Indigenous lands in Brazil under threat from mining and international banks and investors, a new report said.
The report, from the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples and nonprofit Amazon Watch, said that 570 mining companies have applied to mine approximately 10.1 million hectares of land, according to applications filed with the Brazilian Mining Agency (ANM) as of November 2021.
Among these companies are Vale, Belo Sun, Potassio do Brasil, Glencore, AngloGold Ashanti, and Rio Tinto.
The Mined Amazon project identified 2,478 active mining applications which overlap 261 indigenous lands.
Anglo and Vale announced in 2021 that they would withdraw their mining applications to mine on indigenous lands.
The report alleges that Vale, Anglo American, Belo Sun Mining, and Glencore have requested a "Removal of Interference" which redraws mining regions to omit indigenous land from the area. However, occasionally these redrawn boundaries violate a Brazilian ordinance requiring that mining activities occur at least 10 kilometres away from indigenous lands.
Brazilian iron ore miner Vale has the highest number of active mining applications which overlap indigenous lands, with 75. Vale is followed by Anglo American, which has 65 mining applications in the system, followed up by the Minsur Group, with 35 active applications.
The organisations are particularly concerned because of two bills in Brazil's Congress, which would allow industrial development and mineral exploration on indigenous lands, as well as restrict the demarcation of indigenous lands.
The report also highlights the role of international banks in financing mineral projects on indigenous land. Vale, Anglo American, Belo Sun, Potassio do Brasil, companies from the Minsur Group, Glencore, AngloGold Ashanti, and Rio Tinto have received US$54.1 billion in financing.
Leading the financiers is Brazilian pension fund PREVI, which has invested over US$7.4 billion in these mining companies, followed by U.S.-based financial services company Capital Group which holds over US$7 billion in shares in these companies. Blackrock holds almost US$6.2 billion in shares, while Vanguard holds around US$1.6 billion in shares.
Between 2016 and 2021, the above-mentioned companies received US$12.2 billion for developing mining operations in Brazil, the report said.
The report calls on the Brazilian government to solidify its protection of indigenous lands and strengthen its environmental licensing system for mining projects. It also calls on mining companies worldwide to publicly oppose the bills before the Brazilian Congress and commit to not mining on Brazilian indigenous lands.
The report also demands that international financial institutions, as well as banks, create internal control and monitoring mechanism to ensure that funds are not supporting mining on indigenous lands. The report also calls for a worldwide ban on mining projects sourced from indigenous lands in Brazil.
Rio Tinto has said that information in this report is no longer correct.
"These were exploration titles that were relinquished by Rio Tinto quite a few years ago," a Rio Tinto spokesperson told Mining Magazine.
