Colonialidade do saber e licenciamento ambiental: a marginalização dos saberes tradicionais na Volta Grande do Xingú

Abstract

The coloniality of knowledge, as a hierarchical structure of knowledge production, marginalizes traditional epistemologies and reinforces the exclusion of Indigenous, riverside, and quilombola peoples from environmental decision-making processes. In Brazil, this dynamic is evident in environmental licensing, where local knowledge is often ignored in favor of a Westernized techno-scientific rationality. The Belo Sun mining project, in the Volta Grande do Xingu, exemplifies this issue by demonstrating how prior consultation, despite being legally required, is reduced to a formal procedure with no real impact on final decisions. This study analyzes how the coloniality of knowledge structures environmental licensing processes in the Amazon and how traditional peoples resist epistemic exclusion. The research is qualitative, based on documentary analysis of environmental regulations, technical reports, and judicial decisions, as well as a bibliographic review grounded in decolonial thought. The results indicate that Brazilian environmental licensing perpetuates a logic of exclusion and invisibilization of traditional knowledge, reinforcing environmental racism and epistemic injustice. The resistance of affected communities, expressed through mobilizations, litigation, and the production of their own knowledge, reveals the need to reform these processes to ensure effective participation. It is concluded that overcoming the coloniality of knowledge in environmental licensing requires the recognition of traditional knowledge as legitimate and essential to the construction of fairer and more sustainable public policies.