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Economic, environmental and social threats of a mining exploration proposal on indigenous lands of Brazil

Ameaças econômicas, ambientais e sociais de uma proposta de exploração mineira em terras indígenas do Brasil

ABSTRACT

Deforestation, mining, pollution and the construction of hydroelectric plants are among the main risks for biological communities, ecosystems and indigenous peoples. In the Brazilian Amazon, historically there has been political pressure to reduce the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples, especially regarding mining activities and the construction of hydroelectric plants. This culminated in a law proposal allowing mining in indigenous lands (PL 191/2020), proposed during the last presidential term in Brazil (2018-2022), which sparked a heated debate in both the legal and ethical spheres. In this article we present objective arguments for the negative effects of mining on indigenous lands, using PL 191/2020 as a model to debate the consequences of such policies for biodiversity, ecosystem services, increased risks for humans due to pollutants and epidemics, and how this law violates the main objectives of the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development. Particularly in the Brazilian Amazon, the negative effects of this law on human life quality, economy and the ecosystems are greater than the supposed positive effects projected into the future. We suggest rethinking the feasibility of mining on indigenous lands and reiterate the importance of conserving these lands and other protected areas in the Amazon intact as a heritage of all Brazilians and the wider human kind.

KEYWORDS:
Amazon; biodiversity loss; disease; deforestation; ecosystem services; life quality

RESUMO

O desmatamento, a mineração, a poluição e a construção de usinas hidrelétricas estão entre os principais riscos para as comunidades biológicas, os ecossistemas e os povos indígenas. Na Amazônia brasileira, historicamente tem havido pressão política para reduzir os direitos constitucionais dos povos indígenas, especialmente no que diz respeito às atividades de mineração e à construção de usinas hidrelétricas. Isso culminou em uma proposta de lei que permite a mineração em terras indígenas (PL 191/2020), proposta durante o último mandato presidencial no Brasil (2018-2022), que gerou um acalorado debate tanto na esfera jurídica quanto na esfera ética. Neste artigo apresentamos argumentos objetivos para os efeitos negativos da mineração em terras indígenas, usando o PL 191/2020 como modelo para debater as consequências de tais políticas para a biodiversidade, os serviços ecossistêmicos, o aumento dos riscos para os seres humanos devido a poluentes e epidemias, e como esta lei viola os principais objetivos da Agenda 2030 para o desenvolvimento sustentável. Particularmente na Amazônia brasileira, os efeitos negativos desta lei sobre a qualidade de vida humana, a economia e os ecossistemas são maiores do que os supostos efeitos positivos projetados para o futuro. Sugerimos repensar a viabilidade da mineração em terras indígenas e reiterar a importância de conservar intactas essas terras e outras áreas protegidas na Amazônia como patrimônio de todos os brasileiros e da humanidade em geral.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Amazônia; desmatamento; doenças; perda de biodiversidade; qualidade de vida; serviços ecossistêmicos

INTRODUCTION

The exponential growth of the human population in the last 300 years and the consequent demand for resources have led to an extensive reduction and modification of the original vegetation cover worldwide (Gerland et al. 2014Gerland, P.; Raftery, A.E.; Ševčíková, H.; Li, N.; Gu, D.; Spoorenberg, T.; et al. 2014. World population stabilization unlikely this century. Science 346: 234-237.; Crist et al. 2017Crist, E.; Mora, C.; Engelman, R. 2017. The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Science 356: 260-264.; Johnson and Munshi-South 2017Johnson, M.T.J.; Munshi-South, J. 2017. Evolution of life in urban environments. Science 358: eaam8327.; McDonald et al. 2019McDonald, R.I.; Mansur, A. V.; Ascensão, F.; Colbert, M.; Crossman, K.; Elmqvist, T.; et al. 2019. Research gaps in knowledge of the impact of urban growth on biodiversity. Nature Sustainability 3: 16-24.). Habitat loss is one of the main processes responsible for the global biodiversity crisis (Sala et al. 2000Sala, O.E.; Stuart Chapin, F. III; Armesto, J.J.; Berlow, E.; Bloomfield, J.; et al. 2000. Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science 287: 1770-1774.; Hanski 2005Hanski, I. 2005. Landscape fragmentation, biodiversity loss and the societal response. EMBO Reports 6: 388-392.; Cardinale et al. 2012Cardinale, B.J.; Duffy, J.E.; Gonzalez, A.; Hooper, D.U.; Perrings, C.; Venail, P.; et al. 2012. Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature 486: 59-67.; Dirzo et al. 2014Dirzo, R.; Young, H.S.; Galetti, M.; Ceballos, G.; Isaac, N.J.B.; Collen, B. 2014. Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science 345: 401-406.; Chase et al. 2020Chase, J.M.; Blowes, S.A.; Knight, T.M.; Gerstner, K.; May, F. 2020. Ecosystem decay exacerbates biodiversity loss with habitat loss. Nature 584: 238-243.). In Brazil, external and internal political pressures contribute to the increase of deforestation, mainly linked to the export of soy and other commodities, to the detriment of the development of other industries (Kim and Tromp 2021Kim, T.-J.; Tromp, N. 2021. Carbon emissions embodied in China-Brazil trade: Trends and driving factors. Journal of Cleaner Production 293: 126206.). Internally, the approval of the current Brazilian forest code (see Ruaro et al. 2021Ruaro, R.; Ferrante, L.; Fearnside, P.M. 2021. Brazil’s doomed environmental licensing. Science 372: 1049-1050.) and the recent approval of a restrictive timeframe for the demarcation of indigenous lands (IL) (Law 14.701, Brasil 2023aBrasil. 2023a. Lei nº 14.701, de 20 outubro 2023. Dispõe sobre o marco temporal das terras indígenas. ( (https://www.in.gov.br/en/web/dou/-/lei-n-14.701-de-20-de-outubro-de-2023-517807334 ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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) are main potential drivers of deforestation. The newly approved legislation determines that the demarcation of IL is only warranted to indigenous peoples who were occupying the reclaimed ancestral lands by the date of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of Brazil, on October 5, 1988. Today, IL correspond to 14% of the Brazilian territory, most of them in the Brazilian Amazon, of which 443 IL had their demarcation process already approved, and 237 are still in the process of determining the limits of the reclaimed areas (FUNAI 2021FUNAI. 2021. Demarcação de Terras Indígenas. Fundação Nacional do Índio, Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública. ( (https://www.gov.br/funai/pt-br/atuacao/terras-indigenas/demarcacao-de-terras-indigenas ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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). The demarcation of IL does not aim at ecosystem and biodiversity conservation (Law No. 6001, Brasil 1973Brasil. 1973. Lei nº 6.001, de 19 dezembro 1973. Estatuto do Índio. ( (https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l6001.htm ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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), yet the delimited ancestral areas and their biodiversity are of high cultural importance for indigenous communities (Magnusson et al. 2018Magnusson, W.E.; Grelle, C.E. V.; Marques, M.C.M.; Rocha, C.F.D.; Dias, B.; Fontana, C.S.; et al. 2018. Effects of Brazil’s political crisis on the science needed for biodiversity conservation. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 6: 163. doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2018.00163
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), and IL also act as reservoirs of native fauna and flora, preserving ecosystem services such as high rates of carbon fixation (Nolte et al. 2013Nolte, C.; Agrawal, A.; Silvius, K.M.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2013. Governance regime and location influence avoided deforestation success of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110: 4956-4961.), and inhibiting deforestation and fires (Nepstad et al. 2006Nepstad, D.; Schwartzman, S.; Bamberger, B.; Santilli, M.; Ray, D.; Schlesinger, P.; et al. 2006. Inhibition of Amazon deforestation and fire by parks and indigenous lands. Conservation Biology 20: 65-73.). Therefore, IL are considered important and effective areas for landscape, ecosystem and biodiversity conservation worldwide (Garnett et al. 2018Garnett, S.T.; Burgess, N.D.; Fa, J.E.; Fernández-Llamazares, Á.; Molnár, Z.; Robinson, C.J.; et al. 2018. A spatial overview of the global importance of indigenous lands for conservation. Nature Sustainability 1: 369-374.; Schuster et al. 2019Schuster, R.; Germain, R.R.; Bennett, J.R.; Reo, N.J.; Arcese, P. 2019. Vertebrate biodiversity on indigenous-managed lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada equals that in protected areas. Environmental Science & Policy 101: 1-6.; Resende et al. 2021Resende, F.M.; Cimon-Morin, J.; Poulin, M.; Meyer, L.; Joner, D.C.; Loyola, R. 2021. The importance of protected areas and Indigenous lands in securing ecosystem services and biodiversity in the Cerrado. Ecosystem Services 49: 101282.).

The Brazilian Constitution prohibits any economic activity to be carried out by non-indigenous people in IL, such as mining. However, historically Brazilian IL suffer from illegal mining exploitation and this has generated a series of social conflicts such as the death of indigenous people and illegal miners (Rorato et al. 2020Rorato, A.C.; Camara, G.; Escada, M.I.S.; Picoli, M.C.A.; Moreira, T.; Verstegen, J.A. 2020. Brazilian Amazon indigenous peoples threatened by mining bill. Environmental Research Letters 15: 1040a3.; Machado and Garnelo 2021Machado, F.R. S.; Garnelo, L. 2021. A longa reforma sanitária indígena. In: Pontes, A.L.M.; Machado, F.R.S.; Santos, R.V. (Eds.). Políticas Antes da Política de Saúde Indígena. Editora FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, p.277-307.), and environmental problems such as river pollution and deforestation (Sonter et al. 2017Sonter, L.J.; Herrera, D.; Barrett, D.J.; Galford, G.L.; Moran, C.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2017. Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Nature Communications 8: 1013. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w
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). In recent years, due to increasingly omissive and permissive policies by the Brazilian federal government, there has been an invasion of illegal gold miners in IL, leading to a humanitarian disaster among the indigenous inhabitants due to malaria outbreaks, famine and water pollution by mining waste (Rorato et al. 2017; Watts 2023Watts, J. 2023. Health emergency over Brazil's Yanomami people. The Lancet 401: P631.). Unfortunately, illegal mining is also prevalent among Amazonian indigenous tribes (Silva et al. 2023da Silva, G.E.D.L.; da Silva Santos, L. 2023. Alternativas para legalização do garimpo na Reserva Garimpeira do Médio Tapajós. Research, Society and Development 12: e89121243959.), and there is growing pressure for its legalization (Mataveli et al. 2022Mataveli, G.; Chaves, M.; Guerrero, J.; Escobar-Silva, E.V.; Conceição, K.; de Oliveira, G. 2022. Mining is a growing threat within indigenous lands of the Brazilian Amazon. Remote Sensing 14: 4092.; Villén-Perez et al. 2022Villén-Pérez, S.; Anaya-Valenzuela, L.; da Cruz, D. C.; Fearnside, P. M. 2022. Mining threatens isolated indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon. Global Environmental Change 72: 102398.).

The mining sector wields significant political influence globally, potentially swaying decision-makers (Coelho et al. 2021Coelho, T.P.; Oliveira, M. L. C.; Neyra, R.; Mudrek, C.; Trocate, C., Campos, C. M. 2021. The crimes of mining companies and the popular struggle towards mining. Ambiente e Sociedade. 24: 1-10. doi.org/10.1590/1809-4422asoc20210158vu2021L5NR
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). This influence is evident in the Brazilian National Congress, which has a history of imposing restrictions on indigenous peoples’ rights (Machado and Garnelo 2021Machado, F.R. S.; Garnelo, L. 2021. A longa reforma sanitária indígena. In: Pontes, A.L.M.; Machado, F.R.S.; Santos, R.V. (Eds.). Políticas Antes da Política de Saúde Indígena. Editora FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, p.277-307.), with significant environmental consequences. A recent example is a law proposal from 2020 (PL 191/2020, https://bit.ly/3dyURv0), which aims to legalize mining within IL as a pseudo-partnership between indigenous tenants and mining enterprises, lacking proper legal backing and consultation with local tribes and entrepreneurs (Alkmin 2022Alkmin, F. 2022. The legislature and the anti-indigenous offensive in Brazil: ananalysis of the proposals in the Brazilian Congress concerning indigenous lands (1989-2021). Criminological Encounters 5: 70-89.). Recently, a grassroots organization of indigenous peoples (Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil, APIB) submitted a plea (https://rb.gy/r7nvp) to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples arguing the unconstitutionality of PL 191/2020, which is still under consideration in the Chamber of Deputies. The recently elected President, Lula da Silva, requested the repeal of the controversial PL 191/2020Silva-Junior, C.H.L.; Pessôa, A.C.M.; Carvalho, N.S.; Reis, J.B.C.; Anderson, L.O.; Aragão, L.E.O.C. 2020. The Brazilian Amazon deforestation rate in 2020 is the greatest of the decade. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5: 144-145., which was ultimately removed by its author. However, the recently approved equally controversial time frame for IL demarcation (Law 14.701, Brasil 2023aBrasil. 2023a. Lei nº 14.701, de 20 outubro 2023. Dispõe sobre o marco temporal das terras indígenas. ( (https://www.in.gov.br/en/web/dou/-/lei-n-14.701-de-20-de-outubro-de-2023-517807334 ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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) has the potential to bolster the return of PL 191/2020 or the proposal of a similar law. In fact, throughout history, there has been a continuous tendency to undermine the rights of indigenous peoples, posing threats to their health and way of life (Machado and Garnelo 2021; Alkmin 2022), especially among those groups that have had minimal contact with outsiders, such as some uncontacted Amazonian ethnic groups.

PL 191/2020 examplifies the level of pressure of the mining industry indigenous communities and the potential threat to IL as vital biodiversity strongholds (Alkmin 2022Alkmin, F. 2022. The legislature and the anti-indigenous offensive in Brazil: ananalysis of the proposals in the Brazilian Congress concerning indigenous lands (1989-2021). Criminological Encounters 5: 70-89.). PL 191/2020 aims to regulate § 3 of Article 231 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution, which allows the effective use of water resources, including their energy potential, and the prospection and mining of mineral resources on IL after authorization by the National Congress, and hearing the affected communities and ensuring their participation in the mining profits, which must be established by law. It also aims to regulate § 1 of Article 176, which establishes that all mineral resources and hydraulic energy potential belong to the Federal Government, guaranteeing its concessionaire ownership of the resources, and that specific conditions for developing these activities on IL must be defined by law. Therefore, PL 121/2020 would regulate the above-mentioned paragraphs to establish the specific conditions for mining, hydrocarbon prospection, and the use of water resources for hydroelectric power on IL, including a compensation mechanism of profit sharing for the indigenous communities.

However, PL 191/2020 focuses on development without taking into account that the proposed economic activities can directly cause a drastic change in land cover and several environmental characteristics. Indirectly, deforestation in IL results in the loss of ecosystem services and, consequently, loss of productivity and life quality for local communities, indigenous or not (Keesing et al. 2006Keesing, F.; Holt, R.D.; Ostfeld, R.S. 2006. Effects of species diversity on disease risk. Ecology Letters 9: 485-498.; Siqueira-Gay et al. 2020Siqueira-Gay, J.; Soares-Filho, B.; Sanchez, L.E.; Oviedo, A.; Sonter, L.J. 2020. Proposed legislation to mine Brazil’s indigenous lands will threaten Amazon forests and their valuable ecosystem services. One Earth 3: 356-362.). Profit-sharing payments will probably not cover the social, environmental and economic damage caused. Both legal and illegal mining on IL, along with the creation of PL 191/2020, have sparked numerous social and legal debates within the scientific community (Cunha 2018Cunha, M.C. 2018. Indios na Constituição. Novos Estudos CEBRAP 37: 429-443; Alkmin 2022Alkmin, F. 2022. The legislature and the anti-indigenous offensive in Brazil: ananalysis of the proposals in the Brazilian Congress concerning indigenous lands (1989-2021). Criminological Encounters 5: 70-89.). Here we focus on the negative biological and environmental consequences of mining on IL by using the PL 191/2020 in its aim to regulate § 3 of Article 231 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution as a case study, considering four critical points (Figure 1): (i) loss of vegetation cover and biodiversity; (ii) loss of ecosystem services; (iii) loss of human health and life quality; and (iv) how the PL approval will entail negative consequences for the goals of the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development (UNO 2015UNO. 2015. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. United Nations Organization, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1. ( (https://www.refworld.org/docid/57b6e3e44.html ). Accessed on 11 Jan 2023.
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).

Figure 1
Flow chart summarizing the four points discussed. Arrows up or down indicate an increase or a decrease of components in relation to impacts of mining according to PL191/2020.

BIODIVERSITY LOSS

The exploitation of mineral resources represents a serious threat to biodiversity, as the increasing demand for metal ores and incentives for mining make it profitable for a high number of enterprises to operate in remote and preserved areas (Figure 1; Sonter et al. 2017Sonter, L.J.; Herrera, D.; Barrett, D.J.; Galford, G.L.; Moran, C.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2017. Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Nature Communications 8: 1013. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557...
). The mining activity promotes drastic losses of native vegetation cover both inside and outside the limits of the leased mining areas (Sonter et al. 2014aSonter, L.J.; Barrett, D.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S.; Moran, C.J. 2014a. Global demand for steel drives extensive land-use change in Brazil’s Iron Quadrangle. Global Environmental Change 26: 63-72., bSonter, L.J.; Moran, C.J.; Barrett, D.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2014b. Processes of land use change in mining regions. Journal of Cleaner Production 84: 494-501.). Over the last 20 years, there was a significant increase in deforestation rates of primary forest in the Brazilian Amazon (Silva-Junior et al. 2020Silva-Junior, C.H.L.; Pessôa, A.C.M.; Carvalho, N.S.; Reis, J.B.C.; Anderson, L.O.; Aragão, L.E.O.C. 2020. The Brazilian Amazon deforestation rate in 2020 is the greatest of the decade. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5: 144-145.) due to two main causes: (i) establishment of mining infrastructure and associated secondary deforestation (such as that associated with the opening of new roads and highways), urban spread (to support a growing workforce) and indirect economic activities stimulated by mining; and (ii) development of commodity supply chains (e.g. carbon for iron and steel manufacturing) (Sonter et al. 2017). The exploitation of water resources, such as the construction of hydroelectric plants, has similar consequences, due to direct deforestation of the reservoir area (Jiang et al. 2018Jiang, X.; Lu, D.; Moran, E.; Calvi, M.F.; Dutra, L.V.; Li, G. 2018. Examining impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam construction on land-cover changes using multitemporal Landsat imagery. Applied Geography 97: 35-47.), and possible indirect impacts involving infrastructure, labor support and structural changes in forest edges (Sanchez-Ribas et al 2012Sanchez-Ribas, J.; Parra-Henao, G.; Guimarães, A.É. 2012. Impact of dams and irrigation schemes in Anopheline (Diptera: Culicidae) bionomics and malaria epidemiology. Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo 54: 179-191.; Jiang et al. 2018).

Deforestation has long been proposed as a major cause of declining biodiversity worldwide (Daskalova et al. 2020Daskalova, G.N.; Myers-Smith, I.H.; Bjorkman, A.D.; Blowes, S.A.; Supp, S.R.; Magurran, A.E.; et al. 2020. Landscape-scale forest loss as a catalyst of population and biodiversity change. Science 368: 1341-1347.). Although mining is not mentioned as a threat to many species by IUCN (Maxwell et al. 2016Maxwell, S.; Fuller, R.; Brooks, T.; et al. 2016. Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers. Nature 536: 143-145.), vegetation suppression is unavoidable to carry out a mining enterprise. In fact, 153 large and medium-sized mammal species have already been impacted by mining, and 20% of these are threatened with extinction (Martins-Oliveira et al. 2021Martins-Oliveira, A.T.; Zanin, M.; Canale, G.R.; da Costa, C.A.; Eisenlohr, P.V.; de Melo, F.C.S.A.; et al. 2021. A global review of the threats of mining on mid-sized and large mammals. Journal for Nature Conservation 62: 126025.). In addition to the physical changes generated by mining, there are other indirect effects on the ecosystem, such as impairing hydrology, microclimate and nutrient flow (Sonter et al. 2014aSonter, L.J.; Barrett, D.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S.; Moran, C.J. 2014a. Global demand for steel drives extensive land-use change in Brazil’s Iron Quadrangle. Global Environmental Change 26: 63-72.; Jiang et al. 2018Jiang, X.; Lu, D.; Moran, E.; Calvi, M.F.; Dutra, L.V.; Li, G. 2018. Examining impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam construction on land-cover changes using multitemporal Landsat imagery. Applied Geography 97: 35-47.), negative impacts on biodiversity due to increased parasitism (Fecchio et al. 2021Fecchio, A.; Clark, N.J.; Bell, J.A.; Skeen, H.R.; Lutz, H.L.; De La Torre, G.M.; et al. 2021. Global drivers of avian haemosporidian infections vary across zoogeographical regions. Global Ecology and Biogeography 30: 2393-2406.), hunting, fauna trampling, and decrease of surrounding habitat quality (Merovich et al. 2021Merovich, G.T.; Hitt, N.P.; Merriam, E.R.; Jones, J.W. 2021. Response of aquatic life to coal mining in Appalachia. In: Zipper, C.E.; Skousen, J. (Eds). Appalachia’s Coal-Mined Landscapes, Springer, Cham. p.245-285. ). The incentive for mining within IL is potentially highly damaging because, despite IL are not classified as officially designated conservation units (CU), they act as important havens for environmental protection. Even if the protection measures currently applied are insufficient to prevent deforestation, indigenous-managed lands currently play a key role in the conservation of biodiversity (Jonas et al. 2014Jonas, H.D.; Barbuto, V.; Jonas, H.C.; Kothari, A.; Nelson, F. 2014. New steps of change: Looking beyond protected areas to consider other effective area-based conservation measures. PARKS 20: 111-128.; Schuster et al. 2019Schuster, R.; Germain, R.R.; Bennett, J.R.; Reo, N.J.; Arcese, P. 2019. Vertebrate biodiversity on indigenous-managed lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada equals that in protected areas. Environmental Science & Policy 101: 1-6.), as IL show lower deforestation rates compared to CU and unprotected areas (Nolte et al. 2013Nolte, C.; Agrawal, A.; Silvius, K.M.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2013. Governance regime and location influence avoided deforestation success of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110: 4956-4961.; Schuster et al. 2019). This higher effectiveness is owed to the interaction between environmental law enforcement agencies and the monitoring and control activities of local indigenous inhabitants (FUNAI 2021FUNAI. 2021. Demarcação de Terras Indígenas. Fundação Nacional do Índio, Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública. ( (https://www.gov.br/funai/pt-br/atuacao/terras-indigenas/demarcacao-de-terras-indigenas ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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). Therefore, ensuring the access to and permanence of indigenous people in their ancestral lands ensures the conservation of natural landscapes and biodiversity (Garnett et al. 2018Garnett, S.T.; Burgess, N.D.; Fa, J.E.; Fernández-Llamazares, Á.; Molnár, Z.; Robinson, C.J.; et al. 2018. A spatial overview of the global importance of indigenous lands for conservation. Nature Sustainability 1: 369-374.).

ECOSYSTEM SERVICE LOSS

Ecosystem services are benefits that natural ecosystems provide to humans, such as resource supply, regulation of hydrological and nutrient cycle, regulation of climate, and support for cultural values (Tallis and Kareiva 2005Tallis, H.; Kareiva, P. 2005. Ecosystem services. Current Biology 15: R746-R748.) (Figure 1). The loss of natural vegetation cover leads to a loss of ecosystem services (see Strand et al. 2018Strand, J.; Soares-Filho, B.; Costa, M.H.; Oliveira, U.; Ribeiro, S.C.; Pires, G.F.; et al. 2018. Spatially explicit valuation of the Brazilian Amazon Forest’s Ecosystem Services. Nature Sustainability 1: 657-664. for the Amazon). The extinction or partial loss of species can impair the decomposition, cycling and quality of soil nutrients (Hobbie 2015Hobbie, S.E. 2015. Plant species effects on nutrient cycling: revisiting litter feedbacks. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 30: 357-363.), decrease or extinguish the microbiota, increase erosive processes and decrease soil fertility (Seitz et al. 2015Seitz, S.; Goebes, P.; Zumstein, P.; Assmann, T.; Kühn, P.; Niklaus, P.A.; et al. 2015. The influence of leaf litter diversity and soil fauna on initial soil erosion in subtropical forests. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 40: 1439-1447.), and reduce carbon capture and storage (Le Quéré et al. 2018Le Quéré, C.; Andrew, R.M.; Friedlingstein, P.; Sitch, S.; Hauck, J.; Pongratz, J.; et al. 2018. Global carbon budget 2018. Earth System Science Data 10: 2141-2194.).

Climate regulation is a basal ecosystem service of increasing importance worldwide, due to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in the persistence of protected areas ensures the maintenance of “protected carbon”, including billions of tons of carbon stored in forests (Campbell et al. 2008Campbell, A.; Clark, S.; Coad, L.; Miles, L.; Bolt, K.; Roe, D. 2008. Protecting the future: Carbon, forests, protected areas and local livelihoods. Biodiversity 9: 117-121.). Deforestation and forest degradation contribute approximately 15% of the global greenhouse gas emissions (van der Werf et al. 2009van der Werf, G.R.; Morton, D.C.; DeFries, R.S.; Olivier, J.G.J.; Kasibhatla, P.S.; Jackson, R.B.; et al. 2009. CO2 emissions from forest loss. Nature Geoscience 2: 737-738.). In contrast, government actions to protect IL contribute directly to carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (Nolte et al. 2013Nolte, C.; Agrawal, A.; Silvius, K.M.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2013. Governance regime and location influence avoided deforestation success of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110: 4956-4961.).

In 2021, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) established the Declaration of Leaders on Forests and Land Use, signed by 141 countries, to meet zero deforestation by 2030 and contain the increase of global temperature below 2°C (Lennan and Megera 2022Lennan, M.; Morgera, E. 2022. The Glasgow Climate Conference (COP26). The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, 37: 137-151. ). The Brazilian government, a signatory country, presented a set of guidelines for a strategic agenda focused on climate neutrality, with measures to eliminate illegal deforestation by 2028, restore and reforest 18 million ha of forests and reach rates of 45-50% of renewable energy in the energy matrix by 2030 (Resolution nr. 3, Brasil 2021Brasil. 2021. Resolução nº 3, de 9 abril 2021. Plano Amazônia 2021/2022. ( (https://www.in.gov.br/en/web/dou/-/resolucao-n-3-de-9-de-abril-de-2021-314033004 ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
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). However, the increase in deforestation, little effective reforestation, and scarce government incentives for reforestation recorded at the time of writing this manuscript, do not indicate a tendency to neutralize deforestation or reach restoration targets by 2030. Any initiative or omission that results in an increase in deforestation infringes upon Brazil’s role as a signatory of the COP26 declaration. Beyond the effects on regional climate, missing the COP26 targets may have a strong effect on the international credibility of Brazil, removing large areas of forest from the world carbon market. As part of a recent amendment effort, the Brazilian government has issued Decree #11550, outlining procedures for the development of sectoral plans aimed at mitigating climate change through the National System for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Brasil 2023bBrasil. 2023b. Decreto n° 11.550, de 05 de junho 2023. Dispõe sobre o Comitê Interministerial sobre Mudança do Clima. ( (https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/decret/2023/decreto-11550-5-junho-2023-794268-publicacaooriginal-168010-pe.html ). Accessed on 17 Dec 2023.
https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/dec...
).

Among the most perceptible impacts of climate change in Brazil is water shortage, which has been recently compromising both water and hydroelectricity supply (Jardim 2015Jardim, C.H. 2015. A “crise hídrica” no sudeste do Brasil: Aspectos climáticos e repercussões ambientais. Revista Tamoios 11: 67-83. ). One of the most important ecosystem services provided by the forests of protected areas is the provision, maintenance and purification of water available for human use (Larsen et al. 2012Larsen, F.W.; Turner, W.R.; Brooks, T.M. 2012. Conserving critical sites for biodiversity provides disproportionate benefits to people. PLoS ONE 7: e36971.). For example, many aquatic plants can remove pollutants and toxic substances from water reservoirs, also avoiding contamination of freshwater and groundwater (Pang et al. 2023Pang, Y.L.; Yen, Y.Q.; Steven, L.; Siew, H.S. 2023. Review on phytoremediation potential of floating aquatic plants for heavy metals: A promising approach. Sustainability 15: 1290. doi.org/10.3390/su15021290
https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021290...
). Ecosystem services are not only qualitative and ethereal concepts, as they can be quantified financially. For example, the impact on an area within a 70-km radius around mining projects in the Amazon was estimated to amount to a loss of USD 5 billion per year (ca. BRL 25 billion per year; exchange rate as of December 2023) in ecosystem services for food production, raw material supply, mitigation of greenhouse gasses and climate regulation (Siqueira-Gay et al. 2020Siqueira-Gay, J.; Soares-Filho, B.; Sanchez, L.E.; Oviedo, A.; Sonter, L.J. 2020. Proposed legislation to mine Brazil’s indigenous lands will threaten Amazon forests and their valuable ecosystem services. One Earth 3: 356-362.). Therefore, the notion that mining in the Brazilian Amazon boosts local economic growth, stimulated by the increase in employment and wage values, as well as greater agricultural production is contradictory (Sonter et al. 2017Sonter, L.J.; Herrera, D.; Barrett, D.J.; Galford, G.L.; Moran, C.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2017. Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Nature Communications 8: 1013. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557...
).

Following the loss of ecosystem services, local communities need to forgo several resources and cultural traits associated with the acquisition of food and drinking water. Therefore, the benefit of mining for local communities, indigenous or not, in the vicinity of mines is unreliable and, at least, context-dependent. The several dimensions of the potential impact across several ecosystem services should be factored into the calculation of financial compensation schemes for the implementation of mining projects in IL instead of simply considering a net percentage of profits.

INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND LIFE QUALITY

Contamination risk

There are prevalent examples of contamination of soil and water by mercury and other pollutants in mining regions in Brazil (Uryu et al. 2001Uryu, Y.; Malm, O.; Thornton, I.; Payne, I.; Cleary, D. 2001. Mercury contamination of fish and its implications for other wildlife of the tapajos basin, Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Biology 15: 438-446.; Hylander et al. 2006Hylander, L.D.; Gröhn, J.; Tropp, M.; Vikström, A.; Wolpher, H.; de Castro e Silva, E.; et al. 2006. Fish mercury increase in Lago Manso, a new hydroelectric reservoir in tropical Brazil. Journal of Environmental Management 81: 155-166.; Costa 2011Costa, D.M. 2011. Archaeo-environmental study of the Almas river: mining pollution and the Cerrado biome in the end of the nineteenth century in Mid-Western, Brazil. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 3497-3504.; Ferreira Portela et al. 2019Ferreira-Portela, J.; Rudrigues de Souza, J.P.; de Sousa Tonhá, M.; Elias Bernardi, J.V.; Garnier, J.; Rodrigues SouzaDe, J. 2019. Evaluation of total mercury in sediments of the Descoberto River Environmental Protection Area, Brazil. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17: 154. doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010154
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010154...
) and other countries such as the United States (Stamenkovic et al. 2004Stamenkovic, J.; Gustin, M.S.; Marvin-DiPasquale, M.C.; Thomas, B.A.; Agee, J.L. 2004. Distribution of total and methyl mercury in sediments along Steamboat Creek (Nevada, USA). Science of The Total Environment 322: 167-177.), Indonesia (Castilhos et al. 2006Castilhos, Z.C.; Rodrigues-Filho, S.; Rodrigues, A.P.C.; Villas-Bôas, R.C.; Siegel, S.; Veiga, M.M.; et al. 2006. Mercury contamination in fish from gold mining areas in Indonesia and human health risk assessment. Science of The Total Environment 368: 320-325.) and China (Feng et al. 2006Feng, X.; Dai, Q.; Qiu, G.; Li, G.; He, L.; Wang, D. 2006. Gold mining related mercury contamination in Tongguan, Shaanxi Province, PR China. Applied Geochemistry 21: 1955-1968.). River contamination by mercury from gold extraction has directly and indirectly caused deaths among the indigenous Yanomami people, which has recently gained international media attention (Barbosa et al. 1995Barbosa, A.C.; Boischio, A.A.; East, G.A.; Ferrari, I.; Gonçalves, A.; Silva, P.R.M.; et al. 1995. Mercury contamination in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental and occupational aspects. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 80: 109-121.; Vasconcellos et al. 2018Vasconcellos, A.C.S.; Barrocas, P.R.G.; Ruiz, C.M.V.; Mourão, D. de S.; Hacon, S. de S. 2018. Burden of mild mental retardation attributed to prenatal methylmercury exposure in Amazon: local and regional estimates. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 23: 3535-3545.; Vega et al. 2018Vega, C.; Orellana, J.; Oliveira, M.; Hacon, S.; Basta, P. 2018. Human mercury exposure in yanomami indigenous villages from the Brazilian Amazon. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15: 1051. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15061051
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15061051...
). The current gold mining activity in the middle Tapajós River region results in the consumption of fish contaminated with mercury 25-fold in excess of the acceptable rates, threatening the survival of the Mundukuru indigenous population (Vasconcellos et al. 2021). Besides mercury, evidence suggests that the extraction of hydrocarbons can also have potential impacts on the health of people directly exposed to oil spills, or living close to contaminated extraction sites (Aguilera et al. 2010Aguilera, F.; Mendez, J.; Pasaro, E.; Laffon, B. 2010. Review on the effects of exposure to spilled oils on human health. Journal of Applied Toxicology 30: 291-301.; Johnston et al. 2019Johnston, J.E.; Lim, E.; Roh, H. 2019. Impact of upstream oil extraction and environmental public health: A review of the evidence. Science of the Total Environment 657: 187-199.). Such impacts are associated with acute physical, psychological, genotoxic and endocrine effects (Aguilera et al. 2010), as well as cancer, liver damage, immunodeficiency and neurological symptoms (Johnston et al. 2019).

Another predicted detrimental impact of mining legalization in IL is the increased pressure to build hydroelectric dams (as proposed by PL191/2020), since forest clear-cutting and flooding of lands associated with reservoir formation promote the mobilization of inorganic mercury present in relatively high concentrations in Amazonian soils, and its transformation in methylmercury (MeHg) (Bisinoti and Jardim 2004Bisinoti, M.C.; Jardim, W.F. 2004. O comportamento do metilmercúrio (metilHg) no ambiente. Química Nova 27: 593-600. ; Hylander et al. 2006Hylander, L.D.; Gröhn, J.; Tropp, M.; Vikström, A.; Wolpher, H.; de Castro e Silva, E.; et al. 2006. Fish mercury increase in Lago Manso, a new hydroelectric reservoir in tropical Brazil. Journal of Environmental Management 81: 155-166.; Adler Miserendino et al. 2018Adler Miserendino, R.; Guimarães, J.R.D.; Schudel, G.; Ghosh, S.; Godoy, J.M.; Silbergeld, E.K.; et al. 2018. Mercury pollution in Amapá, Brazil: Mercury amalgamation in artisanal and small-scale gold mining or land-cover and land-use changes? ACS Earth and Space Chemistry 2: 441-450.; Gomes et al. 2019Gomes, V.M.; dos Santos, A.; Zara, L.F.; Ramos, D.D.; Forti, J.C.; Ramos, D.D.; et al. 2019a. Study on mercury methylation in the amazonian rivers in flooded areas for hydroelectric use. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 230: 211. doi: 10.1007/s11270-019-4261-3
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-019-4261-...
). Similarly to mercury from mining, MeHg has high toxicity that can be transferred across trophic webs, bioaccumulating in different organisms such as fish (Uryu et al. 2001Uryu, Y.; Malm, O.; Thornton, I.; Payne, I.; Cleary, D. 2001. Mercury contamination of fish and its implications for other wildlife of the tapajos basin, Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Biology 15: 438-446.; Hylander et al. 2006), that is the main vector of MeHg contamination in humans (Bisinoti and Jardim 2004;Vasconcellos et al. 2021Vasconcellos, A.C.S.; Hallwass, G.; Bezerra, J.G.; Aciole, A.N.S.; Meneses, H.N.d.M.; Lima, M.d.O.; Jesus, I.M.d.; Hacon, S.d.S.; Basta, P.C. 2021. Health risk assessment of mercury exposure from fish consumption in Munduruku indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18: 7940. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18157940.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157940...
). MeHg intoxication causes serious health problems and, in cases of severe contamination, can cause blindness and death (Cano 2014Cano, T.M. 2014. Efeitos deletérios e teratogênicos da exposição ao mercúrio - revisão da literatura. Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira 3: 288-300.; Gomes et al. 2019).

Epidemic disease risk

Beyond environmental contaminants, new epidemics of zoonotic origin have emerged due to rapid and uncontrolled changes in land use (Figure 1), particularly in rainforests in developing countries (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2011Lambin, E.F.; Meyfroidt, P. 2011. Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 3465-3472.; Nava et al. 2017Nava, A.; Shimabukuro, J.S.; Chmura, A.A.; Luz, S.L.B. 2017. The impact of global environmental changes on infectious disease emergence with a focus on risks for Brazil. ILAR Journal 58: 393-400.). In the Amazon region, a direct relationship has been established between ecosystem degradation and the increase in cases of several diseases, such as malaria (Barros and Honório 2015Barros, F.S.M.; Honório, N.A. 2015. Deforestation and malaria on the Amazon frontier: Larval clustering of Anopheles darlingi (Diptera: Culicidae) determines focal distribution of malaria. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 93: 939-953.; Baeza et al. 2017Baeza, A.; Santos-Vega, M.; Dobson, A.P.; Pascual, M. 2017. The rise and fall of malaria under land-use change in frontier regions. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1: 108. doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0108
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0108...
; McDonald et al. 2019McDonald, R.I.; Mansur, A. V.; Ascensão, F.; Colbert, M.; Crossman, K.; Elmqvist, T.; et al. 2019. Research gaps in knowledge of the impact of urban growth on biodiversity. Nature Sustainability 3: 16-24.), dengue (Cheong et al. 2014Cheong, Y.L.; Leitão, P.J.; Lakes, T. 2014. Assessment of land use factors associated with dengue cases in Malaysia using boosted regression trees. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology 10: 75-84.; de Sousa et al. 2021de Sousa, S.C.; Carneiro, M.; Eiras, Á.E.; Bezerra, J.M.T.; Barbosa, D.S. 2021. Factors associated with the occurrence of dengue epidemics in Brazil: a systematic review. Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública 45: e84. ), paracoccidioidomycosis (do Valle et al. 2017do Valle, A.C.F.; Marques de Macedo, P.; Almeida-Paes, R.; Romão, A.R.; Lazéra, M. dos S.; Wanke, B. 2017. Paracoccidioidomycosis after highway construction, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Emerging Infectious Diseases 23: 1917-1919.), cutaneous leishmaniasis (Chagas et al. 2006Chagas, A.C.; Pessoa, F.S.C.; Medeiros, J.F.; Py-Daniel, V.; Mesquisa, W.C.; Balestrassi, D.A. 2006. Leishmaniose tegumentar americana (LTA) em uma vila de exploração de minérios - Pitinga, município de Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas, Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia 9: 186-192), and emergence-reemergence of diseases of arboviral origin (Favoretto et al. 2019Favoretto, S.R.; Araujo, D.B.; Duarte, N.F.H.; Oliveira, D.B.L.; da Crus, N.G.; Mesquita, F.; et al. 2019. Zika virus in peridomestic neotropical primates, northeast Brazil. EcoHealth 16: 61-69.). Malaria cases have significantly increased in areas subject to illegal mining on Yanomami lands, causing deaths particularly among children (Barros et al. 2021Barros, J.A; Granja, F.; Pequeno, P.; Marchesini, P.; Ferreira Da Cruz, M.D.F. 2022. Gold miners augment malaria transmission in indigenous territories of Roraima state, Brazil. Malaria Journal, 21: 358. doi.org/10.1186/s12936-022-04381-6
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-022-04381...
). In addition to the aforementioned diseases, the Amazon is considered a potential source of upcoming pandemics, with particular concern at deforestation edges (Ferrante et al. 2021Ferrante, L.; Barbosa, R.I.; Duczmal, L.; Fearnside, P.M. 2021. Brazil’s planned exploitation of Amazonian indigenous lands for commercial agriculture increases risk of new pandemics. Regional Environmental Change 21: 81. doi:10.1007/s10113-021-01819-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01819...
), emphasizing the need for policies to control changes in land use.

Thus, the installation of a mine in an IL, or in its vicinity, imposes health risks to the indigenous populations due to increased abundance of infected human hosts, vectors (e.g., mosquitoes), and points of contact between humans, vectors and pathogens (bacteria, viruses and parasites). Vectors are favored by intermediate environments suitable for reproduction (Barros and Honório 2015Barros, F.S.M.; Honório, N.A. 2015. Deforestation and malaria on the Amazon frontier: Larval clustering of Anopheles darlingi (Diptera: Culicidae) determines focal distribution of malaria. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 93: 939-953.), vector behavior changes (e.g., increased synchronicity of mosquitoes feeding times with human activity peaks) and genetic and phenotypic changes in pathogenic organisms (Shibeshi et al. 2020Shibeshi, M.A.; Kifle, Z.D.; Atnafie, S.A. 2020. Antimalarial drug resistance and novel targets for antimalarial drug discovery. Infection and Drug Resistance 13: 4047-4060.). Changes in phenotypic frequencies of vectors and pathogens can occur due to increased resistance to pesticides (Hemingway et al. 2016Hemingway, J.; Ranson, H.; Magill, A.; Kolaczinski, J.; Fornadel, C.; Gimnig, J.; et al. 2016. Averting a malaria disaster: will insecticide resistance derail malaria control? The Lancet 387: 1785-1788.) and drugs (Shibeshi et al. 2020). Among the many ecosystem services lost through human actions, the regulation and mitigation of diseases is paramount. Preserved forest areas not only act as reserves of potential epidemic agents, but also as disease buffers (Keesing et al. 2006Keesing, F.; Holt, R.D.; Ostfeld, R.S. 2006. Effects of species diversity on disease risk. Ecology Letters 9: 485-498.). Several mechanisms by which biodiversity can regulate the emergence of infectious diseases have been identified. A high host diversity may act as ecological traps buffering the spread of Lyme disease (Keesing et al. 2006). A high bird diversity has been associated with low incidence of the West Nile virus (Swaddle and Calos 2008Swaddle, J.P.; Calos, S.E. 2008. Increased avian diversity is associated with lower incidence of human west nile infection: observation of the dilution effect. PLoS ONE 3: e2488.). A high diversity of aquatic organisms has been associated with low rates of schistosomiasis (Johnston et al. 2019Johnston, J.E.; Lim, E.; Roh, H. 2019. Impact of upstream oil extraction and environmental public health: A review of the evidence. Science of the Total Environment 657: 187-199.), and a high diversity of warm-blooded animals was directly associated with a decrease in the probability of contracting malaria (Laporta et al. 2013Laporta, G.Z.; de Prado, P.I.K.L.; Kraenkel, R.A.; Coutinho, R.M.; Sallum, M.A.M. 2013. Biodiversity can help prevent malaria outbreaks in tropical forests. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 7: e2139.). In this context, the activities that would be authorized by PL191/2020 implicate a high risk to local communities considering that i) mining activities are associated with an increased exposure to mosquitoes and frequency of cases of hantavirus and malaria (Bauch et al. 2015Bauch, S.C.; Birkenbach, A.M.; Pattanayak, S.K.; Sills, E.O. 2015. Public health impacts of ecosystem change in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112: 7414-7419.; Terças-Trettel et al. 2019Terças-Trettel, A.C.P.; de Oliveira, E.C.; Fontes, C.J.F.; de Melo, A.V.G.; de Oliveira, R.C.; Guterres, A.; et al. 2019. Malaria and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in gold mining in the Amazon region, Brazil. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16: 1852. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16101852.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16101852...
; Ellwanger et al. 2020Ellwanger, J.H.; Kulmann-Leal, B.; Kamiski, V.L.; Valverde-Villegas, J.M.; Veiga, A.B.G. Da; Spilki, F.R.; et al. 2020. Beyond diversity loss and climate change: Impacts of Amazon deforestation on infectious diseases and public health. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências 92: 1-33. doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202020191375
https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-37652020201...
); ii) the change in river dynamics to lentic environments due to dam construction is a major source of mosquito proliferation (Sanchez-Ribas et al. 2012Sanchez-Ribas, J.; Parra-Henao, G.; Guimarães, A.É. 2012. Impact of dams and irrigation schemes in Anopheline (Diptera: Culicidae) bionomics and malaria epidemiology. Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo 54: 179-191.; Brito et al. 2018Brito, M.T.F.M.; Aarão, T.L. de S.; Pinto, D. da S. 2018. Seroepidemiology of arbovirus in communities living under the influence of the lake of a hydroelectric dam in Brazil. Cadernos Saúde Coletiva 26: 1-6.), particularly the vectors of zika, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and malaria (Midega et al. 2012Midega, J.T.; Smith, D.L.; Olotu, A.; Mwangangi, J.M.; Nzovu, J.G.; Wambua, J.; et al. 2012. Wind direction and proximity to larval sites determines malaria risk in Kilifi District in Kenya. Nature Communications 3: 674. doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1672
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1672...
; Endo and Eltahir 2018aEndo, N.; Eltahir, E.A.B. 2018a. Modelling and observing the role of wind in Anopheles population dynamics around a reservoir. Malaria Journal 17: 48. doi.org/10.1186/s12936-018-2197-5
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-018-2197-...
,bEndo, N.; Eltahir, E.A.B. 2018b. Prevention of malaria transmission around reservoirs: an observational and modelling study on the effect of wind direction and village location. The Lancet Planetary Health 2: e406-e413.).

Studies on malaria, diarrhea and acute respiratory infections in the Amazon derived from mining exploitations and road construction in IL suggest that the profits produced will be far less than the health investment to alleviate these diseases (Bauch et al. 2015Bauch, S.C.; Birkenbach, A.M.; Pattanayak, S.K.; Sills, E.O. 2015. Public health impacts of ecosystem change in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112: 7414-7419.). Similarly, 0.7% of the benefits of produced energy for local communities, as proposed by PL191/2020, and the potential economic benefits obtained through the construction of hydroelectric plants and implementation of mining exploitation in IL do not contemplate the long-term governmental expenses with medical treatments, sanitation, and investment in health plans. In Slovakia, malaria-associated direct costs were estimated to amount to an average USD 970.75 per 30-year-old patient requiring hospital admission (Svihrova et al. 2009Svihrova, V.; Szilagyiova, M.; Krkoska, D.; Simekova, K.; Hudeckova, H.; Avdicova, M. 2009. Analysis of the direct and indirect costs of treatment of imported malaria in the Slovak Republic. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical 42: 377-380.). In the USA, the total costs of antimalarial treatments between 2000 and 2014 amounted to USD 555 million (USD 25,200 per patient under medical treatment) (Khuu et al. 2017Khuu, D.; Eberhard, M.L.; Bristow, B.N.; Javanbakht, M.; Ash, L.R.; Shafir, S.C.; et al. 2017. Malaria-related hospitalizations in the United States, 2000-2014. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 97: 213-221.). In Brazilian real (BRL, exchange rate as of December 2023) these values would be of BRL 5,500 and BRL 135,000 per patient, respectively. The economic burden of malaria is not only related to the eradication, but also to the costs of treatment, research and prevention plans (Andrade et al. 2022Andrade, M.V.; Noronha, K.; Diniz, B.P.C.; Guedes, G.; Carvalho, L.R.; Silva, V.A.; et al. 2022. The economic burden of malaria: a systematic review. Malaria Journal 21: 283.). In addition, in countries with high incidence of malaria, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.3% less per person and year, which is directly related to the number of days lost from work due to infection or recrudescence (Gallup and Sachs 2001Gallup, J.; Sachs, J. 2001. The economic burden of malaria. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 64: 85-96.). In Brazil, estimates of expenses with malaria do not take into account massive invasions by illegal miners, such as the recent one observed in Yanomami territory (Martins-Filho et al. 2023Martins-Filho, P.R.; Damascena, N.P.; Araujo, A.P.D; Silva, M.C.; Santiago, B.M.; Deitos, A.R.; Machado, C.E.P. 2023.The devastating impact of illegal mining on indigenous health: a focus on malaria in the Brazilian Amazon. EXCLI Journal. 22: 400-402. ; Watts 2023Watts, J. 2023. Health emergency over Brazil's Yanomami people. The Lancet 401: P631.). Being a disabling disease, malaria had a synergistic effect on the individual ability to obtain food, causing starvation.

RISK TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

In 2015, the United Nations proposed to its member countries, including Brazil, a new sustainable development agenda composed of 17 sustainable development goals (SDG), to be achieved in the next 15 years (UNO 2015UNO. 2015. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. United Nations Organization, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1. ( (https://www.refworld.org/docid/57b6e3e44.html ). Accessed on 11 Jan 2023.
https://www.refworld.org/docid/57b6e3e44...
). Meeting the goals of the agenda is a matter of citizenship, since it was built to meet the basic needs of people. However, it also entails issues related to international trade with countries concerned about the environment. The approval of mining in IL, as proposed by PL191/2020, contradicts the adherence to the goals of Agenda 2030 by Brazil, directly and negatively affecting at least seven out of the 17 SDG, i.e., SDG 2 - Health and well-being, SDG 6 - Drinking water and sanitation; SDG 11 - Sustainable cities and communities; SDG 12 - Responsible consumption and production; SDG 13 - Action against global climate change; SDG 14 - Life in water; and SDG 15 - Life on land. Considering only the potential deforestation caused by mining (Sonter et al. 2017Sonter, L.J.; Herrera, D.; Barrett, D.J.; Galford, G.L.; Moran, C.J.; Soares-Filho, B.S. 2017. Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Nature Communications 8: 1013. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00557...
) and hydroelectric dam construction (Jiang et al. 2018Jiang, X.; Lu, D.; Moran, E.; Calvi, M.F.; Dutra, L.V.; Li, G. 2018. Examining impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam construction on land-cover changes using multitemporal Landsat imagery. Applied Geography 97: 35-47.), would negatively affect SDG 13, once the key metric is forest cover, SDG 14, since forest cover directly influences the structure and biological diversity of freshwater ecosystems (Lo et al. 2020Lo, M.; Reed, J.; Castello, L.; Steel, E.A.; Frimpong, E.A.; Ickowitz, A. 2020. The influence of forests on freshwater fish in the tropics: a systematic review. BioScience 70: 404-414), and SDG 15, due to habitat loss and degradation of forest species.

Regarding the potential risk of environmental pollution, not only terrestrial (SDG 15) and aquatic (SDG 14) ecosystems will be affected (Uryu et al. 2001Uryu, Y.; Malm, O.; Thornton, I.; Payne, I.; Cleary, D. 2001. Mercury contamination of fish and its implications for other wildlife of the tapajos basin, Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Biology 15: 438-446.; Hylander et al. 2006Hylander, L.D.; Gröhn, J.; Tropp, M.; Vikström, A.; Wolpher, H.; de Castro e Silva, E.; et al. 2006. Fish mercury increase in Lago Manso, a new hydroelectric reservoir in tropical Brazil. Journal of Environmental Management 81: 155-166.; Costa 2011Costa, D.M. 2011. Archaeo-environmental study of the Almas river: mining pollution and the Cerrado biome in the end of the nineteenth century in Mid-Western, Brazil. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 3497-3504.; Ferreira Portela et al. 2019Ferreira-Portela, J.; Rudrigues de Souza, J.P.; de Sousa Tonhá, M.; Elias Bernardi, J.V.; Garnier, J.; Rodrigues SouzaDe, J. 2019. Evaluation of total mercury in sediments of the Descoberto River Environmental Protection Area, Brazil. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17: 154. doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010154
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010154...
; Gabriel et al. 2020Gabriel, F.Â.; Hauser-Davis, R.A.; Soares, L.; Mazzuco, A.C.A.; Rocha, R.C.C.; Saint Pierre, T.D.; et al. 2020. Contamination and oxidative stress biomarkers in estuarine fish following a mine tailing disaster. PeerJ 8: e10266.), but also drinking water availability (SDG 6; Mhlongo et al. 2018Mhlongo, S.; Mativenga, P.T.; Marnewick, A. 2018. Water quality in a mining and water-stressed region. Journal of Cleaner Production 171: 446-456.) and health and well-being of local communities (SDG 2; Aguilera et al. 2010Aguilera, F.; Mendez, J.; Pasaro, E.; Laffon, B. 2010. Review on the effects of exposure to spilled oils on human health. Journal of Applied Toxicology 30: 291-301.; Johnston et al. 2019Johnston, J.E.; Lim, E.; Roh, H. 2019. Impact of upstream oil extraction and environmental public health: A review of the evidence. Science of the Total Environment 657: 187-199.). Considering such environmental and social consequences, some policy caveats need attention if the promises to achieve responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and the establishment of sustainable cities and local communities (SDG 11) are to be attained.

CONCLUSION REMARKS

The proposal of mining, exploration of hydrocarbons and construction of hydroelectric plants in IL contradicts the compromise of the Brazilian government with the goals of Agenda 2030 to reduce and prevent environmental degradation to preserve natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystem services, which ultimately represents a great economic loss for the country. Given that indigenous reserves represent a significant percentage of preserved areas in the Brazilian Amazon, the changes caused by mining are expected to be catastrophic. Exploiting mineral, water and hydrocarbon resources within IL demonstrably causes immeasurable losses to the health of the indigenous inhabitants, especially by mercury-mediated contamination of water and soil and/or the spread of tropical diseases. By detailing compelling evidence, we suggest that any law similar to PL 191/2020, while entailing potential economic benefits to a few groups, will probably involve a great economic and life-quality loss for the local native communities. Recent historical experience in the Brazilian Amazon, as exemplified by the Yanomami case in Roraima state, shows that a strict adherence to control mechanisms established by law by mining activities cannot be expected, due to weak governance and law enforcement capabilities. However, even if the legislation is strictly followed, the project implies expenses for the nation, since the indigenous people are Brazilian citizens. Article 255 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution states that “Everyone has the right to an ecologically balanced environment, a good for common use by the people and essential to a healthy quality of life, imposing to the Public Power and the community the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations”. Indigenous peoples are Brazilian citizens, therefore they are equally entitled to the benefits constitutionally guaranteed by Article 255. This includes the provision by the Brazilian government of all medical and sanitary services required to support public policies for indigenous peoples to ensure their right to life and well-being. In the absence of state support, we may witness the repetition of genocidal processes of entire ethnic groups resulting from exploitative economic activities in IL, as was the case with the Yanomami (Watts 2023Watts, J. 2023. Health emergency over Brazil's Yanomami people. The Lancet 401: P631.). After the controversial approval of the law that regulates the time frame for IL demarcation, it is likely that there is a favorable inclination of Brazilian legislators to support further initiatives against the rights of Brazilian indigenous peoples, including the approval of PL191/2020. In order to avoid existence-threatening impacts for Brazilian Amazonian indigenous peoples and the extensive forest areas conserved by IL in the region, decision-makers are strongly advised to repeal PL191/2020 and similar law proposals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the two reviewers and the editor for the valuable suggestions on the manuscript. VMP thanks the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for a doctoral fellowship (process # 141645/2020-2). LSS, GVA and WGD thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoas de Nível Superior (CAPES) for doctoral fellowships (processes # 88887.609466/2021-00, 88887.607513/2021-00 and 23108.014608/2019-37). TJI is a recipient of a productivity grant from CNPq (process # 312684/2021-5).

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  • CITE AS:

    Prasniewski, V.M.; González-Daza, W.; Alvarenga, G.V.; Santos-Silva, L.; Teixido, A.L.; Izzo, T.J. 2024. Economic, environmental and social threats of a mining exploration proposal on indigenous lands of Brazil. Acta Amazonica 54: e54fo23192.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study were published in this article.

Edited by

ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

CARLOS J. SOUSA PASSOS

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    19 Jan 2024
  • Date of issue
    Apr-Jun 2024

History

  • Received
    19 June 2023
  • Accepted
    08 Dec 2023
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