Between Compensation and Silence: Environmental Necropolitics in the Legal Settlement for Full Reparation of the Mariana Disaster

This article offers a critical analysis of the 2024 Full and Definitive Legal Reparation Settlement, signed following the failure of the Fundão tailings dam. It argues that the settlement institutionalizes a form of environmental necropolitics by converting the Mariana (MG) disaster-crime into a matter of technical management and financial compensation. Rather than delivering substantive justice, the legal framework suppresses the ongoing suffering and territorial claims of the affected communities. Grounded in political ecology and critical legal studies, the research focuses on clauses concerning broad discharge, waiver of appeal and procedural closure, interpreted as legal mechanisms for silencing the affected communities. Focusing on the Doce River Basin - particularly in Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo - the study highlights how this model reinforces the coloniality of power by erasing local knowledge and lifestyles in favor of legal predictability. It concludes that the agreed-upon reparation fosters economic pacification rather than ecological, cultural and communal reconstruction.

Keywords:
Political Ecology; Environmental Justice; Territory and Territorialities; Mariana Disaster; Doce River Basin