- Brazil is pushing the Tapajós River waterway as one of many principal Amazon transport corridors and making ready it for privatization, which is able to allow common dredging and upkeep to enhance its capability.
- Conventional communities and environmental teams warn that dredging and heavy vessel site visitors threaten fish shares, turtle nesting areas and different wildlife.
- The Tapajós waterway is a central element of the brand new Amazonian logistics plans to maneuver commodities similar to soy and beef, together with the contested Ferrogrão railway.
On Nov. 7 in Brazil, Indigenous individuals from the Tupinambá and different ethnic teams occupied the Tapajós River with small boats for a number of hours, halting barges carrying soybeans and different commodities close to town of Santarém, within the state of Pará. They did so peacefully, displaying banners with messages similar to “agriculture passes, destruction stays,” denouncing the socioenvironmental impacts of the Tapajós waterway and different infrastructure initiatives aimed toward reworking the Decrease Tapajós area into one of many main logistics export corridors within the Brazilian Amazon.
Every week later, on the COP30 local weather summit in Belém, Indigenous Munduruku blocked the primary entrance of the convention, demanding a listening to with Brazilian authorities to protest in opposition to the privatization of the waterway, amongst different points.
The Tapajós River waterway is an ongoing infrastructure challenge within the Brazilian Amazon that stretches about 250 kilometers (155 miles), connecting the Miritituba port in Itaituba, Pará, a key intermodal logistics hub for agricultural and mineral commodities, to town of Santarém, the place it meets the Amazon River and which offers entry to the Atlantic Ocean. Over the previous 10 years, cargo site visitors alongside this route has grown considerably, spurred by the paving of the BR-163 freeway, the first hyperlink between the granary states in Brazil’s central-west area and the start of the Tapajós waterway.
The river has lengthy served as a transport and journey route, however, to serve the pursuits of agribusiness, mining and different sectors, the Brazilian authorities determined to broaden its capability. The plan consists of consolidating the Tapajós waterway as one of many precedence export corridors inside the so-called Arco Norte challenge, an off-the-cuff time period used to explain a set of infrastructure initiatives aimed toward enhancing logistical effectivity in northern Brazil.
On Aug. 28, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a decree including the Tapajós waterway to Brazil’s privatization program, paving method for personal corporations to handle the channel and perform common dredging and different works aimed toward boosting cargo capability and lowering transport prices. The Madeira River and Tocantins River waterways, each within the Amazon area, have been additionally included within the plan.
“The federal government is making an attempt to design the Tapajós waterway challenge with an environmental perspective,” Eduardo Pessoa de Queiroz, superintendent for waterway research and initiatives at ANTAQ, Brazil’s waterway transportation company, informed Mongabay by cellphone. “River transport is extra sustainable, with fewer emissions, and we’re contemplating revitalizing river sources, defending riverbanks, and lowering dredging.”
In a letter to the Brazilian authorities, civil society organizations criticized shortcomings within the Amazon waterway coverage, specifically the dearth of dialogue with affected communities. The various inhabitants of Decrease Tapajós is carefully related to the river. Round 7,000 Indigenous individuals from 14 teams stay alongside its banks, along with riverine, extractivist and artisanal fishing communities.
After the protest on the COP30, the Lula administration stated it would seek the advice of Indigenous communities within the Tapajós area on the waterway challenge. “We’re dedicated, and the federal authorities will maintain a free, prior and knowledgeable session with all of the peoples of the area earlier than implementing any challenge on the Tapajós River,” stated Guilherme Boulos, minister of the Basic Secretariat of the Presidency, in the course of the closing of the Individuals’s Summit, which issued a press release figuring out challenges and proposing options.
Reconciling native inhabitants’ use of the river with the transformation of the Tapajós into considered one of Brazil’s principal transport corridors is difficult, in keeping with specialists. “This initiative worries Indigenous individuals,” Haroldo Pinto, regional coordinator on the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI in Portuguese), a Catholic group that fights for Indigenous rights, informed Mongabay by cellphone.
He stated that navigating the Tapajós has develop into more and more troublesome, as giant cargo ships generate waves that harm and typically even capsize the small boats utilized by native residents. “If there may be already harm now, think about the affect as soon as the river is dredged to permit giant ships to move by way of all 12 months spherical. How will these populations survive?”
Dredging operations, alongside competitors for river area, current important environmental dangers, in keeping with specialists. They’ll prohibit entry to fishing areas, improve erosion in weak residential zones, and deteriorate water high quality. Moreover, these actions can alter the water’s pH, conductivity, salinity, turbidity and temperature, threatening the river’s wildlife and the livelihoods of those that depend on it.
Vítor Vieira Alves, a federal public prosecutor in Pará state who has been working to ensure the rights of the peoples of the Decrease Tapajós, stated the standard lifestyle of Indigenous peoples and different communities has already been impacted. “These populations use the Tapajós River for fishing, bathing and different important actions, they usually additionally see it as a part of their religious worldview,” he informed Mongabay by cellphone.
The operation of the waterway is contributing to water contamination by way of the motion of sediments, mercury from mining actions, and different poisonous substances, Alves stated. By harming fishing, the first supply of meals and revenue for a lot of Indigenous and riverine households, the waterway poses a danger of meals insecurity and social destabilization.
The Tapajós River additionally flows by way of protected areas, together with the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve and the Tapajós Nationwide Forest, elevating issues about impacts on biodiversity. Environmental teams worry that dredging actions and the fixed site visitors of enormous vessels might have an effect on the migration and replica of Amazonian turtles within the Monte Cristo tabuleiro, considered one of Brazil’s largest turtle sanctuaries, in addition to affect fishes and different aquatic species.
Unlicensed dredging after extreme droughts
The technical, financial and environmental feasibility research for the Tapajós concession is underway and is predicted to be accomplished in early 2026. As a result of low river ranges attributable to the 2024 drought, Brazil’s division of transport infrastructure, DNIT, performed emergency dredging in February 2025 to make sure the passage of ferries carrying commodities — a measure requested by transport corporations.
The surprising use of dredging machines alarmed conventional communities, which requested the Federal Public Ministry (MPF in Portuguese) to analyze potential irregularities. In accordance with the prosecutors, dredging was carried out with out an environmental license. In addition they stated Indigenous communities weren’t consulted, as required below Conference 169 of the Worldwide Labor Group (ILO), which ensures the appropriate to free, prior and knowledgeable session (FPIC) for any challenge that impacts the life, territory or tradition of Indigenous peoples.
Just a few days after the MPF filed the lawsuit, DNIT ended the dredging operation, saying the river had already reached its flood stage. Because of this, a choose dominated that the case had misplaced its objective.
One other lawsuit filed by the MPF continues to be energetic, as DNIT intends to dredge the Tapajós yearly. “The Public Civil Motion [legal procedure] preemptively asks that the state of Pará and DNIT adjust to environmental and socioenvironmental legal guidelines, which embody prior environmental affect research, research on impacts to Indigenous peoples, licensing, and prior session,” Alves stated.
In an emailed assertion to Mongabay, DNIT stated there may be an ongoing licensing course of for upkeep dredging at seven essential navigation factors on the Tapajós River. In accordance with the company, socioenvironmental affect research and consultations with probably affected communities will nonetheless be carried out. DNIT additionally stated work will start solely after the state of Pará points the license.
In accordance with the Brazilian authorities, dredging to consolidate the waterway will initially be extra intensive to determine a principal channel, which might then require solely upkeep and occasional interventions, with much less affect. “We don’t contemplate the Tapajós River difficult from an infrastructure standpoint. It already has excellent navigability,” stated de Queiroz, from ANTAQ.
Nonetheless, good navigability doesn’t reduce the issues attributable to rising site visitors, a state of affairs anticipated to worsen with the development of Ferrogrão, a 933-km (580-mi) railway connecting the grain-producing state of Mato Grosso to the Tapajós River. In accordance with preliminary research launched by the Ministry of Transport, this new railway might improve the quantity of grain exports by way of rivers greater than sixfold by 2049. Ferrogrão, a central element of Brazil’s plans for brand spanking new transportation routes within the Amazon, is presently being challenged within the Supreme Court docket.
After demonstrating with banners alongside ferries loaded with soybeans and different commodities, greater than 300 Indigenous individuals, riverine residents, activists and neighborhood communicators traveled by boat from Santarém to the Pará state capital, Belém, for COP30. It was a symbolic journey, following the agribusiness export path to denounce the development of logistics infrastructure that impacts rivers and territories.
“The battle of Indigenous peoples and riverine communities is to cease the development of the waterway,” stated Pinto, from CIMI. “They won’t surrender.”
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