Grandes projetos e riscos socioambientais da mineração: a exploração (i)legal do ouro em Cachoeira do Piriá, PA.

Abstract

The large development projects in the Amazon are agents of transformation in these territories until the present moment. In the municipality of Cachoeira do Piriá, in the northeast of Pará, several projects such as mining and the construction of BR 316, boosted the formation of a critical area, in a disorderly occupation process, where illegal mining was structured as the main economic activity in the region and advancedaround the urban core and among vulnerable social groups, changing their territories and their quality of life. The problem of this study, therefore, is to understand how goldexploration produces socio-environmental risks in the territory of Cachoeira do Piriá- PA. This study brings a political ecology approach as a theoretical contribution and asmain authors Acselrad (2004), Martinez (2007) and Porto (2012). The research is a case study and has a qualitative nature with methodological procedures anchoredin bibliographic and documentary research, through access to secondary data and public websites. The field study carried out took place in gold exploration areas locatedin rural communities and in the urban core, and in relation to the use of geotechnologies, maps of land use, location and heat maps (Kernel) were analyzed. The results demonstrated that the territory presents systematic socio-environmental risks that are mainly concentrated among vulnerable social groups, among which peripheral communities, quilombolas, fishermen and family farmers. The disproportionality in the distribution of risks over the territory is characterized by high potential among social groups, with emphasis on security risk, water risk, pedologicalrisk, health risk, and risk to the way of life, which are intensified by the absence of actions from public power and the fragility of legislation aimed at gold mining. Finally, a booklet on the socio-environmental risks of mining was created as a research product, as an information instrument to contribute to knowledge and resistance among vulnerable social groups, as well as assisting public authorities in monitoring and managing socio-environmental risks.