Início » In Pará, MPF investigates violation of rights after oil company installs terminal in area near indigenous reserve

In Pará, MPF investigates violation of rights after oil company installs terminal in area near indigenous reserve

The Fuel Storage Terminal is less than 10 kilometers from the Indigenous Beach in indigenous area (File/Terra de Direitos)

May 28, 2022

10:05

Bruno Pacheco – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) will investigate the violation of socio-environmental and ethnic rights, after a fuel storage terminal was installed on the right bank of the Tapajós River, in the municipality of Itaituba, near the Indian village of Praia do Índio. The measure is in response to a complaint filed by the organization Terra de Direitos, which accuses the company Petróleo Sabbá S.A. and the State of Pará, through the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainability (Semas), of committing irregularities in the construction work.

The investigation order was published in the Official Journal of the MPF on Friday, 27, and signed by the prosecutor, Paulo de Tarso Moreira Oliveira. In 2020, the ‘Terra de Direitos’ denounced to the ministerial body that the project is being built without consulting the indigenous people affected, as determined by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.

For the prosecutor, it is necessary to conclude an expert analysis already determined to verify whether the studies presented by the company establish the real and exact distance/metric distance between the enterprise and the indigenous reserve, also examining evidence of interference, direct or indirect, of the terminal in relation to the beach territory.

Indigenous reserve

The indigenous village of Praia do Índio is located less than ten kilometers from the construction of the port, in the territory of the Munduruku people, according to the human rights organization Terra de Direitos. According to the organization, even though it obtained the authorization from state and federal agencies to build the terminal, there was no Indigenous Component Study in the studies presented to obtain the licenses.

On the map, the red area indicates where Porto Sabbá was built. In yellow, is located the territory Aldeia Praia do Índio, less than 10km away (Source: Terra de Direitos)

Also according to Terra de Direitos, the port Petróleo Sabbá S.A. can store almost 22 thousand cubic meters of fuel and it is being built near the port of the company Rio Tapajós Logística (RTL) and the Praia do Mangue Village. For the organization’s people’s lawyer, Pedro Martins, it is possible that more than five socio-environmental and ethnic norms have been violated.

“This is a request for an investigation after the indigenous leaderships ascertained – and the fuel company itself disclosed that it had already advanced – the existence of a development on the right bank of the Tapajós, near the mouth of the Itapacurá River,” stated the lawyer, in 2020, on the organization’s website.

Another side

CENARIUM MAGAZINE contacted Semas-PA, through the email available on the site of the agency, requesting a note about the case and also questioned whether the folder granted a license for the installation of the terminal and whether there was consultation with the indigenous peoples impacted. The report awaits a reply.

CENARIUM also contacted the organization Terra de Direitos, in order to seek updates on the case. The report, however, was unable to contact the company Petróleo Sabbá S.A.