"Brazil: Class action suit filed against Norsk Hydro to suspend bauxite mining operations in Pará," 29 May 2018

After several reports of spills and environmental violations, a local association of Indigenous and African-Brazilian communities (Associação de Caboclos, Indígenas e Quilombolas da Amazônia – CAINQUIAMA) filed a class action lawsuit with a federal court to order that Norsk Hydro-owned mining company Mineração Paragominas S/A stops its bauxite mining operations in the Barcarena area. The mine is located in the Miltônia Plateau in Paragominas, southeast Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ismael Moraes, the lawyer representing CAIQUIAMA, argued that the... Geoscience Institute of the Geochemistry Laboratory of the Federal University of Pará... found “highly contaminating radioactive substances with the bauxite” in the area.

Moraes explains that the class action asks the court to order Brazil’s National Mining Agency and the Ministry of Mines and Energy to revoke Mineração Paragominas' mining license for the bauxite field.