Para quem é a proteção ambiental? Disputas territoriais entre a Vale e comunidades camponesas: O caso da APA do Rio Gelado em Carajás (PA)

Abstract

Our research efforts involve revealing the asymmetrical power relations between neo-extractivism and the peasantry in the mining region of Carajás, as demonstrated in part in this article. In the first semester of 2021, we entered the Carajás Environmental Protection Area FLONACA in the southeast of Pará, the main site of our study. We used institutional documents from IBAMA, ICMBio and Vale/SA to collect data. However, the principal phase of our research was fieldwork. Our research techniques included using audio recordings and semi-structured interviews about the moment of winning land and about the relation between Vale and the peasant families. In addition, we used photography to bring the reader closer to the visual reality of our research. In other moments, the use of field notes was essential. We say this because many families suffered profound impacts to their livelihoods and their production and, logically, in their social reproduction as peasantry. Dams, security, and restrictions to land use in the environmental protection area are some of the elements constraining the territoriality of these family units. The data leads us to problematize the mining activity promoted primarily by Vale, which reinforces the very contradictions of its own activity, causing environmental problems upon converting common goods into a permanent logic of accumulation. As a result, territorial conflicts intensify and, paradoxically, possibilities to remain emerge for families who have resisted within the territory and built their freedom through daily labor with the land.

Keywords: Conservation Areas; Neo-Extractivism; Vale; Land Rights; Peasantry.