(By AATR)
The area, larger than the city of Recife (PE), is located in a State Conservation Unit No. Condomínio Agronegócio Fazenda Estrondo, accused of illegally appropriating 444 hectares of land traditionally occupied by Geraizeira communities.
On September 1st, fifty-six civil society organizations sent an open letter to the Governor of the State of Bahia, the Secretary of the Environment, and the Coordination of Agrarian Development, demanding the revocation of the Authorization for Vegetation Suppression (ASV) of 24.732 hectares of native vegetation, requested by the company Delfin Rio S/A Crédito Imobiliário for the “Condomínio Cachoeira do Estrondo” in the municipality of Formosa do Rio Preto (BA). This case is considered one of the largest deforestation projects currently underway in Brazil. According to images obtained from the MapBiomas platform, approximately 3000 hectares had already been deforested by August 17th.
According to the open letter, ASV was irregularly authorized by the Institute of Environment and Water Resources (INEMA) through Ordinance No. 18.440 of May 22, 2019. The letter warns that the enterprise has never been able to demonstrate the land tenure regularity of its possession and illegally overlaps its mandatory Legal Reserve with the traditional territories of the geraizeiros – descendants of indigenous and quilombola people, who live in a traditional and sustainable way in the Cerrado.A company commits um /// typical de land grabbing green, usurping Domains strangers all with pretend a regularity environmental de determinado property"This is a passage from the letter. The document highlights that court decisions defining the communities' ownership of the area covered by the ASV were ignored. The communities were not even consulted. Nor were there any consultations with the Management Committee of the State Conservation Unit of the 'APA Rio Preto', nor with the Coordination of Agrarian Development (CDA), the state agency responsible for land regularization."
The impacts of the ASV in question have been worsened by two deforestation permits issued by INEMA, granted to the land parcels of Agropecuária Canadá S/A and Agropecuária Fronteira S/A. Both areas are part of the Estrondo Condominium. They carried out the deforestation of 2500 hectares in the headwaters of the Rio Preto, where the river originates. According to predictions from the region's traditional communities, the deforestation will cause landslides in the surrounding mountains and the subsequent silting up of the river's springs.
The expectation is that INEMA will immediately revoke the ASV and conduct a visit. in crazy to register the complaint and notify the company to immediately halt the deforestation that has begun, without prejudice to the determination of environmental reparations and the application of new fines.A execution that logging, na crafts , the was authorized, beyond the consequences devastating all with conservation da biodiversity, provision de water e recharge de aquifer, manutenção of the means de Life the populations geraizeiras, certainly compromises a suitability do process de concession de ASV No. State da Bahia, the organizations conclude.
BOOM Considered by the White Book on Land Grabbing (Incra/1999) as one of the largest land grabbing cases in Brazil, this large estate has a history of disregarding laws and court decisions, being fined for deforestation and forced labor, having its weapons fired at rural communities by private security personnel, as well as other acts of violence and violations of individual and collective rights, such as threats, assaults, and the kidnapping of community leaders. The enterprise, comprised of 22 companies producing soy, cotton, and corn for export, includes silos belonging to Bunge and Cargill and already occupies 315 hectares (an area three times the size of New York City). The land is located on the banks of the Rio Preto, on the border between Bahia and Tocantins, a region that forms part of the MATOPIBA agricultural frontier.
