Brazilian federal prosecutors (MPF) have filed a request at the nation’s highest court, the Supreme Court or Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), requesting an Amapá state law that considers mining as a “low-impact” activity to be declared “unconstitutional.”
Prosecutors said that according to this Amapá state law, low-impact activities go through a simpler environmental licensing process. It waives, for example, the obligation of getting a provisional, an installing as well as an operating license, which are demanded at a federal level.
Prosecutors argued that the Amapá state law “takes over” the scope of federal government’s entities that should establish norms to protect the environment.
MPF also argued that the law “underestimates” the extension of the environment impacts that these mining activities can have on the environment, as they lack “plausible reasoning” and technical, scientific-based evidence.