The minister of the GSI (Institutional Security Office), General Augusto Heleno, gave consent for businessmen with areas embargoed by Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) to advance in prospecting for gold in the Amazon, including in a virtually untouched region .
The actions of the general, who is the executive secretary of the National Defense Council, also responded to requests from a member of a cooperative of miners who operate suction dredgers in riverbeds in the Amazon and also from a lawyer who is now chief of staff of a senator from Mato Grosso.
It is up to the GSI minister, as representative of the National Defense Council, to sign the so-called acts of prior consent, necessary for the exploration of mining in the border strip, in a width of up to 150 kilometers.
The search for gold was allowed in the region of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the extreme northwest of the Amazon, known as Cabeça do Cachorro. One of the authorizations was given to the company SF Paim.
Ibama’s public system for consulting embargoed areas –a measure adopted in the case of environmental infringements– shows that SF Paim had an area closed by inspectors on July 31, 2021, which was included in the list of embargoes on September 2nd. The area is in Tapauá (AM).
The report was unable to contact the phone informed by SF Paim.
The GSI minister also authorized Mineração Santa Elina Indústria e Comércio to search for gold in the border strip, more specifically in the region of the city of Pontes e Lacerda (MT). The municipality is located in the Legal Amazon, according to data from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
On May 27, 2021, Heleno allowed the company to search for gold on 4,205 hectares in the border region of Mato Grosso. A new act, on the last 2nd, authorized ore surveys in 7,649 hectares.
Ibama has already closed four areas of the mining company, according to the public consultation system. The embargoes took place in 2009, 2014, 2016 and 2020.
The areas are in Mato Grosso and Rondônia and the environmental infractions were the most diverse: carrying out research, mining or extraction of mineral resources without a license or in disagreement with the license; destroy the forest in a preservation area, or with the felling of a protected species without authorization; and another infraction of flora.
The report called the company on Friday (3), and the attendant forwarded it to a director in another number. Nobody answered.
One prospector who received authorization from Heleno to search for gold in the Amazon was Décio José Weis, a member of the board of directors of the Cooperativa dos Garimpeiros da Amazônia. He appears on the cooperative’s website, based in Manaus, as a secretary.
The cooperative seeks to “regularize mineral exploration in the Amazon” and “is restricted to mining on the riverbed, carried out by suction dredgers”, as stated on the organization’s website. The action takes place in Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia and Mato Grosso.
Weis obtained two authorizations to work with gold research in the region of Japurá (AM). One consent concerns an area of ​​4,744 hectares. Another, the area of ​​3,091 hectares. The acts of the GSI minister were signed in August and December 2021.
Tânia Oliveira Sena, vice president of the cooperative, told the report that Weis is no longer a member of the organization. She said she would look for a contact for the prospector, so that he could comment on the information, but there was no return.
On July 9, 2019, lawyer Irajá Rezende de Lacerda obtained authorization from the GSI to search for gold in 1,705 hectares in a border strip, more specifically in Comodoro (MT).
Today, Lacerda is senator Carlos Fávaro’s chief of staff (PSD-MT), who took office in April 2020 after Selma Arruda’s impeachment by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).
“I am a lawyer and work in the environmental and agrarian area. There was a rejection [posterior do requerimento de pesquisa], because I didn’t follow up on the project. my acting [no Senado] has zero relationship [com o projeto de pesquisa de ouro]”, said Lacerda.
The GSI did not respond to the report’s inquiries about these specific cases of authorization for gold exploration.
In a statement, the Ministry linked to the Presidency stated that there are acts of assent throughout the Amazon region, aimed at researching or exploring “various minerals considered strategic for Brazil in recent decades.”
.
