Mato Grosso

Brazil

Minas Gerais

Mato Grosso do Sul

Pará

Paraíba

Pernambuco

Piauí

Paraná

Rio de Janeiro

Rio Grande do Norte

Rondônia

Acre

Roraima

Alagoas

Rio Grande do Sul

Amazonas

Santa Catarina

Amapá

Sergipe

Bahia

São Paulo

Ceará

Tocantins

Distrito Federal

Espírito Santo

Goiás

Maranhão

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In May, 2025, the Arayara International Institute of Education and Culture filed a Public Civil Action (ACP) against the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) due to the inclusion of Blocks PRC-T-54, PRC-T-100, PRC-T-101, PRC-T-117, PRC-T-118, PRC-T-119, PRC-T-122, PRC-T-134, PRC-T-135 for oil and gas exploration in the 5th Permanent Concession Offer Cycle. It is alleged that the blocks were included in the auction without prior, free, and informed consultation with the directly affected Indigenous peoples, thus violating ILO Convention 169. The Arayara Institute alleges that the ANP ignored the existence of overlapping blocks with Indigenous lands and several Areas of Direct Influence (AID). It emphasizes that the ANP issued a technical note recommending the exclusion of areas within a 10- and 8-km perimeter around Indigenous lands, as an oil spill could affect the entire surrounding ecosystem, and that the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) issued a recommendation that the auction be suspended. It emphasizes that the exploration of these blocks causes harm to the health, territorial, and cultural rights of the affected populations. When discussing the supply and impact of exploration of oil blocks overlapping or within areas of influence of Indigenous lands, the author mobilizes the concept of environmental racism by explaining the motivation for offering these areas in the auction. It argues that there is a contradiction between the reality of the climate emergency and the need for energy transition, and the fact that oil and gas exploration is still increasing. The action highlights the important role of indigenous peoples in combating climate change, which is only possible with the possession and autonomy of their traditionally occupied territories. Requests the granting of a preliminary injunction to (i) suspend the offering of blocks PRC-T-54, PRC-T-PRC-T-100, PRC-T-101, PRC-T-117, PRC-T-118, PRC-T-119, PRC-T-122, PRC-T-134, PRC-T-135, ordering the Federal Union and the ANP to refrain from approving, granting, and signing the contract for these blocks until the prior, free, and informed consultation has been conducted; (ii) if the contract has already been signed, requests that its effects be suspended until the prior consultation with the monitoring of the MPI and FUNAI has taken place. As final requests, requests the cancellation of the procedure for offering and granting the blocks or, subsidiarily, the suspension of the offering until the prior, free, and informed consultation with indigenous peoples and traditional communities, with the monitoring of FUNAI and MPI has taken place.

The author reported the mootness of the action, since none of the blocks indicated in the initial filing received any offers. Therefore, the court dismissed the case. The judgment became final and the case file was permanently archived.

On November 18th 2025 the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) filed a Public Civil Action (environmental class action), with a request for a preliminary injunction of a precautionary and inhibitory nature, against Nortox SA, Syngenta Proteção de Cultivos Ltda., several other companies, and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), due to environmental damage resulting from soil and water pollution caused by pesticides. The pesticides in question contain the active ingredient atrazine and are produced, imported, or marketed by the defendant companies, whose environmental monitoring of residues must be adequately promoted by the environmental agency. The widespread use of atrazine in Brazilian agriculture and the controversies and serious environmental and health concerns that its use brings with it are highlighted. Atrazine is banned in 44 countries (including the entire European Union), and exposure to the substance is associated with a range of deleterious effects on human health. In addition to its intrinsic toxicity, it is noted that atrazine has high persistence in the environment (once applied, the substance does not degrade easily) and high mobility in the soil, being transported to rivers and groundwater. The playintiff cites technical reports from Embrapa documenting the results of using the product in the Dourados River Hydrographic Basin in Mato Grosso do Sul, an area of intense agricultural activity where crops such as soybeans, corn, and sugarcane occupy more than half of the territory. The scientific studies highlight that the presence of atrazine and its degradation products (metabolites) is not restricted to the area of its application and that there is a shortcoming in CONAMA Resolution 357/2005, as it does not establish maximum permitted values. Tha plaintiff states that technical assessments have confirmed the presence of atrazine and its derivatives in multiple water sources of various indigenous communities affected by agribusiness activities in the state. It explicitly states that the damage caused by the use of pesticides is not distributed neutrally and disproportionately affects rural workers, Afro-descendant populations, indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and vulnerable riverside populations, characterizing a pattern of environmental racism expressly repudiated in the Belém Declaration (2025) and incompatible with the duties of equality and non-discrimination in environmental and climate matters. It clarifies that the situation of chemical contamination must be interpreted in light of the commitments made by Brazil in the aforementioned declaration, which recognizes that historical and persistent patterns of discrimination, coupled with unequal access to decision-making processes, produce differentiated exposures to pollution, climate risks, and nature loss. It argues that Advisory Opinion (AO) 32/2025 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, although focused on the climate emergency, provides a legal roadmap directly applicable to large-scale chemical environmental damage, establishing guidelines on due diligence and the regulation of business activities. According to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF), the conduct of the defendants and the state's omission in controlling and monitoring atrazine conflict with the duty of enhanced diligence, precaution, and corporate transparency established in AO 32/2025, which reinforces the need for accountability, the adoption of structural measures for full reparation, cessation and non-repetition, and correction of a structural pattern of disproportionate exposure of vulnerable groups to chemical contamination. Furthermore, the MPF highlights the aggravation of the damage due to the ineffectiveness of traditional water treatment methods, exposure to the product in the workplace, the finding of its use in the production of crops, and the risk assumed by the defendant companies in imposing a long-term contamination on society and the environment. In preliminary proceedings, the granting of provisional urgent relief is requested to order the defendant companies to (i) present a detailed work plan for the complete diagnosis of the contamination of the Dourados River Hydrographic Basin; (ii) have their assets frozen in the amount of R$ 300,000,000.00; and that IBAMA implement a pesticide residue monitoring program in the Dourados River. On the merits, the defendants are jointly and severally liable for (i) the implementation of a Degraded Area Recovery Plan to remediate/mitigate atrazine contamination in the soil and waters of the river bbasin, (ii) payment for collective moral damages and irreversible environmental damages, in the amount of R$ 300,000,000.00 and, specifically in relation to IBAMA, that the agency be obliged to immediately implement environmental monitoring programs for atrazine and initiate the procedure for reassessing its registration.

On June 10, 2024 the Mato Grosso State Public Prosecutor's Office (MPMT) filed a Public Civil Action (ACP), with a request for an injunction, against Carlos Aparecido da Silva for deforestation of an area of 11.31 hectares on the Dois Irmãos farm, located in the state of Mato Grosso, as found in Civil Inquiry 025/2023. The MPMT alleges that the defendant is the owner of the property and that native vegetation was cleared without authorization from the environmental agency. It argues that the reparation of environmental damage requires, in addition to the recovery of the biome itself, the repair of the incidental factors of the degradation caused, such as the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and highlights the principle of climate integrity preservation enshrined in the Brazilian legal system. As an injunction for urgent relief, it requests, among other things, that the defendant be prohibited from economically exploiting the areas that could be used for deforestation without authorization from the environmental agency. In the final instance, the restoration of the degraded area and the payment of compensation for material and moral damages in the amount of R$ 93,498.53 (ninety-three thousand, four hundred and ninety-eight Brazilian Reais and fifty-three centavos) are requested.

The action was initially filed with the Mato Grosso State Court under case number 1004977-80.2024.8.11.0006, and on June 10, the court granted the request for urgent relief. 

On July 11, 2024, the defendant filed its defense claiming that the area is part of the Agrarian Reform Settlement Project called Assentamento Limoeiro and that it has a land tenure relationship, with the Federal Government being the legitimate owner who must respond to the lawsuit together with National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). He claims that the Federal Court has jurisdiction to hear the case and that he has authorization to exploit the area in question, and that the notice of infraction is generic. He therefore requested that his lack of standing to be sued be recognized, that the emergency relief granted be suspended, that the court declare that it lacks jurisdiction, and that the action be dismissed with the notice of infraction declared null and void.

The lack of jurisdiction was recognized, and the case was referred to the Federal Court, now under number 1003895-08.2024.4.01.3601.

By order of the court, the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) was included as a defendant in the lawsuit and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) was included as a plaintiff.

INCRA filed its defense, arguing that it lacks passive legitimacy due to the absence of a causal link between the environmental damage and INCRA's duty to oversee and monitor. The agency maintained that it fulfilled its legal duty to inform the settler of their legal obligations to comply with environmental legislation and that non-compliance would result in the termination of the contract between them, as per Normative Instruction 99/2019, which establishes administrative procedures for the titling of rural properties in Agrarian Reform Settlement Projects. It emphasized that the illegal deforestation did not occur during the property acquisition phase, but rather when the settlers had already entered the area and had already been informed of their duty to comply with the law, and that there was no omission, act, or contribution by the agency regarding the damage caused by the settler. It requested that the preliminary objection of passive illegitimacy be upheld, with its continued participation in the case in the capacity of an interveniente anômalo (non-aligned intervenor), and that the claims against it be dismissed.

A ruling was issued approving the withdrawal of the lawsuit, taking into account the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office's statement that there was no longer a legitimate interest in the proceedings.

This case is part of a set of 195 Public Civil Actions (ACPs) filed by the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF) under the fourth phase of the “Amazônia Protege” Project, coordinated by the MPF’s 4th Chamber, which aims, among other objectives, to ensure the reparation of environmental damage caused by deforestation in the Amazon.

The lawsuits were filed against several defendants, including individuals and legal entities, held responsible for illegal deforestation in polygons equal to or larger than 60 hectares during the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, in the states of Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, and Mato Grosso. The actions are based on satellite monitoring of deforestation and seek to hold each party individually accountable, both those directly responsible for the deforestation and those who derive economic benefit from it, such as the registered landholders of the deforested areas.
To identify those responsible for the environmental damage, the MPF used public databases, including data from the Land Management System (SIGEF), the National Rural Property Certification System (SNCI), and the Terra Legal Program, all maintained by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), as well as information from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and, where available, Infraction Notices and Embargo Reports for the areas involved.

The lawsuits are grounded on the constitutional protection of the environment and on civil liability propter rem for environmental damages arising from deforestation, including climate damages and collective moral damages. They explicitly refer to the unauthorized emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) resulting from illegal deforestation.

Among the final requests, the MPF seeks:
 i) An order requiring defendants to pay a specific monetary amount corresponding to the material damage resulting from deforestation;
 ii) An order requiring payment for illegal CO₂ emissions, applying the National Council of Justice (CNJ) Environmental Litigation Protocol, with a valuation of US$ 5.00 per ton of CO₂;
 iii) An order requiring payment for collective moral damages;
 iv) Restoration of degraded areas, including suspension of their use to allow natural regeneration, and submission of a Degraded Area Recovery Plan (PRAD);
 v) Allocation of all compensation funds to federal environmental agencies (IBAMA and ICMBio) operating in the respective states.

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Mato Grosso

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