Corporate responsibility in Brazil

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) calls on German companies to stop their business activities on indigenous territories in Brazil and to refrain from initiating further projects there. Several German and international corporations have already announced this step.

"It is time for all German companies that do business in Brazil to take the rights of the local indigenous communities seriously," stated Juliana Miyazaki, one of the STP's experts on indigenous communities. "The current government of Brazil has no interest in protecting the indigenous areas or the people who live there. Therefore, internationally active companies such as TÜV Süd have to develop a sense of responsibility themselves – and withdraw from the protected areas."

The Brazilian mining company Vale recently announced that it will discontinue its activities on indigenous territories. In January 2019, a dam near the company's iron ore mine Córrego do Feijão em Brumadinho had burst – killing around 300 people directly. Further, the toxic sludge from the ruptured reservoir had poisoned the region's ecosystem and deprived the local indigenous peoples of their livelihoods. The Munich-based company TÜV Süd had certified the dam construction – which the Essen-based steel group Thyssen-Krupp had been built in 1976 and operated until the early 2000s – as safe just a few months earlier.

"The fact that TÜV Süd continues to take on contracts that are a threat to indigenous communities and their territories can no longer be justified," Miyazaki emphasized. "Also, banks and insurance companies must remember their responsibility and stop supporting such projects." A consortium led by Allianz had insured Vale for liability. Despite a previous dam burst in Mariana in 2015, Deutsche Bank had provided Vale with loans of over 700 million euros.