"Traditional communities’ prize-winning coffee and cachaça at risk from Brazil mine", 22 August 2022

...The mine is operated by Brazil Iron, a subsidiary of U.K.-based holding company Brazil Iron Trading Limited. The company has gone by several different names since acquiring mining rights in the Chapada Diamantina in 2011...

Brazil Iron’s mineral activities have silted up and polluted the source of the Bebedouro River, which is the main supply of freshwater for the Bocaina quilombo. Also at risk are at least two other springs in Abaíra, where exploration activities for future mining is currently underway. The company’s growing presence has become a concern to coffee and cachaça producers in the region because of the impacts that it brings...

Walking around Bocaina, we meet other people who tell of cracks developing in the walls of their homes because by the blasting at the mine, and of troubles they have both breathing and sleeping because of the constant activity at Brazil Iron.

Piatã is known internationally for the high-quality coffee produced here...

Today, more than 60 local coffee farmers have formed a cooperative, called Coopiatã, which supplies a number of local brands...

...[T]he freshwater springs used to make Abaíra cachaça, and which also supply water to hundreds of local families, are now at risk of being contaminated because of field studies commissioned by Brazil Iron and being carried out by a third party, GeoAgro, in the rural São José area of the municipality...

“Every time we addressed an issue, the company tried to shut us up by saying that it was not the space for that type of question because it wasn’t a public hearing,” says a member of the community group SOS Bocaina and Mocó...

When contacted by Mongabay, Brazil Iron responded that it preferred not to make a statement to us...