He is referring to the empty offers from SRN Mineração, a mining company that obtained a preliminary license to extract up to 300,000 tons of iron ore in the region in 2019. He is afraid that the mining activities might contaminate their apiaries, an important source of income for the communities in the quilombo, one of the largest organic honey producers in the Northern area of the country.
The environmental impact report issued by the company does not mention the Quilombola population, nor the effects of mining on their way of life, including prospecting activities carried out less than 100 meters from an important local sanctuary.
The communities responded to the threats by filing a public civil action against the mining company and await the trial.
Transcript
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
There is no doubt that this place
will be polluted and destroyed.
From this place we are now, fewer
than 2,000 meters [6,500 feet] away
on the other side of this hill is the place
where the mining company will start.
I’m an organic honeybee producer
and once there’s pollution,
the first thing that will happen
is losing my organic registration.
They are not offering jobs.
They are underestimating our intelligence.
They want to deceive us with
false jobs that won’t exist.
This practically ends the life of
the Quilombola community.
Picture this, my father came to this
farm bringing 10 children with him.
This family man came here risking his life,
because if a son got sick, he would have
nowhere to go, he would have died.
There was nowhere to buy
a kilo of salt, there was nothing.
It really was total slavery.
But we didn’t realize that at the time.
I’m proud to say that if this quilombo exists today,
it’s because I existed.
Until that time in 1999, no one around here talked about quilombo. Nobody knew what quilombo was.
In 2003, I became aware of a government decree
that gave families living on lands originally occupied by enslaved people the right to reclaim those lands.
This right has been given since the Constitution.But the powerful people didn’t want that to happen.
They kept this right hidden.
Then, it was only in 2003,
when Lula became president, he sought out
this matter and issued the decree.
Then, in 2006, we were visited by an
INCRA (Brazil’s land reform agency) anthropologist
to actually carry out the identification,
To find out if there were indeed traces of
slavery here on this farm.
We managed to prove it with material we had there.
There were still remains of slave quarters,
of fences made by slaves.
To this day, there are areas of 5,000 hectares
[12,350 acres] which no one can touch,
because they say it belongs to people who live in São Paulo, people who live in Belo Horizonte,
who are the heirs of the slave owner of that time.
And we remain here to this day practically enslaved,
living on the land, but unable to work it.
I started exploring beekeeping in 1986.
From then on, I started to love beekeeping,
I started to really enjoy beekeeping,
working with it and never stopping.
Every day, I encourage my children, friends and
the people in the community to work with it.
When I first started beekeeping, there were
only half who worked with bees.
Today we have more than a hundred.
When I started working with bees, it was a struggle;
everything was difficult, we worked in the fields.
Then I started with beekeeping and realized
that it gives me an extraordinary income.
Bees produce a lot of honey, which is a commodity.
But there is a concern because we sell
our honey abroad as organic honey.
We are very afraid that our honey will be
contaminated by the mining activities.
If the honey is contaminated,
it would be likely that a country would
refuse two, three or four containers of honey;
It would kill the entire population of the region,
because it is what everyone lives on.
They came, they were already here talking.
They said that if you explore it, it doesn’t pollute,
it only reaches 200 meters [650 feet] away.
I’m about to see if it’s like that.
I say it’s not.
Man, everyone here is against it.
They went around saying things, holding meetings,
saying that there would be jobs for the people.
More than 400 direct jobs, apart from indirect ones,
and we are seeing that it is a lie.
There is no such thing.
They did several excavations.
Here a plane used to pass by; they came over land by car.
They drilled a hole measuring
more than 300 meters [980 feet].
That’s how it is, they do their business,
but it’s kind of confidential, they don’t tell anyone.
What we know it is only a part
because no one gets to really access it.
Firstly, it will transform our way of life
as all of us who are in this quilombo
were born and grew up in our own way.
Our culture is sought-after by many people.
People come from abroad wanting
to know about Reisado,
they want to know about São Gonçalo’s circle,
about the terreiros.
Until today, people who work in these
activities still don’t realize that this is a culture.
Sometimes they hide and say
they don’t want to do it.
There are many people who don’t accept it, right?
But nowadays we want to end this prejudice.
End this discrimination against people.
And so we are here to present
a little bit of our culture to you,
which is Umbanda, also our songs
and how we work, right?
We did a wonderful presentation,
we sang our doctrines, which are our songs.
People admired it so much.
We want to show them that there’s no evil about it.
Through that, we intend to show love,
compassion and union.
Aunt’s Grave [sanctuary] is important not only for our community,
but for the entire region.
I’m 71 years old and since I can remember, I saw my mother visiting Cova da Tia, making promises.
And it wasn’t just her, it was people
from all over the region.
She is buried there at the base of a hill.
The mining spots for research were dug only
100 meters [325 feet] away from this worship place.
Here is a sanctuary that does not have a religion,
it welcomes people from various
denominations with open arms.
There are Catholic images, Candomblé,
Umbanda, Spiritualism.
We saw candies and sweets that
refer to African-based religions.
