STF bars mining expansion in Serra do Curral (MG) – 05/08/2023 – Environment

The STF (Federal Supreme Court) suspended an amendment to the TAC (Term of Adjustment of Conduct), signed between the government of Minas Gerais and the mining company Gute Sicht, which authorized the company to expand the mining area in Serra do Curral, a postcard from Belo Horizonte.

The company’s activities are paralyzed by a series of court decisions, the most recent taken by the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) on the 27th, prohibiting the mining company from extracting iron ore in the region.

The decisions of the STF and STJ are preliminary in nature (provisional). The position of the Supreme, taken by the President of the Court, Minister Rosa Weber, is from Friday (5) and points to the need to protect the area already listed.

Both lawsuits were filed by the City Hall of Belo Horizonte. Gute Sicht’s lawyer, Guilherme Grimaldi, said he had not yet read Minister Weber’s decision.

The TAC was closed in 2021 so that the mining company could start exploring in the region, since the environmental licensing process for the venture had not yet been completed.

The amendment questioned by the city hall increased the company’s exploration area by 1,348 hectares. The area already granted to the company is approximately 30 hectares.

In her decision, Minister Weber said that expanding the area to be mined would affect the process of environmental protection in the region.

“The authorization for the expansion of the area of ​​mining activity fulminates, as said, the preventive purpose of the measures taken, at the state level, for the preservation of the cultural asset as it exists in its natural state, or the closest thing to it at the time of inspection”, said the minister, in the decision.

In a note, Semad (State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainable Development) states that there are no TACs in force with the company Gute Sicht. “It continues without administrative authorization from the folder to carry out any operation”, says the statement.

“Gute Sicht had a TAC signed in 2021 with Semad, valid for 12 months, in addition to an amendment signed in 2022, being canceled by the folder for non-compliance with conditions”, follows the text. The Belo Horizonte City Hall action involving the TAC is from December 2022.

On the 2nd, the state government informed that, after an inspection carried out on April 19, 2023, it determined the suspension of Gute Sicht activities in Serra do Curral.

The justification was that the company operated without environmental licensing and outside its mining area. The Federal Police is investigating the procedures adopted by the state for Gute Sicht to start operations in Serra do Curral.

At the federal level, the ANM (National Mining Agency) authorization procedure for mining Gute Sicht in Serra do Curral concealed the presence of an environmental protection area in the region.