A London-listed company has been mining gold in the Amazon rainforest without approval from the Brazilian land agency or the consent of nearby Indigenous communities, according to an investigation by the Guardian and partners.
Serabi Gold has been blasting 4.5 metre-wide tunnels and trucking ore from the Coringa project site in Pará state. But interviews with land agency officials and documents seen by the Guardian, Unearthed and Sumaúma indicate that ownership of the area is disputed and the land was allegedly occupied by illegal land-grabbers.
The case illustrates the ethical quagmire of land and mining regulations in Brazil, which are often contradictory and subject to widely different interpretation from government to government, and bureau to bureau.
Serabi says it is fully compliant with the Brazilian legal mining framework, and is in the process of an impact study with the local communities, after which it is confident that the full installation licence will be granted.
The Coringa mine is located in an area known as Terra Nossa. Until 2003, this was a part of Baú Indigenous land, where the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti people live. In 2006 the government land agency Incra set aside this part of the Baú land for settlement by small-scale family farmers.
But, as is often the case in the Amazon, grileiros – a slang Portuguese term that can be translated as “land grabbers” – had already been operating in the area, and one of those who claimed a plot there without authorisation, according to Incra, was Benedito Gonçalves Neto. “Benedito simply appropriated the land and said that it was his. So much so that we have an [ongoing] administrative process at Incra to take back these areas,” said Antônio José Ferreira da Silva, an Incra official who wrote a 2017 report about the unauthorised mining.
The settlement went ahead in other parts of the area, but in 2016 a Canadian mining company called Chapleau, which is now wholly owned by Serabi as of December 2017, struck a deal with Neto, according to Incra. In return for a one-off payment of R$21,428 (£3,420), monthly payments of R$1,428 (£228) and royalties from any ore extracted, the company was given the right to use the land as it wished, including mining, deforestation and construction of buildings and tailings ponds. “From the signing of the contracts Chapleau effectively controlled the areas, acting as an enclave in the settlement project,” Incra noted in the 2017 report.
The mine started exploratory production last year and Serabi reported 1,013 ounces (28.7 kg) of gold from Coringa. In future, it aims to extract more than a tonne of gold, worth $70m (£56m) each year. But this is happening against a complex and confusing backdrop. It appears that the company is operating with no approval from the land agency, without the consent of nearby Indigenous groups and without the payment of a fee to those who have made a rival claim to the property.
Incra is currently analysing a request from Serabi to operate in the area, but the agency confirmed in an email that “to date, Incra has not authorised research and mining operations in the Terra Nossa settlement”.
Brazil’s mining code allows companies to sign trial mining agreements with “the owners or occupants” of the land, regardless of whether their claim is legally recognised, and pay royalties. In this case Brazil’s mining agency, ANM, and Pará state’s environmental and sustainability department, Semas, both issued operating licences, which were automatically renewed last August, despite a court order that the Coringa project should not receive authorisation until the company concluded a consultation with nearby Indigenous communities. The mining agency subsequently halted approval in February of this year. “There is no current authorisation for mining in these areas,” ANM said in a statement.
However, Serabi says that under Brazilian law the licenses are automatically extended as long as renewal applications have been submitted. In an update published last month, it said: “The company confirms that renewal applications have been submitted within the stipulated time frames and that no notifications have been received from the issuing authorities that renewal will not be approved. Accordingly, these licences, which had an initial expiry date of 8 August 2022, remain valid.” They also state that they have been in regular contact with Incra over the issue of land permits.
Meanwhile the local population say they were not consulted before the mining began. Bepdjo Mekrãgnotire, a member of the Kayapó people, said he first became aware the mine was in operation due to the sound of explosives. “We were collecting Brazil nuts last year and the noise scared us. That’s when we found out,” he told a reporter from Unearthed. “The company should have consulted us before, because we have the right to speak, to charge. They are already working without consulting us, and we want to be compensated.”
The company confirms that it started a consultation process with Indigenous communities early last year, but it is not yet complete. “While progress has been slower than we were originally led to believe, the final report is expected to be available to be presented to the authorities for their review in the next few weeks,” Serabi’s chief executive, Mike Hodge, said in his statement to investors.
Neto and his business partner geologist Antonio Carlos Machado Matias told the Guardian and Unearthed that they had bought the area surrounding Coringa 20 years ago at a time when “nobody had land titles in the Amazon”. They say they had signed agreements and received payments from Chapleau, until Serabi took over. Matias said they had applied to Incra three times – in 2007, 2013 and 2021 – to have the land regularised, but in every case they were turned down. He and his partner believe they should be receiving royalties from Serabi, but he said the company stopped talking to them or paying them soon after they bought Chapleau. “Since there is an Incra decree, I have no way of saying that I have dominion over the area. So what can I do? Nothing … Even though I have old ownership documents, when Incra came and put the PDS [the acronym for land set aside for sustainable development] on top , that’s it, you lose.”
Serabi agrees that the land ownership is “disputed”. In its statement last month, it said: “All royalties due to the relevant landowner are currently being provided for by the company and payment will be made to the appropriate title holder as and when title is formally confirmed.”
All the while the complexities of the region are growing, with deforestation, crime and land conflicts plaguing the area. The Terra Nossa settlement that was supposed to house 1,000 households only holds 300, who face constant intimidation, and at least five people have been murdered there since 2011.
Serabi is not implicated in the violence or killings, but by operating in the area without the permission of Incra, it has been accused of endorsing the illegal acquisition of the property and undermining the settlement project.
“Chapleau [now Serabi] refuses to acknowledge the settlement, and recognises as the owner of the area a guy who grabbed public land using fraud,” said Incra’s Ferreira da Silva.
In a separate statement to the Guardian and its partners, the company said: “Serabi operates and complies with the Brazilian legal mining framework, we have all the required permits for our trial mining operation at Coringa and we are completely comfortable with our legal position and behaviour in relation to the ongoing disputed land ownership within which Coringa sits. Serabi has been operating in Pará state for over 20 years and remains committed to working with all stakeholders, supporting local communities and operating in an environmentally sensitive manner.”
Felício Pontes Junior, the senior public prosecutor who has been accompanying the case in the high court, said: “I hope that there will be an exemplary punishment to this company and that this will serve as an example to the other mining companies, especially the foreign ones, which today settle in the Amazon without respect to the basic rights of the traditional peoples.”
Ana Carolina Alfinito, a postdoctoral law researcher and a legal consultant at Amazon Watch, a nonprofit organisation working to protect the rainforest and Indigenous people, said this was an example of poor corporate social and environmental governance. “Everything regarding this project is wrong,” she said. “It is absurd that a company is operating without Incra’s permission inside a settlement for so many years.”
