Imagine, for a brief moment that around your house there are five mineral smelting companies that start working with their very high temperature furnaces and throwing out toxic gases, fumes and ashes. Your house fills up with dust, the air becomes unbreathable, the waters become contaminated, your plants die, your pets languish, your children get sick and you despair…
This might seem to be part of a science fiction film, but it is a reality that the community of Piquiá de Baixo has been living it for more than 30 years.
Piquiá de Baixo is one of the first neighborhoods of Açailândia, Maranhão in Brazil, formed in the 70’s. The occupation of the area was the result of a double movement: on the one hand, it was the result of the stimulus of the federal government that sought to move the landless populations from the northeast to the Amazon – mainly through the opening of roads – on the other hand, the spontaneous movement of peasants in search of good land in the region. For many years, about 320 families lived in Piquiá de Baixo, with an estimated population of about 1,200 people. Today, the group has been reduced due to heavy pollution.
At the end of the 1980s, five steel companies that operated fourteen blast furnaces were installed in front of this neighborhood. Since the arrival of the steel industry in 1987, the community has suffered the impacts of the five mills that operate along BR 222, very close to the houses. The Grande Carajás Program was designed to implement a logistics complex initially oriented to the export of 35 million tons of iron ore from the Carajás region. This complex consists of an open-pit mine, a railroad of approximately 890 km in length and a deepwater port in São Luís, capital of Maranhão. All were operated by “Companhia Vale do Rio Doce” since 1985, and their initial investment reached 2.9 billion dollars. These impacts were compounded by a new cycle of threats when the Carajás Railway (EFC), controlled by the Vale mining company, was built.
Before the arrival of mining, the community survived from the fields. Now, there is no other place to plant. The railroad has exacerbated migration and land speculation, aggravating conflicts, without the government or Vale itself having taken steps to mitigate the negative impacts of the project. In addition to health problems linked to pollution, families have suffered losses on plantations and small animal farms for their own consumption and small commercialization.
In this context, the steel companies linked to Vale (buyers of the ore and users of rail freight) began to buy land and build the blast furnaces, exacerbating land problems and catalyzing social and environmental impacts in Piquiá de Baixo, one of the central problems being the right to housing. “Home ownership has a lot to do with the dignity of people and the development of families. It is a central issue of human ecology,” reminds Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Si, on the care of the common home.
It was at that moment of the opening that the Vale Company (then a state-owned company and under the name of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce – CVRD), would become the main protagonist in the course of events throughout the eastern Amazon. CVRD, which has always had its history linked to the “imperative” of obtaining international currency for the country, would do there what it had already been doing in the State of Minas Gerais. It began the exploitation of minerals aimed at foreign markets, generating few jobs and mostly of poor quality, with little income for the affected municipalities. The Vale Company has assumed a position of power above the local political arena, inducing the emergence of coal plantations that are as or more impactful to the environment than the mining activity itself.
The transformation of Piquiá de Baixo into an industrial district made the State act selectively in the territory. Since 2004, residents have reported excessive pollution, an extremely precarious urban cleaning system, and difficult access to health services. On the other hand, there has been state intervention in tax incentives for businesses, with tax reductions. As the Dear Amazon exhortation denounces, “the actions of companies thirsty for easy profits work to appropriate the lands of peoples and communities. Pope Francis calls attention to the authorities who give free entry to logging companies, mining or oil projects and other activities that devastate the forests and contaminate the environment, unduly transform economic relations and become an instrument that kills (QA 14).
In the face of the current energy model of exploitation, Pope Francis launches an urgent call for a new mentality based on a radical and integral change. “Humanity is called to become aware of the need to make changes in lifestyles, in production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or, at least, the human causes that produce or accentuate it,” he invites in the exhortation Laudatus Si (23). Global warming, which mainly affects the poorest populations, is “especially enhanced by the pattern of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the world’s energy system” (cf. LS 23).
Pollution and the right to health
Açailândia is one of the territories in which the most violations of rights by the company Vale have been denounced in Brazil since the 1980s. The neighborhood of Piquiá de Baixo is a “Sacrificial Zone”, the name given to areas, almost always located in the urban peripheries or in isolated regions, where there is a great deal of overlap in the deprivation of rights, based on extraction or production models that benefit others, outside these territories. Since the late 1980s, the population living in the industrial district indicates that its health status has been severely affected by environmental changes caused by the high emission of pollutants from steel companies. In another town in the same municipality, coal factories linked to steel production and located very close to homes have polluted people’s lives for many years. The incessant pollution, the continuous damage to water resources, together with the extreme precariousness of the urban cleaning system have had repercussions on the living conditions of the inhabitants, as well as on their plantations, affecting their ways of life and increasing the precariousness and poverty of the community, in violation of the right of all to an adequate standard of living.
In Piquiá, air, water and soil pollution have brought about breathing, sight and skin problems, and several other diseases. In addition, difficulties in accessing health services have been observed, violating the right of everyone to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Pope Francis draws attention to the millions of premature deaths caused by pollution. “Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a wide range of effects on health, especially for the poorest” (cf. LS 20)
The Pope also criticizes the predatory extractive model and its negative impacts. “Groundwater in many places is threatened by the pollution produced by some extractive, agricultural and industrial activities, especially in countries where there are insufficient regulations and controls” (LS 29).
The proximity of fine waste and pig iron production in populated areas has also caused accidents, with severe and fatal burns. Slag and wedge, two distinct solid wastes from the raw iron production process, have been discarded into the environment for years and can lead to poisoning of plants, animals and people. Several residents report that the wind raises so-called “balloon dust”. This dust is a surplus from production piled up in piles next to houses and often, for several years, was blown into the wind by the crusher itself, one of the machines that served to reduce the “surplus” into particles.
In Piquiá de Baixo, the majority of the population had their health status reported as ‘bad or very bad’ in the study conducted by the organizations International Federation for Human Rights, Justiça nos Trilhos and Justiça Global in 2011. Only 12.4% of the households visited had their health status assessed as ‘good or very good’, the rest (31.1% of the households visited) had their health status perceived as ‘moderate’. The community recorded symptoms that included upper respiratory conditions such as pain or throat irritation in 65.2% of the households visited; nasal discharge or earache in 63.6% of the households visited; eye irritation or tearing in 41.3% of the households visited.
Mining, steel and slave labor
An investigation by the Maranhão Public Ministry of Labor (MPT-MA) reveals that from 2003 to 2017 more than 8,000 citizens of Maranhão were rescued from a situation analogous to slavery in other states of the federation. This data places Maranhão in the first place in the national ranking of slave labor supply. In Açailândia, 456 people were rescued from slavery between 2003 and 2018.
The steel sector of the Carajás corridor is denounced for being closely related to slave labor in the coal production areas. The activity generates few adequate jobs, while more indirect jobs are generated, especially in the stage of coal supply, which is made in a pulverized manner (by the so-called “independent producers”). However, this sector is characterized by degrading practices in multiple aspects. In Brazil, according to the data of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), between 2013 and 2019, 536 slave workers were rescued in the production of coal, one of the activities partially related to mining.
As reported in studies, slave-like labor was used structurally as a way to maintain the “competitiveness” of these companies, which are committed to the production of a cheap commodity and highly dependent on the mood of the international commodity market. There are reports of working conditions ranging from deprivation of liberty, lack of access to doctors and hospitals, to summary executions by sentries authorized to kill those who try to escape.
There are numerous notifications from the Public Ministry of Labor (MPT) and complaints of commercial relations with coal factories that used slave labor. Vale admitted that the company only closed a contract with a few pig iron producers in 2007 after they were fined by the MPT for the existence of slave labor.
In chapter IV of the encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis proposes a look that takes into account all aspects of the world crisis, considering different elements of an integral ecology that clearly includes the human and social dimensions (cf. LS 137). In the ecology of daily life, Pope Francis states that for authentic progress to take place, it is necessary to create a general improvement in the quality of human life. These principles contrast with the chaotic life imposed by certain realities, whether in the city or in the countryside, a model of life “where essential services do not reach, and there are workers reduced to situations of slavery, without rights or expectations of a more dignified life” (LS 154).
The myth of local development
The social, cultural and environmental effects of mining and steel company operations on local communities and the environment are widely known. This picture is aggravated in cases such as Açailândia and many others, where on the one hand there is a situation of poverty and inequality, a lack of public policies on housing, health and basic sanitation, and on the other hand, companies with strong economic power.
Some Brazilian press agencies called Açailândia “the metropolis of the future”, due to its outstanding “economic growth”. In front of the houses of the city’s inhabitants, the train transports every day the raw correspondent, in iron ore, about 50 million reals. However, the living conditions of the inhabitants do not reflect this wealth. The contradiction present in Açailândia is characterized by being a municipality with immense social inequality. Despite the high profits announced by the companies, its population is mostly poor.
The city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is R$2 billion, which represents 2.3% of Maranhão’s GDP, ranking fourth among the state’s 217 cities and 414th among Brazil’s 5,570 municipalities. It is 508.8% higher than the other cities in the state and 177.7% higher than the national average of cities. However, the contradiction is that 31.2% of the population of Açailândia is in poverty or extreme poverty.
The Human Development Index (HDI) of Açailândia indicated that the average per capita income of Açailândia is R$ 438.56 in 2010, where the minimum wage was R$ 510.00 (approximately 200 euros per month, in the value of the currency in the respective year). The proportion of poor people, with family income per capita below R$ 140.00 (21.80 euros), was 25.17% in 2010. Add to this a more unfortunate scenario: 10.12% of the population is in extreme poverty (family income per capita equal to or less than R$ 70.00 per month, or 10.90 Euros). Of the employed people aged 18 and over in the municipality, 1.26% of the population was employed in the extractive industry.
In a comparative analysis of GDP and HDI, the fallacy of mining as a driver of the local economy is pointed out. Açailândia is among the five hundred cities with the highest gross domestic product in Brazil. One proof that this profitability does not reverse the city’s population is its position in the literacy rate: 3,390 out of 5,565 in Brazil. Considering the municipal population of 25 years or more, 23.67% were illiterate, 39.33% had completed elementary school, 23.98% had completed secondary school and 4.68% had completed higher education.
Pope Francis calls attention to the current model of development that distorts the concept of economy because it is based on the principle of maximum profit. “Only behavior in which “the economic and social costs of the use of common environmental resources are recognized in a transparent manner and are borne entirely by those who benefit from them, and not by others or by future generations” could be considered ethical (cf. LS 195)
From “Piquiá de Baixo” to “Piquiá da Conquista
After many years of fighting for the reparation of damages, the community has managed to get the Brazilian state and the Vale company to somehow recognize the damages caused and accept a form of reparation, which consists of supporting the relocation of the community to a place free of contamination. Likewise, this struggle still has a lot of uncertainty and many elements of fragility, so the community is still not sure that it will be able to achieve its dream. Also, integral reparation must foresee the interruption of the pollution of the companies, the responsibility for the damages committed and other measures of compensation and non-repetition.
At the end of 2018, on November 23rd, the works that will give life to a new human settlement, which by community decision will be called “Piquiá da Conquista”, began. This new neighborhood will be located about 8 kilometers from the current location.
The re-settlement has been achieved as a measure to compensate for the damages caused by the mining company Vale and the steel companies, which have systematically violated the human right to a dignified life, the right to housing, to health, and to a healthy environment. As we have seen, the companies acted with impunity in this community, causing serious damage, mainly due to the presence of furnaces for metallurgical activity and the sadly known Ferrovía Carajás, which runs more than 800 km, impacting different communities and indigenous lands and has already claimed many lives.
In this hard fight for the conquest of their violated rights, the organization of the Community Association of the Inhabitants of Piquiá, the support of the network “Justiça nos Trilhos” and the Comboni missionaries working in that locality have been fundamental. It is a painful struggle but one that shows us that it is possible to ensure that community rights are respected.
“We have already cried too much for the losses, but Piquiá de Baixo’s struggle gives us a very strong feeling of love. This struggle gives us courage in the moments of weakness, teaches us to be wise in the moments when they try to torture us in some way, enlightens us when we look at our conquests, makes us cry with joy to see that even though we are violated and suffering, people unite and do not surrender, we get up when we fall on the ground. Piquiá de Baixo today is inspiration, and this is what also drives us to keep going, to stay and not to weaken, this leaves us with a strong learning of love and union that makes us cry with every achievement. We are very grateful to every ally who shares their feeling of love, respect and who is dedicated to always helping communities like Piquiá de Baixo to fight for a dignified life and the environment. (Antonia Flavia Nascimiento, 26 years old, young leader of Piquiá de Baixo)
*This report was mostly prepared with the texts and information present in the study “How much are human rights worth”, produced by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Justiça Global and Justiça nos Trilhos.
