By Anthony Boadle
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has seized on global fertilizer shortages caused by the Ukraine war to push for a law that would allow mining on indigenous reservations.
The government’s chief whip in the lower house of Congress gathered enough signatures on Tuesday to fast-track the bill known as PL 191/2020, which means that it could be put to a full vote without committee hearings, the speaker’s office said.
Brazil, one of the world’s top food producers and the largest importer of potash, relies on imports for 85% of fertilizer for its grain crops. A quarter of Brazil’s potash demand has usually been met by Russia, which halted exports.
Brazil has large reserves of potash underground in the Amazon rainforest, including in and around lands inhabited by indigenous people, whose concerns have held up some mining projects for years, notably the Autazes project controlled by Canadian investment bank Forbes & Manhattan.
Bolsonaro, who has cut back environmental enforcement in the Amazon and defunded the government’s indigenous protection agency Funai, has long pushed for more mining and commercial farming in the Amazon to create jobs and reduce poverty.
“This crisis between Ukraine and Russia is a good opportunity for us. We have a bill in Congress that will allow us to exploit those indigenous lands,” he said on Monday in a radio interview.
Environmental and rights groups, geologists and even federal prosecutors warn that Bolsonaro is using the pretext of the Ukraine crisis to rush through a bill that would allow mining, oil exploration and hydroelectric dams on indigenous lands protected by Brazil’s constitution.
“These are activities that are not allowed today on indigenous lands,” said Suzi Huff Theodoro, a geologist and professor at the University of Brasilia.
Even if the mineral reserves are not exactly under protected indigenous lands, there should be a buffer area to insulate adjacent tribal communities from the social and environmental impacts of mining, she said.
The public prosecutor’s office for indigenous cases said in a statement that the bill was unconstitutional and could cause the disappearance of some indigenous tribes in the Amazon.
Brazil’s powerful farm lobby holds sway in Congress and backs passage of the bill, which could clear the lower house as soon as Wednesday if party whips agree to put it to a vote.
Brazilian researchers argued this week that Bolsonaro is falsely using the Ukraine crisis to advance the mining bill because most of the country’s proven potash reserves are not located under indigenous reservations.
Only one-third of these reserves are in the Amazon and just 11% are under lands claimed by indigenous communities, a study by the University of Minas Gerais has found.
The reserves could cover Brazil’s demands for potash through the year 2100, according to the study, which is to be published next week.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle, with additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan Oatis)
