Argentine indigenous people participated in the meeting organized by civil society and showed the numerous environmental impacts caused by the hydraulic fracturing technique
Symbolically, the month of April is a time of importance and visibility for the indigenous cause in Brazil. This was the period chosen for an important meeting organized by ClimaInfo (a grantee of iCS). “Boas Energias Maranhão” promoted an exchange between the Mapuche indigenous people, from Argentina, and residents from different communities in the state of Maranhão. Environmentalists, local government and researchers were also present. The occasion dealt with a serious environmental problem that has already been suffered by the Argentines and which, soon, may become a reality for the lives of people of Maranhão: the extraction of gas via fracking (hydraulic fracturing). This is a technique that drills the earth with the help of chemical products and causes numerous impacts.
Already prohibited in countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, fracking was banned in Paraná in 2019. In the region of the Argentine Patagonia, the people from the province of Neuquén suffer from the extraction in the geological formation known as Vaca Muerta, the second largest reserve of shale gas in the world. The Argentines came to warn about the imminent risks of this practice, and also to ask the Brazilian government not to finance a gas pipeline that will expand the exploration of Vaca Muerta. Other states in the country have also suffered from lobbying by the fracking industry, such as Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins and Piauí.
More information about the repercussions of the event can be found here:
Globo
Cubo
