Mineração artesanal na Amazônia Legal: legislação e produtos biotecnológicos

Abstract

Artisanal gold mining in the Amazon is a constant subject of debate regarding its socio-environmental degrading potential. Such debates, sometimes, minimize the relevance of the activity for the social, economic development and environmental balance of communities through its potential to generate employment and income, reaching numbers close to one million people directly or indirectly involved in the mining activity. handmade in the 80s and 90s in the Amazon. The disorderly exercise of the activity shows its high degrading potential, in view of this, it becomes imperative to investigate the efficiency of the legislation in regulating the activity and, the incentive for the proper use of biotechnological products and tools so that the activity is developed within the standards of environmental quality, and that guarantee the socioeconomic development of the communities in their area of influence. However, the results obtained in this research, on the State's performance through legislation to achieve the socio-environmental development of the activity, were unsatisfactory. It should be noted that the National Mining Agency only knows the number of active Mining Permissions - PLG, however, the dichotomy in granting the activity makes the curation of this information practically non-existent, since the mining permission is only one phase of the process to authorization to mine, the second phase, the environmental license is managed by States and Municipalities, so it is not known how many PLG's are actually in operation, much less the number of miners working directly in their exploration. a paragraph about the problem of using a traditional-Hg extractor and its possible harm). In contrast to the low efficiency of Brazilian legislation for formalizing and adapting artisanal mining to sustainable development standards, biotechnological products based on Amazonian raw materials are viable and have potential for use in the activity, with the ability to meet the demands of the artisanal mining segment in the Amazon. The biotechnological product Activated Charcoals (CA's) produced from Amazonian, Açaí and Tucumã seeds showed similar efficiency to commercialized charcoal for the adsorption of gold leached by sodium cyanide, the tests were carried out at intervals of 12, 24 and 48 hours, were When samples of gold ore from two different mines were analyzed, activated carbon from Açaí and Tucumã had their adsorption efficiency compared with commercial activated carbon (produced from coconut fiber). In Mine 1, the adsorption values were: Coal from Açaí 100%, Coal from Tucumã 90%, Commercial Coal 95%. In Mine 2, the adsorption values were: Coal from Açaí 97%, Coal from Tucumã 90%, Commercial Coal 95%. The values express the high potential of application of the coals tested for the mining of leachate gold. The values were obtained from readings with an Atomic Absorption device, the initial concentrations of gold in the samples collected in each mine were read, the readings were repeated at 12, 24 and 48 hours, considering the percentage of gold adsorbed in each reading.