation of the Ferrogrão project by the Federal Government and the due responsibility of ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Amaggi and Louis Dreyfus for the data incurred against nature and the inhabitants of the Tapajós and Xingu region.
“Furthermore, the Court also ordered the government to promote structural changes in the instruments and decision-making processes in infrastructure planning, strengthen territorial governance, and promote a new vision on infrastructure for the Amazon, reiterating the need for free consultation, prior, and informed provision for any and all undertakings that directly and indirectly affect Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.”
Background
While ignoring logistical alternatives, the Ferrogrão has flawed technical studies, questionable economic and socio-environmental feasibility, and will increase deforestation and land grabbing.
Data from PUC-Rio and the Climate Policy Initiative estimates that, if the mitigation of the problems arising from the project is not effective, there will be a loss equivalent to more than 285,000 soccer fields of natural vegetation – which corresponds to the emission of more than 75 million tons of carbon. This is in addition to other impacts such as a decrease in biodiversity and a reduction in the ecosystem services provided by the Amazon.
