Brazil’s last asbestos miners are switching to rare earth minerals. Can they offer a brighter future? | Brazil

Minaçu, a small metropolis in inland Brazil and residential to the one asbestos mine within the Americas, is ready to develop into the primary operation outdoors Asia to provide 4 uncommon earths on a business scale – a gaggle of minerals key to the vitality transition on the centre of the commerce dispute between China and the US.Till now, China has dominated the separation of uncommon earths, and accounts for 90% of the manufacture of rare-earth magnets, or tremendous magnets, that are made with these components and utilized in electrical automobiles, wind generators and army tools equivalent to jets.However in April, China restricted its exports of the minerals in response to US tariffs, inflicting uncertainty over international provide. Brazil’s incipient manufacturing might hardly be higher timed. To stimulate the sector, the Brazilian authorities has issued a name for tenders with an funding forecast of 5bn reals (£670m) in initiatives associated to the provision of strategic minerals, equivalent to uncommon earths.With the second-largest recognized reserves of uncommon earths on the planet, Brazil seems to be a strategic various to China, says Constantine Karayannopoulos, an business skilled. “I’ve been evaluating [this market] world wide for years, and I feel Brazil has by far the perfect deposits of uncommon earths,” he says.The Brazilian new frontier is in Minaçu, 237 miles (382 km) from the capital, Brasília, the place a mining firm managed by an American fund started extracting rare-earth minerals in 2024 with the purpose of export – to China.Minaçu’s asbestos mine has left three enormous open pits within the mountains and used to shake the city with its explosions. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianThe city of 27,000 inhabitants was based across the exploitation of asbestos, a mineral utilized in building and which boosted the native economic system for many years. However in 2017 all manufacturing and commerce of the mineral was banned by the Brazilian supreme courtroom as a consequence of its dangerous results on well being. Right this moment, greater than 65 nations have banned or restricted the usage of asbestos.In 2019, the state of Goiás reauthorised asbestos manufacturing solely for export, however the constitutionality of the legislation has been beneath assessment by the supreme courtroom since then, threatening the way forward for mining in Minaçu – till the invention of uncommon earth components.Uncommon earths are a gaggle of 17 components with excessive magnetism and the flexibility to soak up gentle, options that make them important for the transition to scrub vitality. A few of the most coveted are neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium – used within the manufacture of electrical motors and wind generators, two industries that gas the demand for uncommon earths, which have doubled globally between 2015 and 2023.The complicated and costly separation of those components is finished virtually fully in China, which has invested closely within the industrial chain because the Nineteen Nineties.Now, the Serra Verde mining firm, managed by Denham Capital, an American funding fund, needs to be the primary outdoors Asia to provide a focus containing the 4 predominant uncommon earths utilized in tremendous magnets on a business scale.The Serra Verde mining firm needs to be the primary outdoors Asia to provide a focus containing the 4 predominant uncommon earths on a business scale. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianThe operation is predicated on one of many largest deposits of ionic clay outdoors south-east Asia. In contrast to the laborious rock deposits present in Australia and the US, clay extraction is inexpensive and fewer environmentally aggressive.For Minaçu, uncommon earths are the promise of a contemporary begin. In 2017, Sama, a subsidiary of the Belgian multinational Eternit, was compelled to halt the asbestos mining that for 50 years had formed the city. The momentary allow granted for export extraction two years later permitted it to maintain working, however with diminished capability.So Serra Verde’s licence, granted by the state in 2019 to discover uncommon earths, was met with enthusiasm regionally. “When [Sama] closed down, it was a shock,” says Hivan Soares, 39. “However then there was that expectation of Serra Verde’s arrival.”Earlier than the 1962 Cana Brava asbestos deposit discovery, the savannah close to Chapada dos Veadeiros was inhabited by the Indigenous Avá-Canoeiro individuals and some miners. Sama constructed the primary homes and paved streets – utilizing asbestos – and established a hospital, police station and college.The mine and the city had been so related that within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, Minaçu’s homes, automobiles and timber had been coated in positive white mud from the mine tailings. Older residents keep in mind when it used to “snow” within the village.“Till 2019, Sama was a mom to the town,” says Hivan Soares, a former worker of the corporate, about its nickname.A employee baggage chrysotile, or white asbestos, on the Cana Brava mine in Minaçu, January 2013. {Photograph}: Ueslei Marcelino/ReutersHalf a century later, Minaçu stays closely depending on mining. “It’s a metropolis produced by and for mining capital,” says geographer Fábio Macedo Barbosa, who studied Minaçu for his PhD thesis.Nonetheless, not even at its peak did asbestos mining translate into financial diversification and elevated native wealth. In line with the Brazilian authorities, 32% of households in Minaçu live in poverty.Between 2014 and 2020, royalties paid to the municipality didn’t scale back dependence on welfare, says researcher Agnes Serrano, who wrote a PhD thesis on Minaçu on the College of Brasília.Ricardo Gonçalves, a geography professor on the State College of Goiás, got here to the identical conclusion after analysing the variety of individuals dwelling in poverty between 2015 and 2022. “The truth that greater than 20% of the inhabitants stays socially susceptible exhibits that the earnings from asbestos mining don’t end in high quality of life for the native inhabitants,” he says.skip previous e-newsletter promotionSign as much as International DispatchGet a special world view with a roundup of the perfect information, options and footage, curated by our international growth teamPrivacy Discover: Newsletters might include data about charities, on-line adverts, and content material funded by outdoors events. For extra info see our Privateness Coverage. We use Google reCaptcha to guard our web site and the Google Privateness Coverage and Phrases of Service apply.after e-newsletter promotionCarlos Alberto Leréia, mayor of Minaçu. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianYet, liberal mayor Carlos Alberto Leréia has excessive expectations that Serra Verde will increase income from mining royalties within the coming years. For this to occur, manufacturing should nonetheless improve. The operation begin was delayed from 2022 to January 2024, and the one two shipments to China, totalling 60 tons in September and 419 tons in February, are removed from the 5,000-ton yearly purpose.“It would deliver monumental wealth to the town,” Leréia believes.Considerable, straightforward to extract, versatile, heat- and fire-resistant, asbestos was broadly utilized in constructing supplies equivalent to roof tiles and water tanks – and nonetheless is in nations together with India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, the primary patrons of Minaçu’s ore. The US additionally imports Minaçu asbestos for the oil business.However research elevate questions in regards to the well being impacts and environmental injury of mining for asbestos.A big rock of asbestos on the entrance to the Minaçu courthouse. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianInhaling asbestos ore fibres could cause severe illnesses equivalent to asbestosis, pleural plaques, lung most cancers and mesothelioma. WHO information stories greater than 200,000 deaths globally from asbestos publicity, with 70% as a consequence of work-related cancers.In Brazil, 3,057 deaths from asbestos-related illnesses occurred between 1996 and 2017, however this determine is probably going under-reported. “A number of elements contribute to the invisibility of asbestos victims,” says Fernanda Giannasi, founding father of the Brazilian Affiliation of Folks Uncovered to Asbestos. “Between first publicity and prognosis, the latency interval could be many years. And plenty of docs lack data, and don’t at all times ask if sufferers have had contact with asbestos prior to now.”Raimundo Ferreira de Lima, 75, one of many first residents of Minaçu and a former Sama worker. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianResidents of Minaçu hold a “pact of silence” about asbestos’s results on staff’ well being. Few are as essential as Raimundo de Lima. He says he knew many former staff who died of lung issues. “Within the outdated days, we stated such and such an individual died clogged by ore blockages,” he says.When requested about well being issues, Eternit, Sama’s guardian firm, didn’t remark.Serra Verde claims to be a “sustainable” mining firm, highlighting that its extraction is finished in shallow holes, with out the usage of explosives or crushing, utilizing solely water and salt to course of the ores. The strategy contrasts with asbestos mining, which left three enormous open pits within the mountains and used to shake the town with explosions.Residents dwelling close to the mine are nonetheless involved in regards to the potential environmental results. Households report that since mining started, two streams in Serra Verde have develop into muddy, with a greasy substance turning clear water a reddish color. In addition they reported miscarriages in cattle ingesting water from the identical supply.Households report that firm representatives have visited their properties to gather water samples, however haven’t but offered residents with an evidence.A lady appears to be like in direction of the mine from her yard. Residents are involved about potential environmental and well being impacts. {Photograph}: José Cícero/The GuardianIn a press release, Serra Verde commented on the corporate’s financial prospects, however has not answered particular questions in regards to the water.Sustaining a constructive picture in Brazil is essential for the corporate because it seeks to distinguish itself from these mining in Asia, the place issues have already been recognized within the extraction of uncommon earths.In China, the federal government shut down a number of ionic clay mines as a consequence of their environmental impression. Extraction then migrated to Myanmar, the place there have been stories of ammonium nitrate contamination of soils and rivers.“Now, all of the heavy uncommon earths refined in China come from Myanmar,” says Karayannopoulos, who has already been approached by shoppers keen to eradicate Myanmar from the worldwide uncommon earth chain.Serra Verde says its extraction of uncommon earths is finished in shallow holes, with out the usage of the explosives used for asbestos. {Photograph}: Ueslei Marcelino/ReutersStill, Brazil is a great distance from turning into an alternate, as an entire industrial technique is required for the nation to play a larger position within the uncommon earths manufacturing chain. Consultants say the nation wants funding not solely in extraction but additionally in refineries for separating uncommon earths, specialised labour, identification of shoppers outdoors China and strengthening of home demand for tremendous magnets and electrical automobiles.Mineral extraction has up to now introduced extra guarantees than social growth to Minaçu. Residents equivalent to Lima consider life mining uncommon earths will deliver no larger prosperity to for many than after they lived with asbestos. “These uncommon earths are actually the identical,” he says.