Marina Silva, Brazil’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, spoke in an interview about controversial topics such as fossil fuel exploration in the Amazon and the renewal of the operating license for the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River. Marina declared that, in her personal opinion, Petrobras cannot continue being an oil company, because it needs to make the transition to renewable energies.

She also referred to Belo Monte as a “trauma,” acknowledging the damage done to local populations and the environment, and expressed concern about the current state of the ministry, which has been significantly undersized and undermined during Jair Bolsonaro’s tenure.

Norte Energia, the company responsible for operating the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant, in the state of Pará, proposed to pay R$ 20 thousand for each fisherman who can no longer work due to lack of fish in the Xingu River since the beginning of operation of the plant, in 2016.

Hundreds of fishermen gathered on Tuesday (22) in the city of Altamira, Pará, to express dissatisfaction with the proposal. They disagree with the number of people contemplated by the reparation, because, according to them, there are at least 4,000 workers affected by the plant, more than double the almost 2,000 fishermen that Norte Energia proposed to attend.

Belo Monte is a project conceived during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) that was on the agenda of several governments until it was made possible by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. The first turbines began operating in 2016. The construction resulted in serious environmental and social impacts in the Amazon.

The company responsible for the Belo Monte hydroelectrical plant, Norte Energia, will indemnify the fishermen of the Xingu river, as demanded by IBAMA’s, Brazil’s environmental agency, opinion issued four months ago. The company had been disagreeing with the environmental agency and had proposed another solution.

According to IBAMA, Norte Energia has not complied with the conditions established for the issue of the plant’s operation license, such as the adoption of mitigation measures for the effects of damming, reservoir formation and water flow control on the lives of fishermen.

The proposal made by Norte Energia still has no values and contemplates less than half of the amount of fishermen of the Xingu. According to estimates by the Federal Public Ministry in Altamira (PA), there are more than four thousand fishermen impacted. The company, by demanding the presentation of an active fisherman’s card for the payment of the reparation, does not even consider all the impacted people, since many have given up the activity due to the lack of fish in the stretches of the river altered by the plant.

The House of Representatives approved the Provisional Measure 1.031/2021, which enables the privatization of Eletrobras, the national electricity company. The bill was amended by the Senate and will now will be forwarded for sanction to the president in the form of a Conversion Bill (PLV 7/2021).

The Bill allows the government to sell its shares of the company, that belongs to the Ministry of Mines and Energy and represents an advance in the anti-State agenda of Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.

Economist Gabriela Chaves said that the privatization can bring a series of problems for consumers, such as the increase in electricity cost in the country. 

The Chamber of Deputies concluded its vote on Bill 3729/04, which abolishes environmental licensing rules and establishes a new legal framework. They approved the basic text of the proposal in the early hours of the morning, by 300 votes to 122. The Bill will now go to a vote in the Senate and should be the subject of a public hearing by the Environment Commission, according to the vice-president of the house, Veneziano Vital do Rêgo.

Several organizations have protested against the proposal, dubbed “the worst proposition”. Among the many critical points it carries is the waiver of the need for obtaining a license for at least 13 economic activities that impact the environment, such as mining and hydroelectric plants; the validation of self-declaratory licensing, without prior analysis by the environmental agency, and the exemption of social and environmental responsibility of banks and other institutions that finance the projects, already provided for by law. The critics say that the bill opens the possibilities for new environmental crimes in the likes of the tragedies in Brumadinho and Mariana.

In an interview with CBN, Suely Araújo, senior public policy specialist at the Climate Observatory, classified the proposal as “a setback of four decades, which will also cause serious economic losses to Brazil.”

Shareholders of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant are trying to win the support of the federal government to reverse Ibama’s, the environmental control agency decision that would force Norte Energia, the corporation responsible for the plant, to release a greater volume of water to flow from its reservoir into the stretch known as the Volta Grande do Xingu, in Pará State. Valid until the end of 2020, the decision aims to mitigate the environmental impacts on the riverside populations caused by the hydroelectric dam, since the region suffered a historic drought this year. According to Reuters agency, the shareholders – who fear that the measure will be extended to 2021 – have already met with the Ministry of Mines and Energy and there is an expectation that the government will contribute to the negotiations given the participation of the state-owned Eletrobrás in the project.

While the businessmen maintain that the decision could seriously compromise the hydroelectric plant’s power generation, Norte Energia had its request for revocation of the new hydroelectric program denied by the Federal Court, on the grounds that Ibama, responsible for Belo Monte’s environmental licensing, pointed out “worsening environmental conditions in the area” due to the reduced flow, which “leads to the possibility of changing the conditions of the operating license”.

The definitive increase in the flow of water released by the hydroelectric plant is still open. Reuters reported that Ibama will conclude the analysis of complementary studies on the impacts of Belo Monte delivered by Norte Energia.

In a provisional decision that partially meets the claim of the Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF) made in a lawsuit initiated in 2015, regarding the “ethnocidal action” of the company Norte Energia in the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant, the Federal Court in Altamira (PA) recognized that the undertaking caused significant changes “in cultural traits, way of life and land use by indigenous peoples, causing relevant instability in intra- and inter-ethnic relations,” according to a note from the MPF.

The decision, announced on November 13, orders changes in the execution of the Basic Indigenous Environmental Plan of Belo Monte, in addition to determining “that the Union and the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) present within 90 days a schedule for completion of the land regularization processes of the indigenous lands Paquiçamba, of the Juruna Yudjá people, and Cachoeira Seca, of the Arara people”. Another measure will be the creation of an External Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, composed by the MPF, representatives of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab) and non-indigenous organizations of civil society that operate in the region of the Xingu medium.

Since October, Altamira, in Pará State, has faced a historic drought in the stretch known as the Volta Grande do Xingu, which is part of the reservoir of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. Recently, volunteers have mobilized to rescue the fish affected by the low volume of water, bogged down in puddles and mud in the river beds.

The stretch of the Xingu River in the city of Altamira, Pará State, which is part of the main reservoir of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant, is experiencing “one of the greatest droughts in the last five decades”, according to the local website A Voz do Xingu. Residents in the region, known as Volta Grande do Xingu, are facing difficulties in fishing and sailing due to the reduction of water volume and also because the sand banks that formed on the riverbed. “The fish fled, there is no way to fish, it dried up a lot after the construction of this plant there, in Belo Monte”, said fisherman Manoel da Silva. The article also states that even those who moved to farming as an alternative to fishing are not managing to sell their produce, as they are practically isolated without river boat transportation. A report from TV Liberal, affiliated with Globo in Pará, showed the city’s river stretch with stranded vessels and the encounter between the Altamira stream and the Xingu river, with its navigation interrupt due to the low waters.

The Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF) has filed a legal request asking for the removal of the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles,  due to administrative misconduct. The claim, signed by 12 prosecutors, cites a series of measures led by Salles aiming at disorganizing and destabilizing environmental policies and nullifying legal precepts, such as not using the Ministry’s budget in 2019, attacking the Amazon Fund and firing public servants from Ibama, Brazilian Environmental control agency).

“We can identify, looking at the measures adopted by the minister, an alignment to a set of acts that answer to a logic that is completely backwards to the purposes of the state in guaranteeing environmental rights. This is explicit when we look at the exonerations of Ibama’s public servants right after a successful environmental inspection operation in a critical area of deforestation in the Legal Amazon”, says the MPF.

The case mentioned by the prosecution office refers to the dismissal of three Ibama coordinators after command and control operations to fight environmental crimes inside indigenous territories in Ituna Itatá, Apyterewa, Trincheira-Bacajá e Cachoeira Seca, municipality of Altamira, in Amazon Pará state – the region is located in the area of influence of the Belo Monte hydropower plant. Over 100 machinery and equipment used by gangs of land grabbers, deforesters and gold diggers were apprehended and destroyed by the Ibama agents – a higher number than the entire toll of destroyed machinery for the year of 2019. 

The lawsuit also quotes the ministerial meeting on April 22nd, when Salles suggested the government should take advantage of the pandemic to further deregulate public policies. According to the MPF, this makes his purposes “transparent and straying away from his duty as a minister of the Environment.”

During a control operation near the Ituna / Itatá Indigenous Land, in Altamira, Amazon Pará State, gold diggers opened fire at a team of federal agents from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). Members of the Federal Police and the National Public Security Force who were part of the operation shot back, but there were no injuries reported. The perpetrators of the attack hid in the woods and were not arrested.

Hugo Loss, the Ibama official responsible for the operation, told Reuters that they apprehended and destroyed two backhoes and three motors that were used in the camp. According to Loss, there’s a significant rise in land grabbing in the region, which increases  deforestation in the Ituna / Itatá Indigenous Land, which is located in the influence area of the Belo Monte hydropower plant.