Top Brazil court suspends Amazon mining permit

A FEDERAL court in Brazil has suspended a presidential decree that would have allowed mining companies to exploit the lush Renca reserve in the Amazon after national and international condemnation of the government move.

In a decree last week, unelected president Michel Temer abolished the National Reserve of Copper and Associates which was created in 1984, opening swathes of untouched forest – roughly 4.6 million hectares in northern Brazil – to mining and commercial activity, justifying the effort by saying that it would boost Brazil’s economy.

The court in Brasilia “partially granted an injunction to immediately suspend any administrative act” aimed at abolishing the Renca reserve, it said, adding that the original decree by the right-wing Temer could no longer be implemented.

The ecological- and mineral-rich reserve is home to several indigenous communities, who, along with environmentalists and human rights groups, have been opposing Temer’s move at lifting the ban on mining in the natural reserve for several months now.

According to O Globo, the mining companies from the US, Canada and Australia have been petitioning the Temer government for several months to open the reserve to mining.

Randolfe Rodrigues, from the REDE-AP opposition party, called Temer’s move the “biggest attack on the Amazon of the last 50 years”, O Globo reported. teleSUR