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Brazil's worst mining disaster: Corporations must be compelled to pay the actual environmental costs

Ecological Applications

October 2016
27(1)

DOI:10.1002/eap.1461

Authors:

Letícia Couto Garcia

Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul

Danilo Bandini Ribeiro

Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul

Fabio de Oliveira Roque

Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul

Jose Manuel Ochoa-Quintero

Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute

Show all 5 authorsHide

Full text available: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.1461/epdf In November 2015, a large mine-tailing dam owned by Samarco Corporation collapsed in Brazil, generating a massive wave of toxic mud that spread down the Doce River, killing 20 people and affecting biodiversity across hundreds of kilometers of river, riparian lands, and Atlantic coast. Besides the disaster's serious human and socioeconomic tolls, we estimate the regional loss of environmental services to be ~US$521 million per year. Although our estimate is conservative, it is still six times higher than the fine imposed on Samarco by Brazilian environmental authorities. To reduce such disparities between estimated damages and levied fines, we advocate for an environmental bond policy that considers potential risks and environmental services that could possibly be impacted by irresponsible mining activity. Environmental bonds and insurance are commonly used policy instruments in many countries, but there are no clear environmental bond policies in Brazil. Environmental bonds are likely to be more effective at securing environmental restitution than post-disaster fines, which generally are inadequate and often unpaid. We estimate that at least 126 mining dams in Brazil are vulnerable to failure in the forthcoming years. Any such event could have severe social-environmental consequences, underscoring the need for effective disaster-management strategies for large-scale mining operations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

(A) Available database of active mine-tailing dams in Brazil (orange circles) in different watershed region boundaries, showing their distance from various conservation units (highlighted in green). Although 662 tailing dams are registered in Brazil, coordinates are available for only 317 tailing dams from the national mining-dam cadaster in Brazil (DNPM 2015). (B) Inset of 293 available coordinates of tailings dams in Minas Gerais state, with the Bento Rodrigues Dam shown in detail (red circle) (see Data S1, available data [up to 12 May 2016] for 426 registered mine-tailings dams from the Foundation of the State Environment; Minas Gerais [FEAM]). (Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.)

…

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Communications

Brazil’s worst mining disaster: Corporations must be

compelled to pay the actual environmental costs

Letícia couto Garcia,1,4 DaniLo BanDini riBeiro,1 FaBio De oLiveira roque,1,2

Jose ManueL ochoa-quintero,1,3 anD WiLLiaM F. Laurance2

1Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, CP 79070-900, P.O. Box 549,

Campo Grande, MS, Brazil

2Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University,

Cairns, Queensland 4878 Australia

3Corporación para Investigaciones Biológicas, CIB, Cra 72 A No 78 B 141, Medellín, 050034 Colombia

Abstract. In November 2015, a large mine- tailing dam owned by Samarco Corporation

collapsed in Brazil, generating a massive wave of toxic mud that spread down the Doce River,

killing 20 people and affecting biodiversity across hundreds of kilometers of river, riparian

lands, and Atlantic coast. Besides the disaster’s serious human and socioeconomic tolls, we

estimate the regional loss of environmental services to be ~US$521 million per year. Although

our estimate is conservative, it is still six times higher than the ﬁne imposed on Samarco by

Brazilian environmental authorities. To reduce such disparities between estimated damages

and levied ﬁnes, we advocate for an environmental bond policy that considers potential risks

and environmental services that could possibly be impacted by irresponsible mining activity.

Environmental bonds and insurance are commonly used policy instruments in many countries,

but there are no clear environmental bond policies in Brazil. Environmental bonds are likely to

be more effective at securing environmental restitution than post- disaster ﬁnes, which generally

are inadequate and often unpaid. We estimate that at least 126 mining dams in Brazil are vul-

nerable to failure in the forthcoming years. Any such event could have severe social-

environmental consequences, underscoring the need for effective disaster- management

strategies for large- scale mining operations.

Key words: biodiversity losses; compensation; environmental policies for mines; liability to damages;

Payment for Environmental Services; rehabilitation; restoration; tailings dam failures.

introDuction

Mining- related disasters have frequently been in the

headlines, most recently with the collapse of a major

mining dam in southeastern Brazil. This collapse released

an enormous ﬂood of toxic mud that spread down the

Doce River in the state of Minas Gerais (Fig. 1), the

second- most extensive river of the Southeast Atlantic.

Immediately, about 17 km2 of land were directly

destroyed by the event, including the uprooted vegetation

of 8.35 km2 of critically imperiled Brazilian Atlantic

riparian forest (SOS Mata Atlântica and INPE 2015,

IBAMA 2016a).

This disaster killed 20 people and millions of fresh-

water ﬁsh, degraded local indigenous lands, and polluted

the sea in a vulnerable turtle- nesting area. One year later,

the limits of the disaster are still uncertain. There is

evidence that the 7000 km2 of toxic plume has reached

important biodiversity conservation areas in the Atlantic

Ocean, including Abrolhos National Park, one of the

most emblematic protected areas in Brazil, and three

other marine protected areas, Costa das Algas, Santa

Cruz, and Comboios in Espirito Santo state, threatening

endemic and rare species of marine fauna (Morandini

et al. 2009, Fioravanti 2016, IBAMA 2016b, Miranda

and Marques 2016). Models of river discharge dispersion

predict long- term consequences near the city of Rio de

Janeiro (Marta- Almeida et al. 2016) and the conse-

quences of the dam burst in the Atlantic Ocean are still

not fully assessed. Chemical contaminants, which could

accumulate in ocean sediments, can be reinjected into the

water column by disturbances (e.g., storms, animal

movements, human activities) resulting in recurring con-

tamination over time (Mahiques et al. 2016).

Ecological Applications, 27(1), 2017, pp. 5–9

Manuscript received 19 January 2016; revised 7 September

2016; accepted 12 September 2016. Corresponding Editor:

David S. Schimel.

4E-mail: garcialcbio@yahoo.com.br

6Ecological Applications

Vol. 27, No. 1

LETÍCIA COUTO GARCIA ET AL.

Communications

An independent network of scientists analyzed samples

of the Doce River after the dam collapse and found ele-

vated arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel,

selenium, and manganese, all above legally mandated

levels (Escobar 2015, GIAIA 2016). Leaching/extraction

tests also suggested that Ba, Pb, As, Sr, Fe, Mn, and Al

have high potential mobilization from mud to water and

toxicological bioassays in mud and soil samples indicated

potential risks of cytotoxicity and DNA damage (Segura

et al. 2016). This contradicts reports from the Samarco,

the corporation responsible for the tailing (mine- waste)

dams, and the government stating that heavy metals in

the Doce River are within acceptable limits.

The Doce River and its tributaries host many endemic

ﬁsh and molluscs, including recently described species

(Roxo et al. 2014, Salvador and Cavallari 2014) that may

be locally endemic. Besides chemical pollution, the heavy

sludge that spilled into the river reduced oxygen availa-

bility, increased turbidity, interrupted reproductive move-

ments of many migratory ﬁsh species, and may be altering

the functioning of entire ecological networks (Lambertz

and Dergam 2015, Massante 2015). In the heavily frag-

mented Atlantic- forest biodiversity hotspot, active habitat-

restoration programs can require decades to restore some

complex ecological interactions and functions (Garcia

et al. 2015, 2016). A massive dam burst like that at the Doce

River could require considerably longer time periods for

rehabilitation and reclamation. Abandoned mines often

retain high levels of associated metals over many decades

(Younger 1997). Tailings spills that occur over large areas,

such as at Doce River, could potentially contaminate sedi-

ments and groundwater for long periods if an effective

effort is not made to remove the tailings by plowing con-

taminated soils (Fields 2001, Simón et al. 2001).

Environmental loss and corporate responsibility

The dramatic scale of this event raises a fundamental

question: How can disaster- management strategies incor-

porate the risk of serious loss of biodiversity and environ-

mental services?

Compensation payments are one useful policy instrument

for bringing some justice to those affected by human activ-

ities that cause social and environmental disasters. In the

case of the Doce River, beyond the human death toll and

water and soil contamination, important socioeconomic

activities such as ﬁshing will have to be halted indeﬁnitely.

In addition to funding needed for rehabilitation and recla-

mation activities, the compensation process should account

for the loss of key environmental services (Neves et al.

2016), including the loss of provisioning services like ﬁshing.

Mining disasters have stimulated proposals of compen-

sation frameworks and mechanisms that account for envi-

ronmental services and restoration time lags (Laurance

2008, Bai et al. 2011, Vela- Almeida et al. 2015). One way to

set the appropriate compensation level is to multiply the per

FiG. 1. The region near the mine- tailing dam in Minas Gerais, Brazil (A) before and (B) after the disaster (red circle). Also

shown is the Doce River (C) immediately after the dam burst and (D) vanishing under an enormous wake of toxic mud. Photo

credits: panels A and B, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team; panel C, Letícia Camarano;

and panel D IBAMA photo database. (Color ﬁgure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.)

BRAZIL’S WORST MINING DISASTERJanuary 2017 7

Communications

hectare environmental service value of the Doce River

region before the disaster by the Doce River watershed

area. A contingent valuation survey before the disaster esti-

mated a US$62.53·ha−1·yr−1 of Payment for Environmental

Services (PES) in some site of the watershed (Oliveira et al.

2013). The Doce River watershed spans 83 400 km2

(Euclydes 2010), roughly the size of Austria. The main river

was completely jeopardized as well as some tributaries (the

extension of water bodies directly affected was >650 km),

releasing toxic substances that can bioacccumulate through

the entire food web (Miranda and Marques 2016). Hence,

the spill likely impairs the whole watershed. Multiplying the

PES and watershed area values yields a total value of

US$521 million per year (values in Portuguese can be found

in Appendix S1). This value is conservative, as it does not

incorporate some vulnerable environmental services (such

as the value of individual species, pollination and seed dis-

persal processes, genetic resources, and oceanic impacts).

This estimated annual loss is still nearly six times higher

than the sum of all seven ﬁnes imposed by the Brazilian

Environment Agency (IBAMA), which totaled ~US$90

million (the values of the applied ﬁnes have reached the

maximum value allowed by Law). Subsequently, several

levels of Brazilian governments and Samarco tried to reach

an agreement on further restitution (~US$6.15 billion;

BHP Billiton 2016a), but the Brazilian Superior Court of

Justice suspended these negotiations (STF 2016). Even in

the unlikely event that this entire agreed- upon amount was

reinstated and solely allocated to rehabilitation and recla-

mation activities, it would only cover 12 years of environ-

mental service losses. Twelve years is only a fraction of the

time required for full environmental reclamation over such

a large and severely affected region. More hope for more

appropriate restitution comes from the Public Civil Suit

ﬁled last May by the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecution

Service (~US$47.7 billion; BHP Billiton 2016b). This suit

includes 200 different requirements for social, environ-

mental, and economic compensation. However, even if this

suit is successful, it will be very challenging to get Samarco

to pay. Until now, Samarco has appealed on all ﬁnes, the

Public Civil Suit, and a number of ongoing legal cases.

According to Brazilian Environmental Agency (IBAMA),

from 2011 to 2014, only 8.7% of all levied environmental

ﬁnes were paid in Brazil. Hence, there is not much hope that

the ﬁnes imposed by the courts in this case will be paid.

In addition to setting appropriate compensation pay-

ments, a clear policy for compelling corporations to

maintain high levels of environmental risk management

could help prevent disasters (Gerard 2000, White et al.

2012, Edwards and Laurance 2015). For example, con-

sider the current policy on the management of tailing

ponds. Tailings of ores deposited in dams are not con-

sidered “hazardous waste,” so they are not subject to the

Brazilian Environmental Crimes Act. This means that the

hazardous waste- management plans, including measures

to reduce the volume and danger of waste and liability

insurance for damage to the environment or public

health, are not required for tailing ponds. A bill is being

considered by the Brazilian Congress to close this

loophole for dams near human communities, but this

proposal does not include protections for biodiversity. As

pointed out by Meira et al. (2016), the mining lobby in

Brazil is so powerful that the Samarco ﬁne payments have

been made contingent on the company being allowed to

FiG. 2. (A) Available database of active mine- tailing dams in Brazil (orange circles) in different watershed region boundaries,

showing their distance from various conservation units (highlighted in green). Although 662 tailing dams are registered in Brazil,

coordinates are available for only 317 tailing dams from the national mining- dam cadaster in Brazil (DNPM 2015). (B) Inset of 293

available coordinates of tailings dams in Minas Gerais state, with the Bento Rodrigues Dam shown in detail (red circle) (see Data

S1, available data [up to 12 May 2016] for 426 registered mine- tailings dams from the Foundation of the State Environment; Minas

Gerais [FEAM]). (Color ﬁgure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.)

8Ecological Applications

Vol. 27, No. 1

LETÍCIA COUTO GARCIA ET AL.

Communications

reopen other mining activities in the region. In addition

to better laws and policies for controlling mining opera-

tions, new techniques for waste- storage facilities, such as

removing free water in tailings ponds, is essential strat-

egies for reducing risk (Franks et al. 2011, Jones and

Boger 2012).

As part of an environmental policy for mines, environ-

mental bonds could also be used to incentivize mining

companies to improve monitoring systems and man-

agement. In this case, an environmental bond is created

when corporate funds are deposited in advance of a

mining activity and are held in escrow until the end of

mining and released when reclamation operations are

successfully completed (Gerard 2000). The ﬁnancial

coverage provided by this bond could be based on the

relative risk of the mining activity and the potential loss

of the environmental services. By making bonds man-

datory, companies that do not have the capital to cover

potential accidents or propose very risky operations will

not be able to go ahead with their initial plans. Hence,

they will have to reduce the potential size and/or risk of

their operation to move forward. If well planned, this

policy could markedly improve enforcement of environ-

mental regulations while encouraging mining corpora-

tions to minimize their risks and liability, thereby

increasing environmental safeguards. It would certainly

be better than the status quo. Although, some bills have

been introduced to legislate minimum compulsory envi-

ronmental insurance (e.g., Senate bill PL 767/2015), so

far, Brazil has lacked a clear policy strategy and regu-

latory framework for environmental bonds and insur-

ances. For instance, last July, the Minas Gerais state

Public Prosecution Service ﬁled a bill (#3695/2016) origi-

nated in a popular initiative that includes an “environ-

mental bond” to social- environmental responsibilities in

case of damages, which would be mandatory for prior

mining licensing (Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais

2016). There are several environmental bond or insurance

strategies used in other countries, including Australia and

the USA (Gerard 2000, Boyd 2002, White et al. 2012),

which could serve as a model for a similar policy in Brazil.

The urgency of such actions is underscored by the fact

that there are hundreds of active mine- tailing dams in

Brazil (Fig. 2), with watersheds in Amazonia, the

Pantanal, Cerrado, Caatinga, and Atlantic Forest biomes

being at risk. According to the national mining- dam

cadaster in Brazil (DNPM 2015), the collapsed Doce

River dam was considered a low accident risk, and only

8% of existing tailings dams are considered high risk. We

believe these risks are underestimated. Brazil has had

more than 80 mine- related environmental disasters, and

an inventory of South American mining sites over the last

century found an overall failure rate of 19% (Azam and

Li 2010, Nazareno and Vitule 2016). On that basis, and

given the large number (662) of existing tailings dams in

Brazil (DNPM 2015) (Fig. 2 and see Data S1 for existing

tailings dams in Minas Gerais), we estimate that 126

existing mining dams could eventually be expected to fail.

Mining activities are having huge environmental and

social impacts in Brazil. The loosening of certain environ-

mental laws (Ferreira et al. 2014, Sugai et al. 2014,

Brancalion et al. 2016, El Bizri et al. 2016, Meira et al.

2016), the granting of new mining concessions in pro-

tected areas, and a ban on new protected areas in regions

of high mineral potential are being hotly debated both

publicly and in the Brazilian Congress. Despite recent

reverses in environmental law, there are bills that aim to

avoid new disasters currently being considered in the

Brazilian Congress (PL 4286, 4287/2016).The Doce River

calamity serves as a timely warning that urgent actions

are needed to limit the risks of serious mining damage

both in Brazil and worldwide.

acknoWLeDGMents

We thank Dr. Erik Nelson, Dr. Arnildo Pott, and two anony-

mous referees for helpful comments on the manuscript, Letícia

Camarano for sharing picture from Bento Rodrigues town and

surroundings after the disaster, and to the Foundation of the

State Environment–Minas Gerais (FEAM) for sharing the avail-

able data for 426 registered mine- tailings dams of Minas Gerais.

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Mar 2025
ENVIRON MONIT ASSESS

Remote sensing and machine learning are techniques that can be used to monitor water quality properties, surpassing the limitations of the conventional techniques. Turbidity is an important water quality property directly influenced by the Fundão dam tailing rupture, which spilled tons of ore tailing in rivers of the Doce River Basin, Southeastern Brazil. We tested different machine learning algorithms coupled with 10 m resolution Sentinel-2 images, to model and spatially predict the water turbidity of the Doce basin rivers affected by the Fundão dam rupture. Results indicate that the cubist model presented the best performance. Both single bands and spectral indices presented great importance for modelling water turbidity. In particular, the Fe3 index (simple ratio between red and blue bands) was the most important covariate, highlighting the spectral response of the suspended sediments rich in Fe oxides. The red and near-infrared bands were the most relevant single bands for modelling turbidity, since the great spectral contrast between clean and turbid water in these bands. The water turbidity was considerably higher in the rainy season and for the upstream Doce basin where the Gualaxo do Norte and Carmo rivers are located. This is associated with the great deposition of the Fundão dam tailings inside and outside these rivers, besides the hydraulic and geomorphological characteristics of the Gualaxo do Norte and Carmo sub-basins.

Fast, in situ, and eco-friendly determination of Mn in plant leaves using portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for agricultural and environmental applications

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2025
ENVIRON MONIT ASSESS

The portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry has been very useful for the characterization of different earth materials, and its application for foliar analysis is really promising. The performance of pXRF for foliar analysis depends on several factors such as concentration of the elements, fluorescence yield which is influenced by atomic number, spectral interference, and water content. Mn is one of the elements that present a prominent fluorescence peak. In this sense, it was hypothesized that pXRF can directly determine the Mn concentration on foliar samples, even when used on intact leaves (fresh or dry) being a useful tool for agronomic and environmental purposes. Thus, the objective was to assess the performance of a pXRF to determine Mn concentration in two different foliar datasets from Brazil/South America and Mali/Africa. In the Brazilian dataset, leaves from eight crops (common bean, castor plant, coffee, eucalyptus, guava tree, maize, mango, and soybean) were scanned via pXRF at the following conditions: intact and fresh leaves, intact and dry leaves, and powdered samples). In the Malian dataset, powdered samples from cotton and maize were analyzed via pXRF. For comparison, Mn concentration was also determined after nitro-perchloric digestion followed by quantification via inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). After descriptive statistics, linear regressions were performed for all sample preparation conditions in both datasets, using Mn concentrations obtained through pXRF and the acid digestion method. The data quality level of all linear regressions was considered quantitative with high R (0.93 to 0.98) and R² (0.87 to 0.96) values. The direct analysis of Mn via pXRF on intact and fresh leaves yielded R of 0.93, R² of 0.87, and a low relative standard deviation (< 10%). The manufactured pXRF calibration used in this work allowed an accurate direct Mn determination in plant leaves. Considering the importance of Mn as a plant micronutrient and its potential toxicity depending on soil redox conditions, the fast, in situ, non-destructive, and eco-friendly determination via pXRF has a tremendous agronomic and environmental application worldwide.

Mining Tailings Effects on Soil Quality and Performance of Two Native Species of Atlantic Forest: Implications for Restoration

Article

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Sep 2024
WATER AIR SOIL POLL

Mining activities significantly contribute to environmental pollution by releasing chemical contaminants into ecosystems, making natural recovery challenging. In this study, we amended the mining tailings from the Fundão dam with reference soil to simulate the heterogeneity of tailings concentrations to which native species are exposed. We aimed to identify the tailings concentration that best supports the development of two native species, Deguelia costata and Peltophorum dubium. Our results showed that substrates with lower concentration of tailings had an increase in organic matter content and higher acidity. In contrast, substrates with higher tailings concentration showed increased levels of toxic metals; yet these metals seemed not to be readily available to plants, as evidenced by the enhanced biomass accumulation and improved seedling quality in these subtracts. Conversely, the reference soil, being nutritionally deficient and acidic, may have led to increased absorption of toxic metals by the plants. This resulted in reduced growth and increased activity of antioxidant enzymes and synthesis of flavonoids. Both species selectively accumulated iron in the roots and manganese in the leaves, without reaching phytotoxic levels. The findings unequivocally demonstrate that D. costata and P. dubium exhibited remarkable resilience by successfully thriving and growing in highly contaminated substrates (up to 100% mining tailings). Hence, both D. costata and P. dubium prove to be highly suitable candidates for the restoration of areas devastated by iron mining activities.

Consequências dos desastres naturais e evacuação de áreas acometidas no abandono animal: revisão de literatura

Article

Apr 2025

Os desastres naturais e antrópicos, incluindo a subsidência do solo decorrente da mineração, causam impactos significativos tanto para comunidades humanas quanto para a fauna. Este estudo revisa a literatura nacional e internacional sobre os efeitos desses fenômenos, com ênfase na relação entre desastres ambientais e o abandono de cães e gatos. Discute-se a influência dos felinos e caninos errantes na biodiversidade, considerando sua participação na predação de espécies nativas, na competição por recursos e na disseminação de patógenos. Em seguida, analisam-se os impactos físicos e psicológicos dos desastres sobre os animais, abrangendo lesões, desnutrição, exposição a agentes parasitários e desenvolvimento de distúrbios comportamentais, como ansiedade e estresse pós-traumático. A revisão também explora a relação entre a realocação compulsória de populações humanas e o consequente abandono de animais domésticos, destacando suas implicações para a saúde pública e o bem-estar animal. Por fim, enfatiza-se a necessidade da inclusão dos animais em planos de emergência e estratégias de resgate, recomendando-se medidas preventivas e mitigatórias, tais como campanhas educativas, infraestrutura adequada e políticas públicas voltadas à proteção animal. Conclui-se que a adoção de estratégias eficazes para o manejo de animais em contextos de desastres pode minimizar os impactos ambientais e sociais, promovendo maior bem-estar animal e fortalecendo a resiliência das comunidades afetadas.

Sustainable recovery plan for an urban-rural community affected by the Fundão Dam disaster in Brazil

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025
J ENVIRON ENG LANDSC

The rupture of Fundão Dam spilled contaminated tailings across the Doce river basin, severely damaging municipalities such as the urban Barra Longa and the rural Gesteira. The wave of tailings led to the sediment deposition in rivers margins, causing the loss of riparian forests and cropping areas. Sediment analyses confirmed the presence of toxic compounds (sodium and ether amine) and a very low fertility. In consequence, there was a sharp decline in agro-pastoral production in Gesteira, leading to land abandonment and rural exodus. In the urban area of Barra Longa, the wave of tailings damaged the urban floodplain and the square, which were rehabilitated using grey infrastructure. Alternatively, we proposed a new landscape recovery plan for both Barra Longa and Gesteira based on Nature and Community-based solutions that contemplate the inclusion of green infrastructure, the remediation of toxic compounds, the restoration of soil fertility, permeability and stabilization, riparian forest rehabilitation and the recovery of agro-pastoral productivity, ultimately aiming at reducing the flood risk and land abandonment.

Assessing temporal shifts in trophic diversity in fish assemblages after the Fundão dam collapse

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025
ENVIRON MONIT ASSESS

The rupture of the Fundão dam stands as one of the most significant environmental disasters of its kind on a global scale, profoundly affecting the aquatic ecosystem of Doce River Basin. By employing stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen, we were able to trace matter and energy flow within ecosystems. In this study, we assessed the spatial and temporal variation, between 2020 and 2022, in species richness and trophic diversity in areas exposed (along a gradient in the main channel of the river) or unexposed (control sites in tributaries systems) to the mine ore tailings in the Doce River Basin. We tested the hypothesis that tailings reduce species richness, and that trophic stability is negatively affected by mining tailings. To estimate trophic stability for each sampling site, we calculated the standard ellipse area (SEA) and six community-wide metrics based on stable isotopes. The three regions studied presented distinct patterns on trophic diversity. Control sites exhibited stability in trophic metrics over time. Affected regions close to the rupture of the dam exhibited significant fluctuations on all six community-wide metrics analyzed than the affected regions farther from the rupture. Sites close to the rupture exhibited lower species richness, affecting mainly herbivores and piscivores. Our findings show the potential of using the isotopic approach in monitoring the ecological recovery of impacted ecosystems.

Mining Tailings and Dam Failures in Latin American Mining Countries

Chapter

Feb 2025

Nature and natural resources are inextricably linked to societal progress in Latin America. Nature–society relationships provide both opportunities and problems in creating more fair, egalitarian and sustainable development in this resource-rich region. The region has over half of the world’s tropical forests and various other natural biomes; it has a quarter of the world’s potentially arable land and one-third of the world’s freshwater reserves that combinedly contain a wealth of biodiversity.

Aplicação de Wetlands Construídas como Alternativa na Descaracterização de Barragem de Contenção de Sedimentos

Conference Paper

Jan 2024

Dam failure disrupts Atlantic Rainforest ant communities and their interactions with seeds

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2024
J INSECT CONSERV

In November 2015 occurred the largest environmental disaster in the world mining industry – the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The dam’s tailings buried and contaminated large areas of the Doce River catchment, its estuary, and the surrounding Atlantic Rainforest. Despite the severity and extent of this disturbance, our knowledge about tailings dam failure impacts in terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity and their ecosystem functions remain limited. We investigated the impacts of the dam failure on surrounding Atlantic Rainforest ant communities and their interactions with seeds, two years and four months after the failure. Ant composition changed, as some species were lost and replaced by others. While species richness and number of individuals remained unaffected, 26 species were lost from the affected communities, leading to the phylogenetic impoverishment of the community. The tailings also altered ant-seed interactions, increasing the time ants took to locate a seed and the distance of seed removal. As ants are well-established bioindicators, these impacts likely extend to other faunal groups. The cascading effects of such impacts on forest regeneration are still unclear, as are the potential effects of the observed changes in ant communities on other ecosystem functions ants perform.

Earth Observation Data to Support Post-Hazard Damage Assessment: A Case Study of the Appiatse Explosion in Ghana

Article

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Jul 2024

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, a motorbike allegedly collided with a truck carrying about 10 tonnes of ammonium nitrate explosives. The explosion caused a blast that created an 18 m diameter crater at the centre of the road and leveled almost the entire village of Appiatse, located in the Prestea Huni Valley District in the Western Region of Ghana. During such disasters, whether natural or anthropogenic, rapid assessment is crucial for an appropriate and effective emergency response. The Appiatse incident resulted in detrimental environmental damage, including the dispersion of particulate matter, dust, soil, and water pollution in the catchment area. Similarly, the high levels of ground vibration caused by the incident resulted in the razing down of most of the structures which were constructs of wattle and daub plastered with concrete. Earth observation (EO) technologies, such as satellite imagery and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data, play a crucial role in disaster management by providing accurate and detailed assessments of damage, enabling effective emergency response and recovery efforts. The impact of the Appiatse explosion was detected by the Enhanced Pollution Management (EPM) EO service, piloted in Ghana, through a time-series analysis. In this research, a damage assessment was carried out using EO data. A collection of Sentinel-2 (10 m resolution) optical satellite images, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, and aerial images obtained from a UAV survey (3 cm resolution) were used for the analysis. The damage assessment map of Appiatse provides insights into the extent and severity of the impact, demonstrating the value of integrating various EO data sources for detailed post-hazard damage assessment. The findings from the current research highlight the lack of compliance with the protocols for the transport of hazardous chemicals in Ghana and highlight the need to strictly adhere to safety protocols prescribed by relevant authorities to ensure environmental safety and curb such incidents in the future.

Histórico e implementação de sistemas de Pagamentos Por Serviços Ambientais no Estado de Minas Gerais

Article

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Jul 2013

No Brasil e no mundo, diversas iniciativas de Pagamento por Serviços Ambientais (PSA) já estão em andamento. Um exemplo brasileiro é o programa Bolsa Verde, instrumento político-econômico do Estado de Minas Gerais, que possibilita o reconhecimento dos produtores rurais pelos serviços ecossistêmicos prestados em suas propriedades. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste estudo é realizar um breve histórico e analisar a implementação de programas de PSA no estado de Minas Gerais a partir de duas iniciativas: o programa Bolsa Verde e o programa Agente Ambiental. Este último vem sendo desenvolvido pelo Instituto Xopotó na Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio Xopotó – MG, em resposta às diretrizes estabelecidas pelo programa Bolsa Verde. Percebe-se como peças fundamentais para o sucesso dos sistemas de PSA, a integração dos diversos atores envolvidos para garantir a assistência técnica, a acessibilidade à informação e a durabilidade dos contratos, conciliando a produção agrícola com a proteção ambiental e possibilitando a construção de uma nova relação de sustentabilidade entre os produtores rurais e o meio ambiente. Entretanto, os atuais desafios dos programas de PSA em Minas Gerais indicam que uma boa política não é suficiente para o sucesso do programa, é necessário um arranjo institucional eficiente, mecanismos de financiamento duradouros e execução participativa, envolvendo os principais atores destes processos.

Restoration over time: is it possible to restore trees and non-trees in high-diversity forests?

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2016
APPL VEG SCI

Questions: Do different growth forms have distinct temporal patterns of recovery of their structure, diversity, and composition in restored Atlantic Rain forest? Are tree and non-tree assemblages structured by the same factors? Location: Atlantic Rain Forest, restored by planting an assemblage of highdiversity tree species, Brazil. Methods: We measured plant colonization of restoration sites of different ages to evaluate restoration success in terms of species diversity, colonization by non-tree species and structure measures among stands. We used Procrustes analysis to test whether the same conditions that influence tree composition influence non-tree composition (congruence between non-trees and trees present on the same sites). Results: Many structural aspects of recovering forests, e.g. tree basal area, canopy cover, height, tree richness, and non-tree floristic composition resembled a mature forest within five decades. Although tree species diversity increased according to restoration age of sites, planted sites did not recover the richness of all growth forms even after five decades of restoration, and particularly lacked climbers and epiphytes. We detected significant similarity between corresponding points (tree and non-tree composition) from separate ordinations only in the reference forest. Therefore, naturally assembled communities are more concordant than those originating from active restoration. Conclusion: Non-tree assemblages respond to different factors than the tree assemblages in restoration sites. Hence, non-tree recovery may not result as a natural consequence of tree recovery, and specific restoration strategies for non-tree species must be applied. Tree richness recovered after two decades. Only half of the non-tree species richness was recovered in old restoration sites, but their composition similarity reached expected levels of reference values. Further studies will investigate if low richness of non-tree species is a consequence of low input of allochthonous propagules (landscape filter) or whether they are arriving but not establishing (environmental filter). Enrichment planting of non-tree species may be required if the problem is propagule input. We recommend enrichment planting should be implemented within 10 yrs after initial restoration planting because of the need for trees as supporting structures. However, if propagules are arriving but not establishing, the solution is to detect which environmental filters are important and to manipulate them through forest management.

Mining undermining Brazil’s environment

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2016
SCIENCE

On 5 November 2015, two mining dams jointly owned by Vale and BHP Billiton collapsed in Brazil. The toxic sludge wiped out whole villages, leaving 19 dead and suffocating 600 km of one of Brazil's most valuable rivers (1). One might expect increased scrutiny on the mining sector's social responsibilities after such an event. Instead, Brazilian politicians—many of whom owe their campaign funding to mining companies—have recently pushed forward three pieces of legislation intended to neuter environmental regulations. The first bill (PL 37/2011) will create the National Mining Agency, giving more autonomy to the sector. In effect, it will allow the mining industry to decide which areas to mine. A complementary piece of legislation (PL 1610/1996) will authorize mining in indigenous lands. There are 4181 official requests from mining companies that are held up by current regulations and awaiting the vote on this bill. If it passes, this will open the possibility for these companies to operate in 177 indigenous territories (2). Indigenous lands cover one-fifth of the Brazilian Amazon and currently represent one of the most effective barriers against deforestation (3). Finally, the constitutional amendment PEC 65/2012 aims to weaken the licensing process of large developments by eliminating the current power that environmental agencies have to suspend a project based on its Environmental Impact Assessment (4, 5). In practice, Environmental Impact Assessments will be reduced to a tick-box requirement for the mining industry. The biomes most threatened by mining—Amazon, Atlantic Forest, and Cerrado (6)—are also the most valuable in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services (7). Approval of these three pieces of legislation would signify that Brazil is no longer at the forefront of sustainability and confirm that its politics are vulnerable to development pressures and corporate lobby (6). We agree with Edwards and Laurance (8) that an independent global authority to police large multinational mining companies in developing nations is urgently needed.

Hidden impacts of the Samarco mining waste dam collapse to Brazilian marine fauna - An example from the staurozoans (Cnidaria)

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2016

O colapso da barragem de rejeitos de Fundão, em Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brasil) iniciou uma enorme tragédia humana e, provavelmente, o mais grave desastre ambiental da história recente do Brasil. A barragem continha rejeitos do processamento de minério de ferro de minas de propriedade da Samarco, uma empresa controlada pela brasileira Vale S.A. e pela anglo-australiana BHP Billiton Ltda. Apesar de tentativas ineficazes para conter o desastre, após 16 dias a lama atingiu o mar, onde provavelmente afetará milhares de espécies da fauna e flora marinhas. Este ponto de vista fornece um exemplo de uma dessas espécies, o cnidário Kishinouyea corbini Larson 1980 (Staurozoa), emblemática pois é extremamente rara, insuficientemente estudada e sua distribuição conhecida para a costa brasileira sobrepõe a área ameaçada pelo desastre. Com base neste caso, discutimos a necessidade de esforços para monitorar e minimizar os possíveis impactos desse crime socioambiental, bem como para identificar e punir todos os responsáveis por esta tragédia, incluindo agências estatais de fiscalização e licenciamento negligentes, a fim de evitar futuras tragédias semelhantes.

A critical analysis of the Native Vegetation Protection Law of Brazil (2012): Updates and ongoing initiatives

Article

Full-text available

May 2016
NAT CONSERVACAO

The Native Vegetation Protection Law of Brazil, which replaced the Forest Code from 1965,is still undergoing regulation at federal and state levels, and the constitutionality of someclauses are still in question. In order to support legal rulings, decisions by public officers, andto inform other stakeholders, we present a balanced assessment of the positive and negativeconsequences of Native Vegetation Protection Law in light of current scientific knowledge.Key advances were noted in the systems of controls and incentives, which promoted newmechanisms and policies to support the implementation of this law. The main environmen-tal setbacks were (i) the removal of protection of certain environmentally fragile areas, (ii)the concession of amnesty of fines incurred for violating the preceding legislation, (iii) allow-ing continuous farming or maintenance of infrastructure in areas protected by law, withoutfull recovery of native vegetation. The weakening of Native Vegetation Protection Law mayhamper soil and watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, and even agricultural pro-ductivity, without manifest benefits for the country. On that account, we recommend that: (i)judiciary rulings and state and county regulations to correct pending issues with the NativeVegetation Protection Law based on scientific knowledge and with wider citizen participa-tion; (ii) the strengthening of agencies for rural technical assistance; (iii) the developmentof incentives to develop the supply chain for native vegetation recovery; (iv) the regulationof compensation for Legal Reserves based on clear and robust environmental criteria; and(v) the assessment of legal compliance has also to be based on the environmental quality ofrecovered areas.

Neglect of ecosystems services by mining, and the worst environmental disaster in Brazil

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2016
NAT CONSERVACAO

Brazil’s mining code under attack: giant mining companies impose unprecedented risk to biodiversity

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2016

Potential risks of the residue from Samarco's mine dam burst (Bento Rodrigues, Brazil)

Article

Aug 2016

On November 5th, 2015, Samarco's iron mine dam – called Fundão – spilled 50–60 million m3 of mud into Gualaxo do Norte, a river that belongs to Rio Doce Basin. Approximately 15 km2 were flooded along the rivers Gualaxo do Norte, Carmo and Doce, reaching the Atlantic Ocean on November 22nd, 2015. Six days after, our group collected mud, soil and water samples in Bento Rodrigues (Minas Gerais, Brazil), which was the first impacted area. Overall, the results, water samples – potable and surface water from river – presented chemical elements concentration according to Brazilian environmental legislations, except silver concentration in surface water that ranged from 1.5 to 1087 μg L−1. In addition, water mud-containing presented Fe and Mn concentrations approximately 4-fold higher than the maximum limit for water bodies quality assessment, according to Brazilian laws. Mud particle size ranged from 1 to 200 μm. SEM-EDS spot provided us some semi quantitative data. Leaching/extraction tests suggested that Ba, Pb, As, Sr, Fe, Mn and Al have high potential mobilization from mud to water. Low microbial diversity in mud samples compared to background soil samples. Toxicological bioassays (HepG2 and Allium cepa) indicated potential risks of cytotoxicity and DNA damage in mud and soil samples used in both assays. The present study provides preliminary information aiming to collaborate to the development of future works for monitoring and risk assessment.

Fundão Dam collapse: Oceanic dispersion of River Doce after the greatest Brazilian environmental accident

Article