Sinkhole larger than tennis court has Chile perplexed

Yahoo – AFP, August 3, 2022 

Experts in Chile on Tuesday were investigating the appearance of an enormous sinkhole, bigger than a tennis court, that has appeared near a copper mine in the Atacama desert. 

Experts were dispatched to examine the hole, some 32 meters (104 feet) across and twice as deep, which appeared in an area about 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) north of Santiago over the weekend, the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) said in a statement. 

A 100-meter security perimeter has been erected around the hole in the Tierra Amarilla municipality, near the Alcaparrosa mine operated by Canadian firm Lundin Mining. 

The company said in a statement there had been "no impact to personnel, equipment or infrastructure," and the sinkhole has remained stable since its detection. 

As a preventive measure, "development work in an area of the Alcaparrosa underground mine has been temporarily suspended," the company said. 

Sernageomin director David Montenegro said experts would seek to determine the cause of the collapse and "ensure that all safety measures are taken to safeguard the lives of workers and communities close to the site." 

Cristian Zuniga, mayor of the Tierra Amarilla municipality of some 13,000 inhabitants, told journalists the sinkhole was unprecedented. 

"We ask that the cause be clarified: whether the collapse is the product of mining activity or something else," he said. 

Chile is the world's largest copper producer, responsible for a quarter of global supply.

Amazon indigenous protesters vow indefinite roadblock

Yahoo – AFP, Joao Laet,  August 20, 2020

Members of the Kayapo indigenous tribe are blocking a highway through the Brazilian
Amazon demanding help against the new coronavirus and an end to illegal mining
and deforestation

Armed with spears and bows, dozens of indigenous protesters in Brazil vowed Thursday to maintain a roadblock on a key highway until the authorities listen to their demands for help fighting COVID-19 and deforestation.

Members of the Kayapo Mekranoti ethnic group have been blocking highway BR-163 through the Amazon since Monday outside the northern town of Novo Progresso.

But they vowed that they would no longer lift their blockade periodically to let truckers through, as they had done for the past two days.

"We're going to stay right here until the government sends its representatives to talk with us," one protest leader, Mudjere Kayapo, told AFP.

The highway is the main artery to ship corn and soybeans, two of Brazil's main exports, from the country's central-western agricultural heartland.

A federal judge has ordered the protesters to stand down, citing the economic damage they are inflicting.

She rejected an appeal Wednesday, and has ordered the federal police to remove the protesters if they do not comply.

The Kayapo Mekranoti warned that would lead to violence.

"We do not want to fight. But we will not accept the army or police coming here and removing us by force. If that happens, there will be blood spilled on the asphalt," they said in a letter to the government's indigenous affairs office, FUNAI.

Wearing feather headdresses and body paint, the protesters burned a letter from FUNAI rejecting some of their demands and calling for patience on others.

The Kayapo Mekranoti are demanding far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government release funds they say they are owed for environmental damage the highway caused to their land.

They also want help fighting illegal mining, deforestation and the new coronavirus, which has hit especially hard among indigenous people in the region.

In Brazil, the country with the second-biggest COVID-19 death toll worldwide after the United States, 26,000 indigenous people have been infected and 690 have died in the pandemic, according to the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples' Association (APIB).

"Our rights are being violated," the protesters said.

"Indigenous health is growing more fragile by the day... We are here to defend the Amazon and protect our territory. But the government wants to open indigenous lands to illegal projects, including mining, logging and ranching."

Water or Gold? Eternal question nags Ecuador tribes

Yahoo – AFP, Santiago PIEDRA SILVA, September 14, 2019

View of Quimsacocha where indigenous water rights are under threat from
expanding mineral exploration (AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

Quimsacocha (Ecuador) (AFP) - The indigenous people of Ecuador's wind-whipped alpine tundra of Quimsacocha face a stark choice, according to their leader, Yaku Perez.

"We have to decide between gold and water," he tells activists at a meeting held to oppose a landmark mining project.

"What do we prefer, companeros?" demands Perez, his voice rising.

He knows there's only one answer, and they shout back in unison: "Water!"

Ecuador's government has put its weight behind a giant gold-silver-copper mining project in the wild, high grasslands of Quimsacocha.

Quito has conceded half Quimsacocha's 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) to Canadian miner INV Metals to develop a near billion dollar mine deep underground.

Indigenous people share a traditional lunch in Quimsacocha, Ecuador

(AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

The Loma Larga project is due to begin production in 2021 and would mean thousands of jobs.

For local indigenous communities however, the sweeping, cloud-scraping grasslands of Quimsacocha are a sacred, vital source of water.

'We can live without gold'

Perez, his Canari Quechua people and other indigenous communities are fighting the Loma Larga mine every step of the way.

In an unprecedented popular consultation held in March, local municipalities rejected mining in the southern Andes.

Perez sees local referenda "as the way for Ecuador to be declared a territory free of metal mining and its water sources and fragile ecosystems."

Community leader Yaku Perez, who is leading the indigenous struggle against

the threat to water resources posed by mining companies in Ecuador's high 

grasslands (AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

Just 3,200 hectares of the Quimsacocha is under protection, forming part of a biosphere reserve.

The government, anxious to develop its mineral resources, is hoping the Constitutional Court will block further popular consultations and demonstrate the legal protections necessary to attract mining sector investment.

"Mining, wherever it goes, generates dispossession of territories, violence in the community, destabilises democracy, generates institutional corruption, pollutes the waters and poisons the rivers," says Perez.

"It takes the meat, and leave the bone, but the contaminated bone."

Yaku Perez drinks water from a river in Quimsacocha 

(AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

Perez says this standing on the grassy bank of the Tarqui river, which hurries down from here to the city of Cuenca and into the Amazon.

Squatting, he scoops a palmful of cold clear water to his lips.

"We can live without gold, but without water, never."

'Defending the water'

A lawyer, Perez sees himself as a defender of the Quimsacocha and says he has been jailed on four occasions for "defending the water."

High on the tundra, he vaults a fence surrounding the mining concession. Others with him cut through chains blocking a narrow road, a symbolic gesture in a constant war of attrition with the mining company.

For indigenous communities the sweeping, cloud-scraping 

grasslands of Quimsacocha are a sacred, vital source 

of water. (AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

"We are not going to allow the miners here," said Maria Dorila Fajardo, a 60-year-old indigenous woman wearing a traditional large red skirt, her head covered with a wool hat.

A large blue sign with white lettering says: "Private Property. No Entry."

"This is not private property," Perez fumes. "This is communal property. We have deeds dating back to 1893, our grandparents bought all this land.

"We don't want to cultivate it, but keep it as the natural reservoir it is."

The government in Quito expects GDP to grow from 1.6 percent to 4.0 percent by 2021, boosted by mineral exploration.

An Ecuadorean indigenous woman stands in protest outside a mining 

concession in Quimsacocha, Azuay province, Ecuador (AFP Photo/Rodrigo BUENDIA)

Resource-rich Ecuador will receive about $554 million from Loma Larga, according to official figures.

"Mining is like a mirage. They give us money for a little while and later that money evaporates," says Perez.

"It goes up in smoke. It's bread today, but hunger and desolation tomorrow."

Brazil police probe tribal leader's killing, village invasion

Yahoo – AFP, Allison JACKSON, July 28, 2019

The Waiapi people inhabit territory rich in minerals and deep inside the Amazon
that's seen as desirable by miners (AFP Photo/Apu Gomes)

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazil deployed police to a remote Amazon village on Sunday after reports it had been overrun by armed miners following the murder of an indigenous leader, officials and tribal chiefs said.

The violence in an area of the northern Amapa state controlled by the Waiapi tribe comes as Brazil's indigenous people face growing pressures from miners, ranchers and loggers under pro-business President Jair Bolsonaro, who on Saturday called for the "first world" to help exploit the "absurd quantity of minerals" in the Amazon rainforest.

Last Monday, a Waiapi indigenous leader was killed and his body found the following day in a river, the Amapa attorney general's office (AGO) said in a statement.

While none of the Waiapi witnessed the "violent" killing, a council of village chiefs said on Facebook a search of the area found "trails and other signs that the death was caused by non-indigenous people."

On Friday, a group of "armed non-indigenous" overran the nearby village of Yvytoto, prompting residents to flee, the council said. Local media called them "garimpeiros," a term for armed miners active in the Amazon, and said they numbered 50.

After reports of the attacks emerged Saturday, members of the federal police and a military police special forces unit were dispatched, the AGO said, arriving in the village some 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the state capital Macapa on Sunday.

The indigenous affairs agency FUNAI said its officers were also on the ground monitoring the police investigation.

"Law enforcement officials have reported that no hypothesis for the murder has been ruled out, nor can they can say at this time who carried out the crime," the AGO said, as it announced the establishment of a crisis management group to oversee the investigation.

"The alleged presence of garimpeiros and other groups in the region is being investigated."

'Environmental psychosis'

Rich in gold, manganese, iron and copper, the Waiapi's territory is deep inside the Amazon, making communication difficult, police said.

The Waiapi council said some of the tribe's fighters had stationed themselves near the village occupied by the miners.

"The situation is urgent," said Randolfe Rodrigues, an opposition senator from Amapa, on his official Facebook page.

The Brazilian Bar Association issued a statement calling on the government to protect the Waiapi's land and ensure perpetrators of criminal offenses were "punished."

The tribe's territory is one of hundreds Brazil's government demarcated in the 1980s for the exclusive use of its 800,000 indigenous inhabitants. Access by outsiders is strictly regulated.

Since taking office in January, Bolsonaro has been accused of harming the Amazon and indigenous tribes in order to benefit his supporters in the logging, mining and farming industries.

"We are experiencing a real environmental psychosis," Bolsonaro said recently.

He's also pledged to crackdown on what he's called radical environmental activism, and also questioned the latest official figures showing deforestation increasing by 88 percent in June compared with the same period last year.

Vale says $4 bn in assets frozen over Brazil dam disaster

Yahoo – AFP, 28 March 2019

Vale has been struggling to deal with the aftermath of the January 25 deadly dam
collapse that spewed millions of tons of mining waste across the countryside

Brazilian authorities have frozen more than $4 billion dollars' worth of assets belonging to Vale over a deadly dam collapse, the mining giant said Wednesday, as it reported a 24.6 percent increase in full-year net profit.

Vale has been struggling to deal with the aftermath of the January 25 rupture in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais that spewed millions of tons of mining waste across the countryside and forced the suspension of some of its operations.

As the official death toll from the disaster rose to 212 with another 93 missing, Vale said local judicial and government authorities had frozen more than 16 billion reais (more than $4 billion) of its assets to cover the potential cost of compensation, wages and other expenses relating to the disaster.

It was too early to estimate the total cost of the dam break, Vale said in a statement, noting the "preliminary stage of the various claims and contingencies."

For 2018, the world's top iron ore producer said net profit rose 24.6 percent to $6.86 billion on a strong fourth-quarter performance. Its full-year operating revenue reached $36.58 billion, up 7.7 percent from the previous year.

Vale president Fabio Schvartsman and three executives temporarily stepped down in early March after prosecutors recommended their dismissal over the crisis.

More than two months after the disaster, environmental activists say poisonous sludge from the dam has reached the Sao Francisco River -- Brazil´s second longest -- hundreds of kilometers (miles) downstream.

The disaster was the second involving Vale in three years in the mineral-rich region. So far, Vale says, its water quality analysis shows toxicity levels near the dam are "below the legal limits for mining tailings" and are "not harmful to health."

And its technicians predict that material from the dam would "not reach the Sao Francisco," Vale said Friday.

'Can't be called water': Brazil marks two months since dam disaster

Yahoo – AFP, March 23, 2019

Researchers collect dead fish from a retention membrane installed at the
Paraopeba River, Brazil, to try to retain mud, after the collapse of a dam (AFP Photo/
DOUGLAS MAGNO)

Juatuba (Brazil) (AFP) - Brazilian fisherman Jose Geraldo dos Santos uses a long pole to push his boat down the reddish-brown Paraopeba River, taking care not to splash himself with water he says is toxic.

Two months after an upstream tailings dam owned by mining giant Vale burst, spewing millions of tons of minerals-laced sludge across the countryside, the 67-year-old says the river is too polluted for fishing or even for his animals to drink.

So contaminated is the tributary to the Sao Francisco River -- the second longest in Brazil -- says dos Santos, that he has been advised to not even "step in the mud."

"The researchers who came here said it will take eight to 10 years (for the river to recover)," says dos Santos, who lives about 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the village of Brumadinho in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, which was engulfed by the waste unleashed by the January 25 dam rupture.

Emergency crews continue the slow process of picking through the mud looking for bodies -- at least 210 people were killed and 96 are missing.

In the meantime, Vale, government agencies and environmental groups are still assessing the impact of one of Brazil's worst industrial disasters on water quality downstream.

Researchers collect dead fish from a retention membrane installed at the Paraopeba 

River, Brazil, to try to retain mud, after the collapse of a dam (AFP Photo/DOUGLAS 

MAGNO)

Some of the findings differ dramatically.

"It's so dense and thick that it cannot be called water," says Malu Ribeiro of SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation in a video released by the non-government organization to highlight the damage to the Paraopeba.

Before the dam collapsed the water was "crystal clear, full of fish," says Ribeiro.

"I've never seen that color."

'Serious pollutants'

The disaster was the second involving Vale in three years in the mineral-rich region. The company has tried to contain the contamination by installing barriers to stop poisonous material reaching the Sao Francisco, hundreds of kilometers downstream.

So far, Vale says, its water quality analysis shows toxicity levels near the dam are "below the legal limits for mining tailings" and are "not harmful to health."

And its technicians predict that sludge from the dam would "not reach the Sao Francisco," Vale said in a statement Friday.

But SOS Mata Atlantica's latest data show high levels of toxic waste are already present in the key waterway and that the source is the dam at Brumadinho.

Various samples taken from the upper reaches earlier this month show concentrations of copper, iron, manganese and chromium that exceed the maximum limits allowed by Brazilian law.

So contaminated is the tributary to the Sao Francisco River says fisherman Jose 

Geraldo dos Santos, that he has been advised to not even "step in the mud" (AFP Photo/

DOUGLAS MAGNO)

"These are serious pollutants," says Romilda Roncatti of SOS Mata Atlantica.

But Brazilian authorities say the tailings have not spread more than one kilometer downstream and blames the increased turbidity on heavy rain.

"It's normal at this time of year to find high levels of some elements like iron or manganese -- these two elements always have higher concentrations during floods," says Eduardo Viglio of the Geological Survey of Brazil, which is tasked with collecting data on minerals and water resources in the country.

The government agency's own testing shows oxygen and acidity readings are also "normal," he adds.

That is cold comfort for dos Santos, who says increased pollution in the Paraopeba has deprived him of an income from fishing.

"The people who handle water treatment have said we can't use the water," he says.

"This place is no use to me."

Related Article:

Brazilian ndigenous community threatened in aftermath of dam burst

Brazilian indigenous community threatened in aftermath of dam burst

Yahoo – AFP, Rosa SULLEIRO, February 1, 2019

An indigenous woman of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community crying as she looks out
over the Paraopeba river, filled with mud after a disastrous dam collapse in Brazil's
Minas Gerais state (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

São Joaquim de Bicas (Brazil) (AFP) - In her 88 years, Antonia Alves has seen much hardship as a member of Brazil's indigenous community, whose people have often been driven from their ancestral lands over conflicts with farmers and loggers.

Until a few days ago, she had never seen an entire river die right before her eyes.

This is the unthinkable ecological nightmare her people are facing, however, after a dam storing mining waste collapsed in Minas Gerais state in southeast Brazil, engulfing the village of Brumadinho, where 110 people have been confirmed dead.

Another 238 unfortunates are still missing, hopes of their recovery all but gone in the toxic wave of sludge that engulfed them, suffocating everything in its path to the Paraopeba river.

The brown waters, which reek of dead fish, reached as far as Nao Xoha, a village sheltered by the Atlantic rainforest 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the burst dam.

Alves and her small branch of the Pataxo Ha-Ha-Hae indigenous people settled in the forest a year and a half ago, relocating from their strife-torn ancestral lands in the north to live in nature according to their customs.

"It is very sad because we lived off the river," said Alves, her face lined by age and sun, head crowned with a band of white and purple feathers.

A member of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community carrying a cooking pan along a
path through the forest (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

"We bathed there, took our water from it, washed our clothes there and fished from it. Indians live from fishing and hunting."

Alves' neighbor Jocelia Josi describes the stench as she pulled dead fish from what formerly an important tributary of the Sao Francisco, the longest entirely-Brazilian river.

'Village of resistance'

"Now we don't have any more food from there," said the 46-year-old, who is waiting for her daughter and three-month-old grandson to return from the state capital Belo Horizonte, where they were evacuated after the disaster.

It is lunchtime in Nao Xoha -- which means "warrior spirit" in the community's native tongue -- and Alves and her husband Gervasio, a serene elder of 93, are waiting for their daughter to finish cooking outside their modest hut.

But today is no normal day. Nothing has been normal here since Dam Number 1, owned by mining giant Vale, burst last Friday, dramatically changing the lives of the 27 families living in the village.

Nao Xoha lacks its own medic, but a doctor has checked up on the 15 people who were not evacuated, and volunteers have brought supplies to the community, which always lacked electricity and now has no water.

Hayo Pataxo ha-ha-hae, the 29-year-old leader of the indigenous community, 

looks at the Paraopeba river, filled with toxic mud from the Brumadinho dam

collapse, where his community used to catch fish to eat (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

To reach the village, visitors have to cross a railway line where cargo trains pass and then enter the verdant Atlantic rainforest.

The dam breach unleashed a torrent of almost 13 million cubic tons of mud that swept across the countryside before reaching the river.

But its impact spreads even further than the vast scar of mud that rescue services are probing for the bodies of the missing.

The government of Minas Gerais has warned that the metal-tainted waters present a health risk and organizations like the WWF have said the environmental impact will be felt for years to come.

"They have taken away part of our reserve, killed a part of it, but we are a village of resistance and we will get over this," said community leader Hayo Pataxo Ha-ha-hae, who sported a head dress made of palm fronds.

"We will carry on even if the river has died. Nature depends on us to preserve it."

'Lack of respect'

He had just attended another meeting with FUNAI -- the Brazilian government body responsible for indigenous peoples' interests -- and said it was too early to determine what action the community would take against Vale.

He simply insisted that his people would resist, and defend their traditional lifestyle, just as they have for centuries.

A dead fish in the waters of the Paraopeba river, near the town of Brumadinho where 

a dam full of mining waste collapsed on January 25 (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

"It shows a lack of respect towards us", said Tahh'a, a well-built watchman aged 55, his frown wrinkling the black paint on his face.

"The biggest loss for us is the fish, because we are not permitted to hunt around here," he said, holding a pointed stick in his hand, a machete dangling from his hip.

While the full extent of the environmental impact remains unclear, the precedents are not encouraging.

No one here can forget the destruction of the Rio Doce river, also in Minas Gerais, which was devastated by the collapse in 2015 of the Mariana dam, the biggest environmental disaster in Brazilian history. That barrier was also jointly owned by Vale.

"I want to tell not only Vale, but also our leaders, to punish those guilty of doing this to our indigenous nation, together with the farmers and the families who lost people," said 29-year Hayo.

"How many more people have to be killed before the justice department takes notice?" he demanded.

"It is very sad," added Alves. "When are they going to clean up the river? When will there be fish in it again?"

Related Article:

UN shines spotlight on dying indigenous languages

Chile penguins win battle in war against mine

Yahoo – AFP, Giovanna FLEITAS, 13 October 2017

They may be less than a meter tall but they have conquered a Goliath: Chile's vulnerable Humboldt penguins have thwarted -- for now at least -- a billion dollar mining project in one of the country's most depressed regions.

The rare species is only found on the coasts of Peru and Chile, which has created the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve -- but it's also an area rich in natural resources which has put the animals on a collision course with mining giant Andes Iron and their $2.5 billion project.

Conservationists jumped to their defense when the company unveiled plans to construct a huge open-cast mine and a port near the reserve, 600 kilometers (250 miles) north of Santiago.

The Dominga mine would have produced 12 million tonnes of iron ore a year, making it the biggest of its kind in the country, and 150,000 tonnes of copper.

For months it made headlines amid a bitter national debate over economic development and environmental conservation that was fought out on social media and split the socialist government of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

The project was rejected in March by an environmental commission but Andes Iron appealed the ruling.

In August, a special cabinet committee which included the energy and mines, health and environment ministers, finally vetoed the project citing of a lack of guarantees for the penguins.

Humboldts have been protected here since 1990, when the reserve was set up to encompass the islands of Dama, Choros and Gaviota, a stunning nature trail beloved of whale, sea-lion and penguin watchers.

Thousands of jobs

Rodrigo Flores, vice-president of the fisherman's union in nearby Punta Choros, a jumping off point for tours of the islands, welcomed the move.

"Dominga is an invasive project, for nature and for society," he told AFP. "It is incompatible with a place considered a hotspot of biodiversity at the global level."

But that's not everyone's view.

Joyce Aguirre is one of the project's staunch defenders in the local community of La Higuera.

"Every project has an impact," she said, arguing that the government had a duty to come down on the side of jobs.

"We want to be vigilant and watch what's going to happen. We are the ones who live here and we would never want to damage the area."

The region is among the most underdeveloped in Chile and many locals lament the loss of thousands of jobs promised under the plan.

Conservation NGO Oceana warned of the risks to the ecosystem from the mine, whose port terminal was set to be built only 30 kilometers away from the island of Choros.

The conservation group argued that increased shipping traffic, with its greater risk of oil spills, would do untold harm to a known cetacean migrant route and pristine waters that provide a rich food source to several vulnerable species including the sea otter.

"I've been diving in other areas and I've seen that residue from mining activity is noticeable on the ocean bottom, killing all existing life," said fisherman Mauricio Carrasco. "That's what we're afraid of."

Constant pressure on reserve

In Punta Choros, 160 families in the fishing community play an official role in watching over the penguin reserve, an area of 880 hectares which is home to 80 percent of the species.

Recent studies have shown the water to be pristine, largely due to conservation efforts.

But the reserve "is constantly under threat from mega-projects," warned Liliana Yanes, regional director of the National Forestry Office in Coquimbo.

French giant Suez was forced to pull out of a project to build a power plant in Barrancones, near Choros, in 2010. The then-president Sebastian Pinera demanded that the power plant be built elsewhere after thousands of people protested.

Around 60 kilometers away in the town of La Serena, part of the population has come out strongly against the U-turn on the Dominga project.

"We feel the disappointment, as Chileans, because the government is clipping our wings," said Marta Arancibia, adding that the region was one of the poorest in Chile.

She is a member of a residents association which signed an agreement with Andes Iron in which they promised to invest heavily in local education, healthcare and potable water projects.

"The state hasn't been present for us over the last 20 years, so we see these private enterprise projects as opportunities," said Aguirre, who also signed the agreement.

Andes Iron has signalled its intention to continue the battle in Chile's environmental court and if necessary, take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Round one to the plucky penguins, though it seems the war has only started.

Chile's #Humboldt penguins win battle in war against mining giant pic.twitter.com/uy2lPQpRgV

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 13, 2017

Brazil scraps bid to mine Amazon natural reserve

Yahoo – AFP, 26 Sep 2017

Brazil scraps bid to mine Amazon natural reserve

Brasília (AFP) - The Brazilian government backed off a controversial proposal to authorize private companies to mine a sprawling Amazon reserve Monday after blistering domestic and international criticism.

President Michel Temer's office will issue a new decree Tuesday that "restores the conditions of the area, according to the document that instituted the reserve in 1984," the Ministry of Mines and Energy said in a statement.

Last week, environmental activist group Greenpeace said at least 14 illegal mines and eight clandestine landing strips were already being used by miners in the Denmark-sized reserve known as Renca in the eastern Amazon.

Greenpeace said this showed the risks faced by Renca even without Temer's earlier proposal for ending a ban on large-scale foreign mining in the mineral-rich region.

Temer's decree signed on August 25 on opening up Renca was suspended days later after an international outcry.

The president had argued that lifting restrictions will allow Brazil to boost its struggling economy and also push the hugely destructive wildcat mining operations out of business.

In announcing the government was formally withdrawing the decree, the mining ministry insisted that the conditions that led to the measure in the first place were "still present."

"The country needs to grow and generate jobs, attract investments for the mining sector, including to exploit the economic potential of the region," it added.

The rainforest there is rich in gold and other valuable commodities but has been protected for decades from private industry and is home to several indigenous tribes.

Critics of Temer's decree included international environmental groups, the Catholic Church and even supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who is Brazilian.

The Renca reserve is home to the indigenous Aparai, Wayana and Wajapi tribes and vast swaths of untouched forest, covering more than 17,800 square miles (46,000 square kilometers).

Environmental groups say opening up Renca to mining would accelerate the advance of private mining and deforestation of preserved areas.

"The cancellation of the degree shows that, no matter how bad it is, no governing politician is absolutely immune to public pressure," said Marcio Astrini, public policy coordinator for Greenpeace Brazil.

"It is a victory of society over those who want to destroy and sell our forest."

He then added: "Renca is just a battle. The war against the Amazon and its different peoples, promoted by Temer and big agro business, is still on."

Brazil charges 21 over deaths in mine dam collapse: prosecutor

Yahoo – AFP, Sebastian Smith, October 20, 2016

A firefighter walks in the mud in Bento Rodrigues, three days after an avalanche
 of mud and mining sludge buried the town in southeastern Brazil, on
November 8, 2015 (AFP Photo/Chirstophe Simon)

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazilian federal prosecutors announced homicide charges Thursday against 21 people, including senior mining executives, allegedly responsible for the deadly collapse of the Samarco iron-ore mine dam last year.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Jose Leite Sampaio, made the announcement in a televised news conference in Belo Horizonte, near Mariana, the site of the disaster, where on November 5, 2015, the failed dam unleashed a torrent of muddy water down the River Doce, killing 19 people.

It was branded Brazil's worst environmental disaster, drawing comparisons with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion which killed 11 workers and triggered a devastating spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a statement, prosecutors denounced the mining companies for reckless policies in pursuit of greater profits that amounted to "qualified homicide," which in Brazilian law is more serious than ordinary manslaughter.

"Security was always of secondary importance. The increase in production at Samarco sought to compensate for the falling value of the ore in order not only to maintain but also to boost profits and dividends," Sampaio said. "It should have taken steps to promote the safety of the dam."

Prosecutors said Samarco -- which operated the mine and is owned 50-50 by Brazil's Vale and Anglo-Australian giant BHP Billiton -- ignored basic responsibilities.

They accused the mining companies of not taking into account the fate of communities downstream or even their own employees, saying there were not even "sirens or warning lights" in case of disaster.

The accused included the chief executive of Samarco at the time of the tragedy, Ricardo Vescovi, as well as operations managing director Kleber Terra, and three operations managers.

Aerial view of damages after a dam burst in the village of Bento Rodrigues,

in Mariana, Minas Gerais state, Brazil (AFP Photo/Christophe Simon)

They could face sentences of "up to 54 years," prosecutors said in the statement.

The three companies themselves also face charges for a total of 12 different environmental crimes, prosecutors said.

Vehement rejection

Vale said in a statement that it "vehemently rejects the charges presented by the federal prosecutor's office."

BHP also issued a statement, saying it "rejects outright the charges against the company and the affected individuals. We will defend the charges against the company, and fully support each of the affected individuals in their defense."

The charges still need to be approved by a judge before a jury trial would start.

The breaking of the tailings dam unleashed a massive flood of sludge into the River Doce, reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

Drinking water supplies were cut for hundreds of thousands of people, a village was flattened, and local fishing and tourist businesses were badly impacted. According to prosecutors, 14 tons of dead fish were collected in the aftermath.

The mining companies have agreed to pay billions of dollars in compensation but in May prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit against Vale, BHP and Samarco seeking 155 billion reais ($49 billion).