"Voices from Tapajós: Indigenous views on planned infrastructure projects", 29 September 2021

...This report brings the voices of the indigenous peoples of the Tapajós Basin region in the Brazilian Amazon into focus, as their livelihoods are severely threatened by planned infrastructure projects. As the report shows, the Amazon has been exploited for its abundance of natural resources for decades. Since the 1960s, infrastructure projects designed to transport these goods have had a devastating impact on biodiversity and the lives of the communities living there. The report leaves no doubt that the following three projects planned for the Tapajós Basin represent a continuation of this historic exploitation of the Amazon: the EF-170 (Ferrogrão) railroad project, the Tapajós Hydroelectric Complex, and the Tapajós waterway. They aim at facilitating and accelerating the transportation of minerals and agricultural produce, such as soya for export. An analysis of the companies potentially implementing and/or operating the projects and financial institutions that finance them shows that companies from all over the world are interested and possibly involved in the projects. At the same time, the study details the views and concerns of affected indigenous communities about these projects. They fear severe impacts on their livelihoods due to the flooding of large areas of their land and the deforestation of their forests. Even though indigenous communities are among the most potentially affected groups, no genuine consultation process has yet taken place. Therefore, the report concludes with a concrete set of demands to the Brazilian state and national and international businesses. In particular, it calls upon Brazilian and international companies potentially implementing and/or operating the projects and their financiers to meet their obligation to consider environmental and social impacts in their risk analyses. It further asks them to clearly align their due diligence with national and international human rights norms and standards. This report thereby has a prospective character and functions as an early warning system, that may potentially be involved of the environmental and social risks in relation to these projects...