Mineração em Juruti: do desenvolvimento ao desenvolvimento sustentável?

Abstract

The implementation of large mining projects in the Amazon has caused negative impacts, generated conflicts and promoted losses and damages to traditional populations whose dynamics of life is closely related to the preservation of the natural environment in which they live. Nowadays, these mining enterprises, forced by legislation and inspired by the ideas of sustainable development, assume sustainability as a commitment of their projects. The present study deals with the question of the sustainability of mining in areas occupied by traditional populations of the interior communities of Amazonia, taking as reference the theory of sustainable development allied to the theory of social reproduction, to the theory of the social question and to the theory of modernity. The methodology involved bibliographic and documentary research, secondary data collection and fieldwork with participant observation in a case study of bauxite mining in the Juruti Velho Agroextractive Settlement Project for socioenvironmental survey with observation, structured interviews, photographic record and location in Global Position System of mine areas and surrounding forest. The analysis of economic and political aspects related to mining highlights the increase of the Gross Domestic Product, the transformation of the agrarian economic structure for services and industrial, the growth of the number of companies and the transfer of the majority of the economically active urban population to the employment in the business sector. However, the enterprise does not meet sustainability criteria such as dynamization and economic systematization, empowerment and governance, there has been no economic agglomeration and there is still the challenge of the company to integrate alternative spaces of governance in construction by its stakeholders. The study identified a complexity of material and immaterial, environmental, economic, social, and cultural losses and damages imposed on traditional communities with diverse risks on the social fabric and way of life of populations affecting production, income and culture, indicating that a process is underway that points to the consummation of a social issue. Socioenvironmental conflicts and disputes over land tenure involving the mining company persist and increase. Despite these aspects, there are still elements of continuity present in the subsistence economy, in cultural practices and social relations. An important civic capital has also been constituted in the communities surrounding the project. This set of data allows us to conclude that the mining project is not sustainable as the discourse presents it, but there are economic, social, cultural and political potentialities that the civil, public and business actors involved in this plot can mobilize to change this scenario. The effective recovery of damages and indemnification of losses is a sine qua non for overcoming the problem towards sustainable development in the territory of traditional populations affected by mining in the Amazon. Economic sustainability will depend on the effectiveness of the environmental, social, cultural and political sustainability of the enterprise.