Constrangimentos ao debate público sobre mineração em Minas Gerais

Abstract

This study aims to understand how the constraints to the public debate on mining in the state of Minas Gerais are structured. In dialogue with a systemic perspective of deliberative theory, it seeks to observe which elements act so that, even in the face of a series of situations of environmental conflicts and rights violations observed in the region over the past 20 years, the problems involved with mining activity only gain public projection in a significant way in the face of disasters - such as those witnessed in 2015, from the rupture of Samarco dams in the Doce river basin, and in 2019, with a Vale dam in the Paraopeba river basin, in Brumadinho. Even with systematic attempts to launch warnings by civil society actors, in a series of formal and informal arenas, and even in the face of the suffering of those affected, the recognition among the actors involved with the theme is that the public debate has not been held with the necessary intensity. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with environmentalists, bureaucrats, politicians, journalists, among other actors, and on the observation of formal and informal arenas, we propose the analysis of four structural issues which we believe contribute to the phenomenon. These are: i) economic constraints, related to the financing of politicians and the local press by mining companies; ii) institutional constraints, related to (a) the ambivalent performance of the Public Ministry in relation to the theme and (b) problems in the institutional design of arenas of political participation in the environmental area; iii) the fragmentation of environmental civil society in the state; iv) and attempts to control the time management of conflicts involving mining, by the actors involved.