Why Indigenous Groups Are Targeting Brazil’s Booming Grain Trade

Hundreds of protestors are blocking a key Amazon soybean port in clash over river dredging.Author of the article:You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.(Bloomberg) — In global crop powerhouse Brazil, major farming groups supported new laws that made it easier to fast-track roads and riverways crossing the Amazon rainforest. Now, they are facing the backlash in a crucial shipping route for corn and soybean exports.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.A few hundred members of 14 Indigenous tribes have been blocking terrestrial access to a Cargill port terminal near the confluence of the Amazon and Tapajós Rivers for over three weeks, halting the unloading of soybeans from trucks. Earlier this month, demonstrators also briefly shut down the entrance to Santarém airport, one of the region’s main transport hubs.They are protesting the launch of a public bidding process to dredge the Tapajós River and a decree signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that paves the way for the privatization of the management of three rivers across the Amazon, totaling about 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles). Both initiatives have been made easier by the new legislation approved last year. Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.Among other measures, it eliminates mandatory environmental impact studies for infrastructure projects across the country deemed to have low or medium impacts, such as river dredging. It also restricts consultations in Indigenous and rural Afro-Brazilian territories.“The Tapajós River is not a corridor for shipping commodities, nor an economic asset to be exploited. It is a living, sacred, and indivisible territory. It sustains our bodies, our cultures, our food systems, our spiritual practices, and our social organization,” said an open letter addressed to Lula and signed by local organizations. Brazil’s Ministry of Ports said in a note that no river dredging “will proceed without strict compliance with all applicable regulations, including environmental and social regulations.” Cargill declined to comment. Lula’s General Secretariat of the Presidency didn’t respond to a request for comment on the indigenous demands. The increasing tensions in the area come as Brazil is getting ready for national elections in October. They underscore the challenges president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will run for reelection, has in balancing economic growth with environmental protection in a country that relies on agriculture for a quarter of its gross domestic product. While Lula has made commitments to halt deforestation by 2030 and recognize indigenous lands, his government still needs the support of agribusiness-backed legislators who account for nearly 60% of the nation’s Congress. The Tapajós, dubbed the Amazonian Caribbean for its white-sand beaches, and other rivers across the rainforest are crucial for large-scale farmers as they connect one of Brazil’s largest crop-producing regions to a network of Amazon ports responsible for shipping about 40% of the country’s soy and corn exports. There was a time when all soybeans from farms in the midwest were shipped through busy ports in the south, but growing production and heavy investments from crop traders over the last decades created a new route through the north, with barges crossing the Amazon to reach the Atlantic. As crop exports in the so-called Amazon Northern Arc grew 57% from 2020 to 2024, Brazil is being confronted with the risk of failing to comply with some of the country’s social and environmental goals, said Renata Utsunomiya, a transportation policy analyst at GT Infraestrutura, a group of civil-society organizations. “Agribusiness interests of using this export corridor has grown a lot as soybean exports grow,” said Utsunomiya. “This is already a region that suffers with deforestation, landgrabbing, wildfires.” The legislation, which also fast-tracks oil drilling and a highway through the Amazon, was pushed by lawmakers in the country’s Big Ag caucus, a group that encompasses congressmen and senators from mostly right and centrist parties. It also received support from groups representing industries such as energy, machinery and transportation. In addition to certain exemptions for environmental studies, it mandates that projects deemed a priority by the federal government must complete licensing within a year, a period most environmentalists consider too short for complex infrastructure works, especially those that can affect indigenous communities.“The exemption from environmental licensing is a very serious weakening of environmental protections and undermines the rights of traditional communities,” said federal prosecutor Vinícius Schlickmann Barcelos, who is based in Santarém.Dredging the Tapajós River is particularly dangerous due to decades of mercury contamination from illegal mining throughout the river’s course, says Barcelos. Toxic mercury particles that have been sedimenting in the riverbed for decades can be dug up, contaminating the water and fish consumed by the local population.The protest’s leader, Auricélia Arapiun, said both the dredging plans and Lula’s privatization decree predate the law’s entry into force, but added that the new legislation paves the way for the two projects, which she deems destructive to Amazon rivers. “Before COP30, he came here and recorded a video admiring the Tapajós River and asking how anyone could want to kill the river,” she said. “But he himself signed the death decree himself.”The local Indigenous activists have also long opposed a proposed grain railway that would connect the soybean-producing state of Mato Grosso to the Tapajós River. The project, which has Lula’s government backing and is under review by Brazil’s Supreme Court, would significantly increase barge traffic along the Tapajós.“What is at stake is how we understand the occupation of the Amazon,” said geographer João Paulo de Cortes, head of the Studies Group on Environmental Management in the Amazon. For farmers, shippers and crop traders, dredging the Tapajós river would make it easier to navigate during the dry months of the year, when barges carry millions of tons of corn to ports in the northern state of Pará. Some have high hopes that the planned auction would transfer to a private company the tasks of dredging, removing rocks and monitoring the Tapajós riverway. Those efforts are currently the responsibility of a federal agency. “Riverways are the most economical and ecological means of transportation,” said Edeon Vaz, the executive director of Adecon, a group representing shipping logistics businesses in the region. He rebuffed the pressure from indigenous movements and non-profit organizations, adding that a decision to auction the Tapajós will take time, and may occur only in 2027.For now, the protest’s impacts to the global commodity trade may be limited, even though Brazil is in the middle of the harvest of soybeans, the country’s main export crop. The protests are in an area near Cargill’s terminal in Santarém that’s used as the entrance for loaded trucks, but most of the soybeans shipped via that terminal arrive in river barges.Still, the protests are a symptom of Brazil’s fragile environmental protection system. Brazil’s national Indigenous movement and political parties, with support from environmental nonprofits, are now questioning the new licensing law at the Supreme Court, adding uncertainty on what will be the policy for Amazon infrastructure in the near future.“What the protests in Santarém are is the explicit face of a system that is disorganized, and that doesn’t know what to do for the Amazon, or when to do it,” said Marcello Brito, a professor at Fundação Dom Cabral who focuses on sustainable agriculture.Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.