Ref. Ares(2025)600942 - 27/01/2025
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ANNEX
We justify our demand in detail as follows:
1. Social and legal reasons
Violation of UN Convention ILO 169
The GPM has been pushing ahead with the project for around eight years without informing
and involving the public. The right of indigenous peoples, quilombolas and traditional groups
to consultation and free, prior and informed consent, as stipulated by
ILO Convention 169,
signed by Brazil, has not been respected.
Studies on the social impact on the
population
and the
environment are also not available or have not been published.
The Alcântara district, where the industrial area and the port wil be built, is home to the
largest quilombola population in the country, with 17,000 people, distributed in almost 200
communities9. Quilombolas are descendants of people who were enslaved in Africa and, like
indigenous peoples, enjoy special protection and rights under the Brazilian constitution.
"Partnership contract" between Grão-Pará Multimodal Ltda. and the Quilombola
Association of Ilha do Cajual
A partnership agreement that the GPM signed with three people from the Association of
Residents of the Quilombola Rural Black Community of Vila Nova Ilha do Cajual on 29
March 2017 in São Luís10, is particularly questionable.
In this agreement, the quilombola inhabitants of the island cede
the right to use 1,426
hectares of land on the island to GPM
for an indefinite period. This represents almost
90% of their ancestral territory on the island, totaling 1,630 hectares. Apparently, the people
of the island are to be resettled from the island to another area, so that GPM can build the
planned industrial area, port and hydrogen hub where the inhabitants currently live and make
their living. The northern part of the island lies in the tidal area and is mainly covered by
mangrove forests.
In return, the company promises to build 51 houses, a school, a health centre, a prayer room
and a football pitch for the population in an undefined location and at an undefined time, and
to pay the association "
6% of the profits from the project with all the associated benefits".
There is considerable evidence that the contract
is not legal, as it clearly violates several
basic requirements and laws. Among other things, the contract was apparently concluded
without the participation and consultation (principle of free, prior and informed
consent) of the affected inhabitants, as required by
ILO 169. The inhabitants, many of
whom are illiterate and without school education, are apparently unaware of the content of
the agreement and its far-reaching consequences, such as their planned relocation, as
conversations with residents during visits to the island in 2023 and 2024 revealed.
9 Instituto Socioambiental, 2024. Quilombolas conquistam acordo para regularizar território de Alcântara (MA):
https://www.socioambiental.org/noticias-socioambientais/quilombolas-conquistam-acordo-para-regularizar-territorio-
de-alcantara-ma
10 Partnership Contract. A pioneering agreement signed between Grão-Pará Multimodal Ltda. and the Association of
Residents of the Black Rural Quilombola Community of Vila Nova Ilha do Cajual, published in: Portogente, 2023.
Terminal project in Alcântara consists of SPE with port, railway branch and potential to increase Maranhão's GDP by
20%, centre of article: https://portogente.com.br/arconorte/187-arco-norte/109378-projeto-de-terminal-em-alcantara-
consiste-em-spe-com-porto-ramal-ferroviario-e-potencial-de-aumento-de-20-no-pib-do-Maranhão
5
Fig.1: Thematic map of the island of Cajual. Source: Anti GPM, 2024:
https:/ www.instagram.com/p/C9zmunHuZtC/?img_index=2
Further, after 44 years of fight, the Quilombola communities of Alcântara, to which the Island
of Cajual belongs, formalized a historic agreement with the federal government of Brazil on
19th of September 202411. At a ceremony attended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, two
ordinances and a decree were signed allocating 78,100 hectares of lands to the
communities. This will make it possible to expropriate overlapping private areas and then title
11 Agencia Gov, 2024. Acordo concilia território quilombola de Alcântara e Programa Espacial Brasileiro:
https:/ agenciagov.ebc.com.br/noticias/202409/acordo-reconhece-territorio-quilombola-alcantara-projeto-espacia-
brasileiro
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the territory, the last stage of the regularization process. According to the document, the
National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) should begin titling within a
year.
The company GPM cannot simply occupy community lands, which are now in a
regularization process, for the construction of the port, industrial and railway project, through
a legally very dubious lease agreements with some local persons.
2. Legal reasons
Project fragmentation
On 23 September 2023, GPM asked the federal environmental authority IBAMA to cancel
the provisional environmental approval procedure for the rail and port project. Federal
prosecutor
from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF),
confirmed at a seminar on the GPM project organized by civil society organizations in São
Luís at the end of June 2024, that the GPM company intended to license the port through the
Maranhão State Environment Secretariat (Sema)12. However, as the port is located in a
federal territory (União), the license must be issued by the federal environmental authority,
IBAMA.
The strategy behind this is obviously to split the railway and port project into two supposedly
separate projects, in order to avoid a more extensive and rigorous environmental
assessment by IBAMA. However, the port is intrinsically linked to the planned freight railway
line and vice versa, as it is the only connection to the interior of the country. The MPF has
announced that it will legally analyze the attempt to grant the license at Maranhão state level
and that, if it finds any irregularities, it wil immediately challenge this manoeuvre.
With an open letter dated 28 June 2024, 20 traditional communities, quilombolas and
indigenous peoples from Maranhão, as wel as the organizations Justiça nos Trilhos, CPT,
CIMI, CPP, MABE, MOMTRA, MOQBEQ, MOQUIBOM, MAM, GEDMMA, CONFREM,
UNICQUITA, Centro de Formação Saberes Ka'apor, Fórum Carajás, Justiça Global,
Fundação Rosa Luxemburgo, Articulação Internacional dos Atingidos e Atingidas pela Vale
and Rettet den Regenwald e. V. called on the companies, authorities and politicians involved
to stop the project due to its negative impact on people and the environment13.
3. Ecological reasons
National and international protected areas
The island of Cajual, where the industrial area and port wil be built, and the first 80
kilometers of the planned railway line are within the two
state protected areas Área de
Proteção Ambiental (APA) Reentrâncias Maranhenses (26,809.1 km)14 and
APA Baixada
Maranhense (17,750.4 km)15. Both protected areas are also protected by the
RAMSAR
International Convention as wetlands of international importance16. The protected areas
12 Anti-GPM Articulation, 2024. Title of the seminar "Impacts of the Grão-Pará Maranhão Project: Alcântara Port Terminal
and EF-317 Railway": https://www.instagram.com/p/C-LN2sfu8Fy/?img_index=1
13 https://www.regenwald.org/files/de/Declaracao-final-seminario-contra-GPM-28-junho-2024.pdf
https:/ rosalux.org.br/comunidades-enfrentam-projeto-logistico-da-grao-para-maranhao/
14 https://uc.socioambiental.org/pt-br/arp/782
15 https://uc.socioambiental.org/en/arp/785
16 RAMSAR, 2021. reentrancias maranhenses: https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris/640 and RAMSAR, 2020 Baixada Maranhense
Environmental Protection Area: https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris/1020
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are home to a large part of the world's largest and almost completely intact
mangrove belt
(11,000 km²) on the Atlantic coast of northern Brazil, of which 5,050 km² are in the state of
Maranhão, 3,960 km² in Pará and 2,269 km² in Amapá17
Fig. 2: Area of influence of the "Gurupi Mosaic" in the Belém endemic area (AEB) in eastern
Pará and western Maranhão. Source: Celentano, D. et.al., 2018. Deforestation, degradation
and violence in the "Gurupi Mosaic" - The Amazon's most threatened region:
https:/ www.researchgate.net/publication/324643005 Desmatamento degradacao e violencia no Mosaico G
urupi - A regiao mais ameacada da Amazonia
17 Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, 2018. The Atlas of Brazilian Mangroves:
https:/ ava.icmbio.gov.br/pluginfile.php/459
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In São Marcos Bay, where
Cajual Island is located and the first part of the railway line
passes, around
150,000 migratory birds stop over every year, including species such as
the red-billed curlew (
Limosa haemastica) and the black curlew (
Numenius phaeopus).
Cajual Island is an important breeding area for the
scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber), which is
classified as endangered in Brazil. Scientists have observed
2,500 individuals of these
magnificent animals in a
breeding colony on Cajual Island18. Thousands of other species
live in the various ecosystems in the sea and on land around Cajual Island, including
manatees19, sea turtles20 and dolphins.
Amazon rainforest, the "Belém endemic area" and "Gurupi Mosaic"
The railway line crosses the
"Belém endemic area", located in the states of Pará and
Maranhão21 Maranhão is home to the so-called
Gurupi Mosaic, which consists of six
indigenous areas (Alto Turiaçu, Awá, Caru, Arariboia, Rio Pindaré, Alto Rio Guamá) and the
state nature reserve Reserva Biológica Gurupi. The areas are home to the last large
contiguous areas of primary Amazon rainforest in the state of Maranhão. It is the region of
the Amazon basin most threatened by deforestation22 Between the above listed areas,
scientists have identified other areas of high conservation value that are important for
connectivity and the protection of water resources and between which ecological corridors
should be established. The freight railway line planned by GPM passes right through the
middle of these areas and would further complicate efforts to protect and connect them.
Important fossiliferous site in Brazil
On the east coast of Cajual Island, where the piers will be built, geological layers containing
fossils are being revealed. The Falésia do Sismito, Ponta Leste and Laje do Coringa sites
are Brazil's most important fossil deposits from the middle Cretaceous period, around 95
mil ion years ago, including dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, fish and ferns23. The soil layers
containing the fossils probably extend through the island's subsoil, as evidenced by fossil
finds in other parts of the island.
Misleading information in the company video
In a video presentation published by GPM on its website, the Amazon rainforest is shifted to
the west, giving the impression that the port and railway line are outside the Amazon region.
The graphic also claims that "
180% Brazilian agricultural production growth in capacity
without cutting any trees in the next ten years".
18 Rodrigues, A.A. 1995. Reproduction of Eudocimus ruber on Cajual Island, Maranhão, Brazil. Download the article as a
pdf file: http://www.revbrasilornitol.com.br/BJO/article/download/0314/pdf 63
19 Caribbean manatee (
Trichechus manatus)
20 Among them are the critically endangered
hawksbill turtle (
Eretmochelys imbricata) and leatherback turtle (
Dermochelys
coriacea)
21 M Goeldi, 2015. scenarios for the Amazon: Belém Endemism Area. Executive summary:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marcia-Barros-2/publication/323454047_Cenarios_para_Amazonia_Area_de_En
demismo_Xingu_Sumario_Executivo/links/5a96bc51a6fdccecff0a34bf/Cenarios-para-Amazonia-Area-de-
Endemismo-Xingu-Sumario-Executivo.pdf
22 Celentano, D. et.al., 2028. deforestation, degradation and violence in the "Gurupi Mosaic" - The most threatened region
of the
Amazon:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324643005 Desmatamento degradacao e violencia no Mosaico
Gurupi - A regiao mais ameacada da Amazonia
23 de Carvalho Marchesini Santos, M.E. 2009. Palaeontology of the Parnaíba, Grajaú and São Luís Basins:
http://cprm.gov.br/publique/media/paleo/pale_cap15.pdf and EmersonFerreiraTV 2012. Cajual Island:
https:/ www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnGmZhjn7hY
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Fig. 3: Screenshot from the video presenting the Grão-Pará Maranhão project, minute 1:53;
source: https://graoparamaranhao.com/en/news/tpa-ef-317-institutional-video-is-very-well-
received-by-the-market/ (© graoparaMaranhão)
Fig. 4: Map of the north-eastern part of the Brazilian Legal Amazon region (Amazônia legal
2021) with the location of the port of TPA and the EF-317 railway line (source: IBGE, GPM)
The graph and the information provided by the project operators are misleading. The fact is
that the location and boundaries of the Amazon region are officially and precisely defined in
Brazil as the legal Amazon region (Amazônia legal). Both the port and the entire railway line
are clearly located within the legal Amazon region, as our map with data from the Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) shows.
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Further, the establishment of agricultural lands24 and mining activities25 are the main driver
for deforestation in Brasil. The claim that the agricultural production capacity wil almost
double within the next tens years without any deforestation is totally false. In 2023, in Brazil
the three biomes alone - Amazônia Legal (9.064 km2), Cerrado (11.011 km2) and Pantanal
(723 km2 ) - have suffered deforestation on 20.798 km2, an area half of the size of
Switzerland26.
24 Haddad, E.A., Araújo, I.F., Feltran-Barbieri, R. et al. in Nature Sustainability, 2024. Economic drivers of deforestation in
the Brazilian Legal Amazon: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01387-7
25 Sonter, L.J., Herrera, D., Barrett, D.J. et al. in Nature Communications, 2017. Mining drives extensive deforestation in
the Brazilian Amazon: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00557-w
26 Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, 2024. Desmatamento na Amazônia cai 21,8% em 2023:
https://www.gov.br/mcti/pt-br/acompanhe-o-mcti/noticias/2024/05/desmatamento-na-amazonia-cai-21-8-em-2023
