"Brazil court overturns suspension of Canadian potash mine in Amazon", 19 October 2023

...A federal appeals court has overturned an injunction suspending the license for Canadian firm Brazil Potash Corp to build Latin America's largest fertilizer mine in the Amazon rainforest.

The Federal Regional Tribunal 1 ruled on Tuesday that the Amazon state environmental agency IPAAM has the authority to issue the license because there is no officially recognized Indigenous territory in the area of the planned $2.5 billion mine.

Federal judge Jaiza Fraxe in Manaus last month reiterated her 2016 decision to suspend the project until the Mura, a local Indigenous people, were consulted. She also ruled that a license must come from federal environmental agency IBAMA and not state agency IPAAM.

The appeals court ruled that there is no evidence that the area where the mine is planned is located on Indigenous lands, according to the decision seen by Reuters...

Brazil Potash on Wednesday declined to comment on the ruling, which was based on an appeal by the state environmental agency IPAAM.

The Mura, who number about 15,000 people, are divided on whether to agree to the mine...

Representatives for a local Mura community in nearby Soares say the mine overlaps their ancestral lands and have claimed it should be recognized as protected reservation land. But the demarcation process has just begun with studies by Indigenous affairs agency Funai, so it is not yet an official claim...