The Tocantins-Araguaia waterway is one of the Brazilian government’s priority projects for transporting soy, corn, meat, minerals and other commodities to ports in the Amazon Rainforest. The project calls for more than 2,000 kilometers (more than 1,200 miles) of navigable channels in these two rivers, which cross the Amazon and the Cerrado savanna biomes, and is part of the so-called Arco Norte project, a set of infrastructure plans to improve logistical efficiency in northern Brazil to trim shipping costs.

Making these water channels viable requires a series of structural interventions: dredging, rock removal, construction of dams and locks, and port expansion. Public prosecutors and environmental organizations have spoken out against these initiatives, saying they threaten ecosystems and hundreds of traditional communities in six Brazilian states.

One of these battles centers on the plan to blow up a natural rock formation called Pedral do Lourenço in Pará state. Spread across 43 km (27 mi) of the Tocantins River, this rock formation is an obstacle to ship navigation during the dry season, from June to December, blocking the passage of boats coming from the Tocantins and Araguaia rivers, which converge just before the formation. The blasts would affect 35 km (21.7 mi) of it.

The National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) plans to create a navigable channel about 100 meters wide in this stretch by blasting rocks, supplemented by dredging before and after the area. In an email to Mongabay, the department said the 36-month project will be carried out by a consortium at a cost of 1 billion reais ($178 million).

The federal government justifies the project by stating that the waterway will have the capacity to transport the equivalent of around 500,000 trucks annually. Thus, it will serve as an alternative to roads, potentially reducing logistics costs by up to 30%.

In October 2022, the federal environmental agency, IBAMA, issued a preliminary license attesting to the project’s socioenvironmental viability.  At that time, the agency was run by the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who had dismantled environmental policies in Brazil. In August 2024, however, a lawsuit filed by federal prosecutors requested the suspension of this earlier permit, citing missing studies and other issues that made it impossible to certify the impact of the proposed blasting.

According to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), there was no free, prior and informed consultation with potentially affected riverine, Indigenous, and Quilombola (Afro-Brazilian) communities. There was also no complete information on the impact of blasting on fishing, the main source of food and economic activity for these communities.

“Technical opinions from IBAMA itself pointing to impacts were ignored,” federal prosecutor Rafael Martins da Silva told Mongabay by phone. “The preliminary license assumes that these issues can be addressed later, but there are serious fishing-related problems, which is important for the communities. Considering social and environmental compensation without fully completed impact studies is impossible. This permit should not have been granted.”

Prosecutors also criticized how the license was split into several stages, as it doesn’t consider the impacts of the construction and operation of the Tocantins-Araguaia waterway as a whole. According to them, dividing the megaproject into small interventions is a trick to circumvent the legal requirement for a complete study, allowing construction to proceed in such a way as to deem the final project irreversible and exclude many affected populations.

“The project has been divided into sections, resulting in specific interventions with specific licenses, without considering the whole picture,” Martins da Silva said. “The rock demolition has an impact, the dredging has an impact, but we need to look at the waterway’s impact once it is ready. This project will limit access to the river and impact the people’s way of life there.”

Despite the prosecutor’s claims, IBAMA approved the operation on May 26, renewing opposition from MPF and Tocantins riverine communities. Government officials praised IBAMA’s decision, as well as Pará governor, Helder Barbalho. “Those from Pará know, those from northern Brazil know how important this is”, Barbalho celebrated in an official statement. “This positions Pará so that we can guarantee the navigability of the Tocantins river all year round and ensure that, from Marabá to Barcarena, we can make the river navigable.”

Overlooked communities

In February 2025, a federal judge rejected the MPF’s request to block the license. In his ruling, Judge José Airton de Aguiar Portela said the blasting would have a limited and controlled impact, and dismissed the argument that blasting and dredging were part of the waterway project.

Portela also said there were no Indigenous peoples, Quilombolas or riverine communities along that section of the Tocantins, ignoring the mapping of affected populations presented by the project’s developers themselves. A survey conducted by DNIT between 2016 and 2018 identified 12,000 fishermen in the six affected municipalities of Marabá, Itupiranga, Nova Ipixuna, Breu Branco, Tucuruí and Baião.

“More than 20 communities, some located just a few meters from Pedral do Lourenço, were overlooked,” Silva said. “These communities were not consulted about the rock demolition. Many of them have not even been visited yet.”

According to Edir Augusto Dias Pereira, a geographer and professor at the Federal University of Pará, DNIT failed to consider riverine and fishermen as traditional populations. “Although there are no Indigenous or Quilombola lands so close to Pedral do Lourenço, the explosions will affect several communities along the river,” he told Mongabay by phone.

Judge Portela cleared DNIT to seek a new permit, granted by IBAMA on May 26. There’s no date for the explosions yet. The license establishes 26 environmental programs associated with the works, such as monitoring aquatic and terrestrial fauna; the establishment of a veterinary service base; environmental education and waste control actions; and an underwater demolition pilot project, with environmental impact assessment.

In March, the MPF challenged Portela’s ruling, reiterating its concerns about the project. The federal court has not yet ruled on the appeal.

Rocks shelter threatened species

The blasting aims to clear a long, wide navigation channel at least 4 meters (13 feet) deep. In doing so, it threatens species that live, feed and reproduce in Pedral do Lourenço, including more than 20 types of endangered fish, the critically endangered Araguaian river dolphin (Inia araguaiaensis), and Amazonian turtles. The new channel will also change the water flow in that section of the river, which will also affect aquatic life.

“This area is a unique ecosystem home to species with distinct ecological relationships. An intervention of this scale, which causes a significant rupture in the rock formation, threatens the survival of these animals,” Dias Pereira said. “The waterway means losses and threats to life on the Tocantins River.”

He added that disregarding potential future impacts on waterways suggests this development model favors large agribusiness and mining companies over the public interest. “It is not a simple engineering project. It is a geopolitical project. The waterway strengthens the commodities consensus, a national vision failing to benefit the river’s local communities. For those who live here, this is unacceptable. It is a violation,” Dias Pereira said.

He also echoed concerns raised by activists and experts about Brazil’s plans to carve new routes through the Amazon connecting the rainforest to Pacific ports in neighboring countries, such as Chancay Port in Peru, to boost trade with Asia. These multimodal routes combine riverways and paved roads and are of special interest in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, known as the New Silk Road. Historically, new routes carved through the Amazon have led to increases in deforestation and encouraged land grabbers and livestock ranchers to encroach deeper into the rainforest. The Chinese government has invested in some of these projects, including Chancay Port, as an alternative route to the Panama Canal, which is part of a geopolitical dispute with the U.S.

Banner image: Federal Public Ministry (MPF) officials navigated the river stretch to meet with leaders of communities that will be affected by the planned rock blasting. Image courtesy of Yasmim Bitar/MPF. 

Brazil plans new Amazon routes linking the Pacific & China’s New Silk Road

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