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Oil in Northeast Brazil: mapping conflicts and impacts of the largest disaster on the country’s coast

Abstract

The crude oil spill on the Brazilian coast in 2019 is considered the largest environmental disaster of this nature in the country. It had important repercussions on the environment and on the living and health conditions of the population, particularly artisanal fishermen, intensifying the vulnerability process, causing situations of injustice and environmental conflicts with negative repercussions on the territories. Aiming to analyze this environmental conflict and its impacts on environment and health of the affected population, the study applied the method proposed by the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. It analyzed open-access documents made available by governmental and non-governmental organizations, and publications in newspapers of wide circulation. The data obtained allowed to characterize the oil spill and the identification of the socioeconomic, health, and environmental impacts published in the Atlas. There was a deepening of the vulnerability of the people of the waters, influencing the social determination of the health-disease process. The lack of sustainability of the current development model pushes for building environmental and health diagnoses in order to take remedial measures in disasters such as oil spills. EJAtlas is a way to debate situations of environmental injustice and give voice to historically oppressed communities.

Key words
oil spill; petroleum pollution; environmental health; disaster vulnerability; impact of disasters

INTRODUCTION

The impact on health resulting from production processes is presented in a varied and complex way, since these processes generate pressure on the environment and produce inequalities and inequities related to the distribution of situations of risks, dangers and socio-environmental vulnerabilities (Santos et al. 2019SANTOS MOS, GURGEL AM, & GURGEL IGD. 2019. Conflitos e injustiças na instalação de refinarias: os caminhos sinuosos de Suape, Pernambuco. Ed. UFPE, Recife.). Their harmful effects compromise ecosystems and the health of the affected population, resulting from professional activities and contaminated environment (Rigotto & Augusto 2007RIGOTTO RM & AUGUSTO LGS. 2007. Saúde e ambiente no Brasil: desenvolvimento, território e iniquidade social. Cad. Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, 23 Sup. Available from: https://www.scielosp.org/article/ssm/content/raw/?resource_ssm_path=/media/assets/csp/v23s4/02.pdf. Accessed on: 07/2022.
https://www.scielosp.org/article/ssm/con...
, Rigotto 2008RIGOTTO RM. 2008. Desenvolvimento, ambiente e saúde: implicações da (des)localização industrial. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. FIOCRUZ, 426 p.).

The oil production chain is characterized by its high polluting potential and high environmental unsustainability, as it generates situations of occupational, health, environmental and social vulnerabilities that are externalized, compromising health and the environment, through contamination with oil and its derivatives (Gurgel et al. 2019GURGEL AM, GURGEL IGD, FRIEDRICH K & AUGUSTO LGS. 2019. Uso do coque verde de petróleo como matriz energética e potenciais danos à saúde e ao ambiente. In: Santos MOS, Gurgel AM & Gurgel IGD (Eds), Conflitos e injustiças na instalação de refinarias: os caminhos sinuosos de Suape, Pernambuco. Recife: Ed. UFPE, p. 119-146., Rigotto 2008RIGOTTO RM. 2008. Desenvolvimento, ambiente e saúde: implicações da (des)localização industrial. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. FIOCRUZ, 426 p.).

Petroleum is an oleaginous liquid composed of a complex mixture of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) added to nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen. Studies point to the various health and environmental complications when petroleum components are absorbed by living beings (Augusto 2009AUGUSTO LGS. 2009. Exposição ao benzeno em misturas aromáticas: uma história modelo. Saúde do trabalhador e sustentabilidade do desenvolvimento humano local. 1ª ed. Recife: Editora Universitária da UFPE, p. 25-46., Arcuri et al. 2012ARCURI ASA ET AL. 2012. Efeitos da exposição ao benzeno para a saúde. Série Benzeno. Fascículo 1. Fundacentro, 52 p., Gurgel 2017GURGEL AM. 2017. Neurotoxic effects of organophosphorus pesticides and the governmental regulation system: from scientific doubt to concealment of danger to human health. 2017. Tese (Doutorado em Saúde Pública) - Instituto Aggeu Magalhães, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Recife., Kponee et al. 2015KPONEE KZ ET AL. 2015. Petroleum contaminated water and health symptoms: a cross-sectional pilot study in a rural Nigerian community. Environ Health 14(1): 1-8.).

At the end of August 2019, crude oil slicks appeared on the beaches of Northeast Brazil, contaminating the entire adjacent marine ecosystem in the following three months, affecting more than 3.400 kilometers of the northeast coast and being characterized as the most serious environmental disaster occurred in the coastal strip of the country (Araújo et al. 2020ARAÚJO ME, RAMALHO CWN & MELO PW. 2020. Pescadores artesanais, consumidores e meio ambiente: consequências imediatas do vazamento de petróleo no Estado de Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil. Cad Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 36, n. 1,, Soares et al. 2020aSOARES MO ET AL. 2020a. Oil spill in South Atlantic (Brazil): Environmental and governmental disaster. Marine Policy 115: 103879., bSOARES MO ET AL. 2020b. Brazil oil spill response: Time for coordination. Science 367(6474): 155., Sissini et al. 2020SISSINI MN ET AL. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Protect rhodolith beds. Science 367(6474): 156., Brum et al. 2020BRUM HD, CAMPOS-SILVA JV & OLIVEIRA EJ. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Government inaction. Science 367(6474): 155-156., Barbosa et al. 2021BARBOSA LG, ALVES MAS & GRELLE CEV. 2021. Actions against sustainability: Dismantling of the environmental policies in Brazil. Land Use Policy 104: 105384.).

The first government mitigation measures began almost one month after the stains appeared, and even then, they were not effective in stopping the expansion of oil and the socioeconomic and environmental damage associated with the disaster (Borges 2019BORGES A. 2019. Salles só formalizou plano 41 dias após manchas aparecerem no Nordeste. O Estado de S. Paulo. Available at: https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,salles-so-formalizou-plano-41-dias-apos-manchas-aparecerem-no-nordeste,70003059406 acessado em: jul 2022.
https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/...
). The removal of oil was led by volunteers, without training or use of protective equipment, totaling more than 5.3 thousand tons of oil collected (Araújo et al. 2020ARAÚJO ME, RAMALHO CWN & MELO PW. 2020. Pescadores artesanais, consumidores e meio ambiente: consequências imediatas do vazamento de petróleo no Estado de Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil. Cad Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 36, n. 1,, Soares et al. 2020aSOARES MO ET AL. 2020a. Oil spill in South Atlantic (Brazil): Environmental and governmental disaster. Marine Policy 115: 103879., Brum et al. 2020BRUM HD, CAMPOS-SILVA JV & OLIVEIRA EJ. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Government inaction. Science 367(6474): 155-156., Mesquita & Quinamo 2020MESQUITA B & QUINAMO T. 2020. Impactos socioeconômicos e ambientais da contaminação por petróleo nas praias do litoral da região nordeste do Brasil. Recife; Sep.).

The environmental impacts resulting from oil spills lead to changes in the socioeconomic and cultural order, in the health of people of the affected territories and in the integrity of the environment. The local population was directly affected by this disaster, as the beaches were closed, there was a drop in the fish sales, recreational and tourism activities were interrupted, considerably impacting the income of the residents, increasing unemployment and making the situation of tourism-dependent workers even more unstable (Ramalho 2019aRAMALHO CWN. 2019a. Os possíveis impactos dos vazamentos de óleo nas comunidades pesqueiras artesanais em Pernambuco: um breve e provisório balanço. Recife: Núcleo de Estudos Humanidades, Mares e Rios, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco., Pena et al. 2020PENA PGL ET AL. 2020. Derramamento de óleo bruto na costa brasileira em 2019: emergência em saúde pública em questão. Cad Saúde Pública 36(2)., Estevo et al. 2021ESTEVO MO ET AL. 2021. Immediate social and economic impacts of a major oil spill on Brazilian coastal fishing communities. Mar Pollut Bull 164: 111984.).

The people of the waters 1 1 NT: The Peoples of the Waters are defined in a Ministry of Health decree as: …[peoples] that have knowledge developed from the use, observation, coexistence, and dependence on the natural resources found in marine and continental environments, as advocated by the policy of the countryside, forest, and waters “are peoples and communities with ways of life, production, and social reproduction related predominantly to aquatic environments” (Brasil 2014, art. 2nd). , made up of artisanal fishermen, who were already experiencing a process of historical socio-environmental vulnerability, were profoundly affected by the oil spill. However, there was a greater intensification of this process with the covid-19 pandemic, which compromised their socioeconomic and health conditions. The introduction of health protection measures such as social isolation and closing of beaches and commercial spaces, led to a significant reduction in the fish market, in addition to situations of infection of people, impeding work activities, compromising their income and their livelihood, as well as their food security (Cavalcanti & Wanderley 2020CAVALCANTI JAS & WANDERLEY BEB. 2020. Os pescadores e as pescadoras artesanais em tempos de COVID-19. Rev Geogr Trab 21(2): 493-510., Pinto et al. 2020PINTO PBA, BASTOS RS & DE SOUZA EC. 2020. Impactos da pandemia de COVID-19 na atividade pesqueira artesanal de Itaipu. Mares: Rev Geogr Etnociênc 2(2): 61-71., Mejía 2021MEJÍA JP. 2021. Impacto de la pandemia COVID-19 en ingresos de comunidades pesqueras de Marcovia y Amapala, Honduras. Escuela Agrícola Panamericana, Zamorano, Honduras. Available from: https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8cdf0eb8-7893-43df-a55d-c7151ddaf359/content.
https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api...
).

When analyzing the perception of artisanal fishermen and shellfish gatherers about the impacts of Covid-19, Mejía (2021)MEJÍA JP. 2021. Impacto de la pandemia COVID-19 en ingresos de comunidades pesqueras de Marcovia y Amapala, Honduras. Escuela Agrícola Panamericana, Zamorano, Honduras. Available from: https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8cdf0eb8-7893-43df-a55d-c7151ddaf359/content.
https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api...
identified that the main impacts were due to unemployment, reduced tourism, increased expenses, panic and social rejection, tension and family problems, reduced demand, capture and price of seafood, food shortages and debts.

There is, therefore, a process of environmental injustice, a concept that refers to the forms of permanent expropriation imposed on historically vulnerable subjects, the inequalities in the distribution of environmental damage and common goods, the lack of participation in decision-making processes, livelihoods and public policy, mostly linked to class, race and gender structures (Rigotto et al. 2018RIGOTTO RM, AGUIAR ACP & RIBEIRO LAD. 2018. Tramas para a justiça ambiental: Diálogo de saberes e práxis emancipatórias. Edições UFC, Fortaleza., García-López 2018GARCÍA-LÓPEZ GA. 2018. As múltiplas camadas de injustiça ambiental em contextos de desastres (des) naturais: o caso de Porto Rico pós-furacão Maria. Justiça Ambiental 11(3): https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0045.
https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0045...
).

This context of social inequity and environmental injustice is a generator of conflicts involving the populations of the affected territories. Acselrad et al (2004 p.294) emphasizes that the conflicts involve “social groups with different ways of appropriation, use and meaning of the territory, originating when at least one of the groups has the continuity of the social forms of appropriation of the environment that they develop threatened by undesirable impacts – transmitted by soil, water, air or living systems – arising from the exercise of the practices of other groups”.

Against this backdrop, many initiatives were launched in order to mobilize diverse sectors of society, based on resistance and struggle for social justice and denouncing human rights violations and environmental conflicts (Acselrad et al. 2004ACSELRAD H, HERCULANO S & PÁDUA JA. 2004. Justiça Ambiental e Cidadania. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará/Fundação Ford.). From this perspective, mechanisms are created to give visibility to the struggles of these groups, such as the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas). EJAtlas is a tool that brings together ecological activism and science, allowing research and historical reconstruction of socio-environmental conflicts (Temper et al. 2018TEMPER L ET AL. 2018. The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability. Sustain. Sci 13(3): 573-584.). By mapping conflicts, this strategy brings science closer to society as a basis for complaints, validating movements in favor of social justice and giving visibility to historically oppressed and socially invisible peoples (Porto et al. 2013PORTO MF, PACHECO T & LEROY JP. 2013. Injustiça Ambiental e Saúde no Brasil: Mapa de Conflitos. Editora FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro., 2014PORTO MFS, ROCHA DF & FINAMORE R. 2014. Saúde coletiva, território e conflitos ambientais: bases para um enfoque socioambiental crítico. Ciênc Saúde Colet 19(10): 4071-4080.).

It brings together on one platform various conflicts and environmental injustices that have taken place around the world. While providing visibility to the problems of each location, it allows co-creation through a more symmetrical approach, involving different centers of studies, research and movements in defense of global environmental justice and common goods (Temper et al. 2014TEMPER L ET AL. 2014. EJATLAS, mapeo colaborativo como herramienta para el monitoreo de la (in) justicia ambiental. Ecología Política 48: 10-13.).

The objective of this article is to analyze the environmental conflict and its impacts on the environment and health of the population directly affected by the oil spill on the northeast coast in 2019, from the perspective of the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas 2022EJATLAS - GLOBAL ATLAS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. 2022. Available from: https://ejatlas.org acessado em: jul 2022.
https://ejatlas.org...
).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A documentary, qualitative approach and cross-sectional research was carried out to identify conflicts, environmental injustices and health impacts resulting from the oil spill on the coast of Northeast Brazil, which occurred in the second half of 2019. Documentary research is characterized by the search for factual information in documents that may answer a specific interest from a certain assumption and may reveal problems that should be further studied (Sá-Silva et al. 2009SÁ-SILVA JR, ALMEIDA CD & DE GUINDANI JF. 2009. Pesquisa documental: pistas teóricas e metodológicas. Rev Bras Hist Ciênc Soc 1(1). Available from: https://periodicos.furg.br/rbhcs/article/view/10351. Accessed on: 12/2021.).

The states of Northeastern Brazil (Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe) were included as the study site, because they were affected with the largest amounts of oil on their beaches, estuaries and mangroves (Brazil 2019BRAZIL. 2019. Boletim - Manchas de Óleo no Litoral do Nordeste. Ibama, Brasília., Brum et al. 2020BRUM HD, CAMPOS-SILVA JV & OLIVEIRA EJ. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Government inaction. Science 367(6474): 155-156.).

The documentary survey conducted in the period September 2019 through June 2020 considered open-access secondary data made available online, related to the objective of this paper: epidemiological bulletins, reports and newsletters issued by the Ministry of Health, State Health Department and State Environmental Agency of the state Pernambuco; database of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA in the Portuguese acronym); articles from major state and national newspapers, institutional notes and letters; and publications by environmental social movements involved in cleaning up the spills on the coast (Table I).

Table I
Survey of documents on the oil spill on the coast of Northeast BrazilBRASIL. 2020. Combate ao óleo. Marinha do Brasil. Available from: https://www.marinha.mil.br/combate-ao-oleo.
https://www.marinha.mil.br/combate-ao-ol...
, between September 2019 and June 2020.

The documents identified constituted a database using a Microsoft Excel 2016 program. The reading and organization of all the material was performed by the researchers. The analysis considered the EJAtlas methodology, which consists of the following steps: registration on the platform; description of the conflict according to the categories proposed in table II: basic data, source of conflict, project details, conflict and mobilization, impacts, conflict response, sources and material; submission on the platform, evaluation by the reviewers and publication of the conflict (EJAtlas 2022EJATLAS - GLOBAL ATLAS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. 2022. Available from: https://ejatlas.org acessado em: jul 2022.
https://ejatlas.org...
, Temper et al. 2015TEMPER L, DEL BENE D & MARTINEZ-ALIER J. 2015. Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas. J Political Ecol 22(1): 255-278., 2018).

EJAtlas is an international-scale database that documents and lists social conflicts around environmental issues, coordinated by researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) (EJAtlas 2022EJATLAS - GLOBAL ATLAS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. 2022. Available from: https://ejatlas.org acessado em: jul 2022.
https://ejatlas.org...
, Temper et al. 2015TEMPER L, DEL BENE D & MARTINEZ-ALIER J. 2015. Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas. J Political Ecol 22(1): 255-278., 2018) where the collected data are collaboratively entered into the online platform. The EJAtlas allows for comparative studies on the actors of these conflicts and their forms of mobilization, the companies involved, the intensity of the conflicts, including the deaths of activists and other forms of violence, and the factors that lead to failure or success to achieve environmental justice (EJAtlas 2022EJATLAS - GLOBAL ATLAS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. 2022. Available from: https://ejatlas.org acessado em: jul 2022.
https://ejatlas.org...
, Temper et al. 2015TEMPER L, DEL BENE D & MARTINEZ-ALIER J. 2015. Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas. J Political Ecol 22(1): 255-278., 2018).

The results were verified by ICTA-UAB reviewers, and after validation, the mapping was published on the EJAtlas platform in October 2019. After publication, the mapping of the oil spill on the beaches of Northeast/Brazil was constantly updated by the teams as the evolution of the conflict.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The characterization of the conflict and the socio-environmental impacts resulting from the oil spill on the coast of Northeast Brazil is structured in: basic data and source of conflict; project details, governmental and non-governmental actors; conflict and mobilization; visible and potential impacts arising from the oil spill; conflict response, sources and materials (Table III).

Table II
EJAtlas’ analysis categories for environmental conflicts.
Table III
Conflicts’ mapping and socio-environmental impacts from the oil spill on the Brazilian Northeast Coast.

Basic data and source of conflict

The oil spill that occurred between the months of August and December 2019, reached the entire coastline of Northeast Brazil, devastating the livelihood of thousands of artisanal fishermen in these territories, triggering several processes of vulnerability, with important repercussions on the conditions of life and health, environment, economy and social reproduction of this population.

The disaster was characterized as a socio-environmental conflict (Figure 1). Configuring itself as a regional-level conflict, it had catastrophic and considerable repercussions on the lives of those affected. (Araújo et al. 2020ARAÚJO ME, RAMALHO CWN & MELO PW. 2020. Pescadores artesanais, consumidores e meio ambiente: consequências imediatas do vazamento de petróleo no Estado de Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil. Cad Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 36, n. 1,, Soares et al. 2020aSOARES MO ET AL. 2020a. Oil spill in South Atlantic (Brazil): Environmental and governmental disaster. Marine Policy 115: 103879., Brum et al. 2020BRUM HD, CAMPOS-SILVA JV & OLIVEIRA EJ. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Government inaction. Science 367(6474): 155-156., Mesquita & Quinamo 2020MESQUITA B & QUINAMO T. 2020. Impactos socioeconômicos e ambientais da contaminação por petróleo nas praias do litoral da região nordeste do Brasil. Recife; Sep.).

Figure 1
Image of the oil spill mapping page on the coast of northeastern Brazil on the EJAtlas platform. On the left, the virtual map, showing the area where the conflict is located, the symbol (tower in a black circle) used is what characterizes that the conflict is associated with fossil fuels. On the right, the conflict title and brief description can be seen. On the right side, the cover image of the publication was chosen because it represents the exposure to oil, including of children and adolescents. Available on https://ejatlas.org/conflict/oil-spill-in-the-sea-and-on-the-beaches-of-northeast-brazil. Source: EJAtlas 2022EJATLAS - GLOBAL ATLAS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. 2022. Available from: https://ejatlas.org acessado em: jul 2022.
https://ejatlas.org...
.

The affected population was geographically classified as semi-urban, which implies that they live imbricated in the duality of the urban transformation process with the presence of large commercial firms in the territories, too many jobs and underemployment, the resistance of the traditional way of life sustained in the artisanal fishing and agriculture. Thus, the population of the northeastern coast is extremely diverse and formed by social, political, economic and environmental crossings, directly influencing the formation of different degrees of vulnerability caused by oil spills (Oliveira 2016OLIVEIRA RT. 2016. O território e as questões socioespaciais: uma análise dos processos de transformação do espaço a partir da implantação do complexo industrial e portuário de Suape - PE. Dissertação (mestrado), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, CFCH, Programa de Pós-graduação em Geografia. Available from: https://repositorio.ufpe.br/bitstream/123456789/27120/1/DISSERTA%c3%87%c3%83O%20Rinaldo%20Thomaz%20de%20Oliveira.pdf Accessed on: 03/2021. (Unpublished).
https://repositorio.ufpe.br/bitstream/12...
).

As for the type of conflict, the disaster was categorized as involving fossil fuels (crude oil) and climate justice/energy, considering that the source of oil on the northeast coast was identified as tar, containing light hydrocarbons present in the analyzed material from several locations on the coast (Lourenço et al. (2020)LOURENÇO RA ET AL. 2020. Mysterious oil spill along Brazil’s northeast and southeast seaboard (2019–2020): trying to find answers and filling data gaps. Mar Pollut Bull 156: 1-1..

Gurgel et al. (2009)GURGEL AM, MEDEIROS AC, ALVES P, DASILVA J, GURGEL IGD & AUGUSTO LGS. 2009. Framework dos cenários de risco no contexto da implantação de uma refinaria de petróleo em Pernambuco. Ciênc Saúde Coletiva 14(6): 2027-2038. describes the multiple sources of pollution due to oil refining, from the installation to the refinery processing, namely: noise pollution, air, soil and effluent pollution near the installation site. Due to the diversity of polluting sources in oil processing, several levels of the production chain are affected, reaching biological, socioeconomic, environmental matrices, among others.

The extraction and transport of oil is an expensive and risky process, from the transformation of raw material to products of high social consumption (fuels, plastics, food, clothing, among others). There are numerous accidents involving oil. On a global level, one can cite the large-scale accident with the oil tanker Torrey Canyon in 1967 off the coast of England; the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989; and the 2010 accident of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, where there was an oil spill for 86 days, causing socio-environmental impacts that are still present in the region (Moreira & D’Almeida 2020MOREIRA JFM & D’ALMEIDA AL. 2020. Indústria de petróleo e gás: acidentes relevantes no mundo. Available from: https://docplayer.com.br/94549104-Industria-de-petroleo-e-gas-acidentes-relevantes-no-no-mundo.html.
https://docplayer.com.br/94549104-Indust...
).

The history of oil spills in Brazil is recurrent. One of the largest spills in the country occurred in the Iguaçu River Basin, Paraná, in July 2000; in the same year, in August, there was an oil spill in Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro. In 2011, the Campos Basin was the site of another disaster involving water contamination by oil (Varella 2015VARELLA MD. 2015. A necessidade de repensar os mecanismos de responsabilidade ambiental em caso de riscos de vazamento de petróleo na Zona Econômica Exclusiva do Brasil. Revista de Direito Internacional, Brasília, 12(1). Available from: https://www.rdi.uniceub.br/rdi/article/view/3460/0.).

Despite abundant evidence of the lack of sustainability of the use of oil as the main source of energy, world consumption is on the rise due to the economic interests of those who hold most of the income from the use of this raw material (Sauer 2016SAUER IL. 2016. O pré-sal e a geopolítica e hegemonia do petróleo face às mudanças climáticas e à transição energética. Recursos Minerais do Brasil.). Faced with these socioeconomic pressures, socio-environmental conflicts emerge as a way of reacting to the injustices applied by an unsustainable socioeconomic model.

Project details, governmental and non-governmental actors

The Brazilian Navy states that more than 5.300 tons of crude oil were removed from the Brazilian coast. By January 2020, around 1000 locations in 11 Brazilian states had been affected, impacting 3400 km of the coastline (Ibama 2020IBAMA. 2020. Manchas de óleo no litoral brasileiro. Available from: http://www.ibama.gov.br/manchasdeoleo Accessed on: 07/2022.
http://www.ibama.gov.br/manchasdeoleo Ac...
, Brum et al. 2020BRUM HD, CAMPOS-SILVA JV & OLIVEIRA EJ. 2020. Brazil oil spill response: Government inaction. Science 367(6474): 155-156., Mesquita & Quinamo 2020MESQUITA B & QUINAMO T. 2020. Impactos socioeconômicos e ambientais da contaminação por petróleo nas praias do litoral da região nordeste do Brasil. Recife; Sep.). Representatives of fishermen report the possibility of affected communities that were not accounted for in the aforementioned amount (CPP 2020aCPP - COMISSÃO PASTORAL DA PESCA. 2020a. Manifesto Campanha Mar de Luta: Justiça Social aos Povos das Águas. Available from: http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao/manifesto-campanha-mar-de-luta-justi%C3%A7a-social-aos-povos-das-%C3%A1guas.
http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao...
). In June 2020, fragments of oil reappeared on some beaches in Bahia, Pernambuco and Alagoas. According to the Brazilian Navy, only part of the traces found were from the same source as the 2019 spots (Brasil 2020).

Only 30 days after the appearance of the oil fragments on the beaches, government institutions became involved in the activities of containment, monitoring and removal of oil in the affected territories, involving government health and environment entities at the federal, state and municipal levels, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Armed Forces, Legislative Branch, Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio in the Portuguese acronym), PETROBRAS (national oil company), university and research centers. However, the organizations acted in isolation, without articulation or national coordination (Brum et al 2020).

The participation of hundreds of volunteers was observed in all the affected states to remove the oil that reached the beaches. These actions involved local residents, tourists, schoolchildren, street vendors of food and artisanal products, firefighters, artisanal fishermen and shellfish gatherers, quilombolas, informal workers, people deprived of their liberty, hostels, professionals involved in tourism activities, among other sectors of work. The oil removal by the volunteers, at first, occurred without the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), with no training and without knowing that they were exposing their health to risks of illness by contact with the substance.

Among the various groups affected by the disaster, fishermen and shellfish gatherers, a population whose history shows a process of social invisibilization, are configured as the group that suffered direct consequences, as they depend almost exclusively on products from the sea (Ramalho 2019aRAMALHO CWN. 2019a. Os possíveis impactos dos vazamentos de óleo nas comunidades pesqueiras artesanais em Pernambuco: um breve e provisório balanço. Recife: Núcleo de Estudos Humanidades, Mares e Rios, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco., UFBA 2019UFBA - UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA. 2019. Pela declaração de estado de emergência em saúde pública para controle dos riscos recorrentes da maior tragédia de contaminação pelo petróleo da costa brasileira.).

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contributed to the oil-spill clean-up and actions with volunteers, including Salve Maracaípe, WWF Brazil, Greenpeace Brazil, Movimento Porto 2039, BiomaBrasil Institute and #Vazapetróleo. Despite the involvement of several social sectors in the monitoring and analysis of oil slicks, the source of the disaster remains unknown, therefore, there are no culprits who can legally answer for this environmental crime and be compelled to mitigation and repair measures as recommended in Brazilian legislation and International.

The actions of the social actors involved in the disaster were not uniform. It was up to the Ministry of the Environment to guide the National Contingency Plan for Incidents of Oil Pollution effectively and quickly to mitigate the consequences of the disaster. However, in practice, this ministry’s actions took place belatedly, after more than one month since the appearance of oil on the beaches, and they were not able to effectively coordinate all other government institutions in favor of helping people affected by the disaster (Borges 2019BORGES A. 2019. Salles só formalizou plano 41 dias após manchas aparecerem no Nordeste. O Estado de S. Paulo. Available at: https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,salles-so-formalizou-plano-41-dias-apos-manchas-aparecerem-no-nordeste,70003059406 acessado em: jul 2022.
https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/...
).

Consequently, state and local governments, as they did not receive effective financial and logistical support, were unable to act broadly in the respective affected locations, however, they occasionally helped to remove oil from beaches and estuaries. IBAMA and ICMBio should have been responsible for most of the oil removal team, the distribution of personal protective equipment, training and guidance for volunteers in this process. This measure was insufficient, with volunteers left to the mercy of donations and NGO actions (Fellet 2019FELLET J. 2019. Vazamento de óleo no Nordeste: quais órgãos são responsáveis por limpar, investigar e punir. BBC News Brasil. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-50191420.
https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-501...
).

The Brazilian Navy was responsible for organizing the execution of the National Contingency Plan (PNC in the Portuguese acronym), while the Federal Police and the Pernambuco’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPP in the Portuguese acronym) pressured the federal government, but there was no restriction due to the delay of public measures on the disaster. In this sense, during the process of investigating the origin of the substance and possible culprits, there was an intense participation of federal universities and research institutions that continuously seek answers and that informed about the risks of exposure to oil (UFBA 2019UFBA - UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA. 2019. Pela declaração de estado de emergência em saúde pública para controle dos riscos recorrentes da maior tragédia de contaminação pelo petróleo da costa brasileira., Abrasco 2019ABRASCO - ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE SAÚDE COLETIVA. 2019. Derramamento de petróleo é risco para saúde da população https://www.abrasco.org.br/site/noticias/saude-da-populacao/derramamento-de-petroleo-e-risco-para-saude-da-populacao/43706/.
https://www.abrasco.org.br/site/noticias...
).

There was greater discussion about the disaster and pressure from NGOs, unions and social groups on the federal government to support victims in affected locations (Ramalho 2019aRAMALHO CWN. 2019a. Os possíveis impactos dos vazamentos de óleo nas comunidades pesqueiras artesanais em Pernambuco: um breve e provisório balanço. Recife: Núcleo de Estudos Humanidades, Mares e Rios, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.). Several public hearings with fishermen and other affected populations were held in all states, where effective actions were demanded to remedy the situation of socio-environmental vulnerabilities experienced by them.

An oil spill Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, was set up to investigate the origin and to identify those responsible for the disaster. In March 2021, the CPI was closed without identifying those responsible for the disaster, and without a final opinion on the work developed and on those responsible for the oil spill (Brasil 2020). Government institutions both at the national (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Ministry of Education, and regional levels redirected resources to the development of research that could assess the impacts resulting from the spill of oil.

Conflict and mobilization

The mobilization started as soon as the initial impacts were felt with the first arrival of oil fragments on the beaches. The conflict was identified, using the EJAtlas, as of medium intensity with mobilizations carried out through meetings between social groups affected by the disaster and other support organizations, lawsuits and judicial activism on behalf of the environment and populations directly affected by the disaster, protests and marches in the streets, production of official letters and notes, community-based participatory research for epidemiological studies, scientific committees, public hearings organized by political representatives, collective actions, public campaigns to collect personal protective equipment (PPE). The representatives of affected populations, political parties, researchers, local professionals, tourists, religious groups, social movements, NGOs, unions and communities were involved in these actions (Pena et al. 2020PENA PGL ET AL. 2020. Derramamento de óleo bruto na costa brasileira em 2019: emergência em saúde pública em questão. Cad Saúde Pública 36(2).).

More than a year after the oil spill, the negative effects of this disaster, mainly economically and on the health of the local population and on the environment, still persist, although in the media and in government actions this agenda has been almost completely forgotten. Given this scenario, new organizations and social movements appear in search of environmental justice. The Sea of Struggle Campaign: Social Justice to the People of the Waters, is an initiative launched on the date that marks one year of the oil disaster (Intervozes 2020aINTERVOZES. 2020a. Mar de Luta: movimentos pesqueiros e organizações lançam campanha contra petróleo no Nordeste. https://intervozes.org.br/mar-de-luta-movimentos-pesqueiros-e-organizacoes-lancam-campanha-contra-petroleo-no-nordeste/.
https://intervozes.org.br/mar-de-luta-mo...
, CPP 2020aCPP - COMISSÃO PASTORAL DA PESCA. 2020a. Manifesto Campanha Mar de Luta: Justiça Social aos Povos das Águas. Available from: http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao/manifesto-campanha-mar-de-luta-justi%C3%A7a-social-aos-povos-das-%C3%A1guas.
http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao...
). This movement is formed by shellfish gatherers, artisanal fishermen and organizations that defend human and socio-environmental rights and intends to continue bringing information about the impacts of the disaster on fishing communities, which associated with a process of subsumption in relation to the current scenario of the Covid-19 pandemic, increases the risk and production of vulnerabilities for this population (CPP 2020bCPP - COMISSÃO PASTORAL DA PESCA. 2020b. Iniciativa que reúne pescadores, pesquisadores e ativistas, monitora os impactos da Covid-19 nas comunidades pesqueiras. Available from: http://www.cppnacional.org.br/noticia/iniciativa-que-reúne-pescadores-pesquisadores-e-ativistas-monitora-os-impactos-da-covid-19.
http://www.cppnacional.org.br/noticia/in...
).

The Sea of Struggle Campaign demands the continuous and rigorous monitoring and evaluation of the beaches, mangroves and oceans affected by oil, as well as the effective accountability of the State for the incompletion of the investigation and for social reparation to the communities affected by the disaster and is vehemently opposed to the opening of new oil wells (CPP 2020aCPP - COMISSÃO PASTORAL DA PESCA. 2020a. Manifesto Campanha Mar de Luta: Justiça Social aos Povos das Águas. Available from: http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao/manifesto-campanha-mar-de-luta-justi%C3%A7a-social-aos-povos-das-%C3%A1guas.
http://www.cppnacional.org.br/publicacao...
).

Visible and potential impacts from the oil spill

In EJAtlas, the impacts resulting from conflicts are divided into 3 major categories: environmental, health and socioeconomic.

  1. Environmental impacts

Among the environmental impacts, changes such as visible pollution of the sea water, contamination of marine ecosystems, turtles, shellfish, fish, algae, and other organisms were found as having oil residues (Disner & Torres 2020DISNER GR & TORRES M. 2020. The environmental impacts of 2019 oil spill on the Brazilian coast: Overview. Rev Gest Ambient Sustentab 7(15): 193-209., Ibama 2020IBAMA. 2020. Manchas de óleo no litoral brasileiro. Available from: http://www.ibama.gov.br/manchasdeoleo Accessed on: 07/2022.
http://www.ibama.gov.br/manchasdeoleo Ac...
, Soares et al 2020a).

In this sense, all the complexity in their ecological interactions has been affected from this anthropic disturbance, which may trigger possible changes in trophic levels, through the sedimentation of this material in the coastal micro and macrofauna. Some areas are more vulnerable to contamination, such as benthic regions and mangroves, which amplify toxicity, genetic alterations and other damage from oil contamination along the chain (Santos et al. 2016SANTOS HF, CARMO FL, ROSADO AS & PEIXOTO RS. 2016. Contaminação de recifes de coral por petróleo e seus derivados. In: Zilberberg C, Abrantes DP, Marques JA, Machado LF & Marangoni LFB (Eds), Conhecendo os recifes brasileiros: rede de pesquisas Coral Vivo. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, p. 183-194.).

Some studies show the large-scale disturbance of water and geological systems not only in the biome of the affected sites, but also changes in mangroves and other ecosystems related to the coast as a result of these environmental impacts (Euzébio et al. 2019EUZEBIO C, RANGEL G & MARQUES R. 2019. Derramamento de Petróleo e seus Impactos no Ambiente e na Saúde Humana. RBCIAMB 52: 79-98.).

  1. Impacts on health

The impacts on the health of the population are presented through acute poisoning (signs and symptoms appearing in the first hours or days after exposure) and chronic poisoning (health impairment appearing months or years after exposure).

Among the main signs and symptoms evidenced after exposure, there is mental health impairment and conditions related to respiratory disorders, skin lesions, eye irritation, neurological effects, risk of cardiac events, body pain, genotoxicity, hormonal changes, psychological and neurovegetative symptoms, manifestations in the immune and endocrine systems (Aguilera et al. 2010AGUILERA F, MÉNDEZ J, PÁSARO E & LAFFON B. 2010. Review on the effects of exposure to spilled oils on human health. J Appl Toxicol 30(4): 291-301. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jat.1521.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jat.1521...
).

Acute intoxication associated with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, vision disorders, headache, mental confusion, dyspnea, pneumonia, coma and, in severe cases, death (Fiocruz 2019aFIOCRUZ - FUNDAÇÃO OSWALDO CRUZ. 2019a. Óleo no Nordeste Brasileiro: uma emergência de saúde pública! Elaborada por: Observatório da Política Nacional de Saúde Integral das Populações do Campo, Floresta e Águas. Available from: http://www.saudecampofloresta.unb.br/oleo-no-nordeste-brasileiro-uma-emergencia.
http://www.saudecampofloresta.unb.br/ole...
, SEVS 2019SEVS - SECRETARIA EXECUTIVA DE VIGILÂNCIA EM SAÚDE. 2019. Intoxicações exógenas relacionadas à exposição ao petróleo no litoral de Pernambuco. Available from: https://12ad4c92-89c7-4218-9e11-0ee136fa4b92.filesusr.com/ugd/3293a8_c5ecdbfcb41a4a0fb92ac3fa780e718d.pdf.
https://12ad4c92-89c7-4218-9e11-0ee136fa...
, UFBA 2019UFBA - UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA. 2019. Pela declaração de estado de emergência em saúde pública para controle dos riscos recorrentes da maior tragédia de contaminação pelo petróleo da costa brasileira.). Regarding chronic intoxication, individuals can develop leukemia, lymphoma, bone marrow aplasia, anemia, lung cancer, skin cancer, among other negative consequences for human health (Araújo et al. 2020ARAÚJO ME, RAMALHO CWN & MELO PW. 2020. Pescadores artesanais, consumidores e meio ambiente: consequências imediatas do vazamento de petróleo no Estado de Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil. Cad Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 36, n. 1,).

There are also potential mental health repercussions for those affected by the disaster, particularly local residents and people who depend on the sea for their livelihoods. This is because fishing, shell fishing and other associated activities are much more than just employment opportunities for the people involved, they reflect cultural, spiritual issues that resonate in all biopsychosocial aspects (Euzébio et al. 2019, Ramalho 2017RAMALHO CWN. 2017. Embarcadiços do encantamento: trabalho sinônimo de arte, estética e liberdade na pesca marítima. Campinas: Centro de Estudos Rurais, Universidade Estadual de Campinas; São Cristóvão: Editora UFS.). Studies carried out in similar disasters analyze the effects on mental health resulting from factors in the social, collective and individual context, both directly and indirectly (Rung et al. 2016RUNG AL, GASTON S, ORAL E, ROBINSON WT, FONTHAM E & HARRINGTON DJ, TRAPIDO E & PETERS ES. 2016. Depression, Mental Distress, and Domestic Conflict among Louisiana Women Exposed to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the WaTCH Study. Environ Health Perspect 124(9): 1429. Available from: /pmc/articles/PMC5010393/., Cope et al. 2013COPE MR, SLACK T, BLANCHARD TC & LEE MR. 2013. Does time heal all wounds? Community attachment, natural resource employment, and health impacts in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Soc Sci Res 42(3): 872-881. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.12.011.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.201...
).

Since the times of the manual removal of oil on beaches, there have been reports of people involved in the extraction of the material who have shown changes in well-being after contact with the substance. However, the amount of information collected on the repercussions on the health of the people involved in the disaster fell short of the proportion of the oil spill, given the difficulties and unpreparedness of the health system in welcoming all affected people, actively searching for conditions of health of local residents and volunteers involved (Brasil 2019BRASIL. 2019. Boletins epidemiológicos. Ministério da saúde (MS). Available from: https://www.saude.gov.br/boletins-epidemiologicos.
https://www.saude.gov.br/boletins-epidem...
). As well as the low mobilization of governmental public health institutions such as the Ministry of Health, in the organization of surveillance and monitoring actions with the most affected states and municipalities, especially in the registration of people exposed to oil in the activity of cleaning the beaches to follow the long term (Abrasco 2019ABRASCO - ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE SAÚDE COLETIVA. 2019. Derramamento de petróleo é risco para saúde da população https://www.abrasco.org.br/site/noticias/saude-da-populacao/derramamento-de-petroleo-e-risco-para-saude-da-populacao/43706/.
https://www.abrasco.org.br/site/noticias...
). There were delays in acting, such as the definition of what would be considered a case of compulsory notification (Fiocruz 2019bFIOCRUZ - FUNDAÇÃO OSWALDO CRUZ. 2019b. Carta aberta pela declaração de estado de emergência em Saúde Pública diante os perigos da exposição ao óleo de Petróleo nas praias nordestinas e para o desenvolvimento de ações de vigilância popular e cuidado em Saúde. Departamento de Saúde Coletiva, Laboratório de Saúde, Ambiente e Trabalho (LASAT), Instituto Aggeu Magalhães, Pernambuco. https://racismoambiental.net.br/2019/10/29/cartaaberta-pela-declaracao-de-estado-de-emergencia-em-saude-publica/).

  1. Socioeconomic impacts

In view of the changes in the thalasso cycle of the affected places, the local economy was extremely affected, given that most economic activities are based on products from this set of ecosystems (Ramalho 2019bRAMALHO CWN. 2019b. A situação do comércio de pescados em algumas localidades pernambucanas: reflexões preliminares após os vazamentos do petróleo. Recife: Núcleo de Estudos Humanidades, Mares e Rios, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.). The populations of the territories had, in the meantime, financial losses that were perpetuated for months after the appearance of the oil slicks, not yet recovering the normal rates of trade due to the uncertainties of how safe it is to consume the products and be on the affected beaches. Informal and self-employed workers, mainly fishermen and shellfish gatherers, are the most affected since their daily income is what often determines whether they will be able to meet the basic needs of their families (Pena et al. 2020PENA PGL ET AL. 2020. Derramamento de óleo bruto na costa brasileira em 2019: emergência em saúde pública em questão. Cad Saúde Pública 36(2).).

The number of unemployed people increased substantially in this period, directly influencing the state of misery of this population, drawing attention to the invisibility of these workers. Faced with this situation of socio-economic aggravation, the government has not taken effective measures to help these people, as only 5% of the local workers (lobster fishermen) have been benefited with financial assistance during this crisis, despite protests, public hearings, lawsuits and several manifestations by groups formed by local residents, NGOs, research institutions, among others (Araújo et al. 2020ARAÚJO ME, RAMALHO CWN & MELO PW. 2020. Pescadores artesanais, consumidores e meio ambiente: consequências imediatas do vazamento de petróleo no Estado de Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil. Cad Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 36, n. 1,).

Associated with the vulnerabilities arising from the oil spill disaster, the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation of traditional communities such as artisanal fishermen, due to social isolation, reduced income, food insecurity, overlapping new layers of injustice in the affected peoples (Cavalcanti & Wanderley 2020CAVALCANTI JAS & WANDERLEY BEB. 2020. Os pescadores e as pescadoras artesanais em tempos de COVID-19. Rev Geogr Trab 21(2): 493-510., Pinto et al. 2020PINTO PBA, BASTOS RS & DE SOUZA EC. 2020. Impactos da pandemia de COVID-19 na atividade pesqueira artesanal de Itaipu. Mares: Rev Geogr Etnociênc 2(2): 61-71., Mejía 2021MEJÍA JP. 2021. Impacto de la pandemia COVID-19 en ingresos de comunidades pesqueras de Marcovia y Amapala, Honduras. Escuela Agrícola Panamericana, Zamorano, Honduras. Available from: https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8cdf0eb8-7893-43df-a55d-c7151ddaf359/content.
https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api...
). The Pastoral Council of Fishermen (CPP in the Portuguese acronym) carried out monitoring of the impacts of Covid-19 on fishing communities and identified that many of the workers of the waters did not obtain emergency aid, the sale of fish and shellfish that was already in decline since the disaster was hit again, given that for much of 2020, beaches were part of list of prohibited places for circulation or social agglomeration (Reis-Filho & Quinto 2020REIS-FILHO JA & QUINTO D. 2020. COVID-19, Afastamento social, pesca artesanal e segurança alimentar: como esses temas estão relacionados e quão importante é a soberania dos trabalhadores da pesca diante do cenário distópico. Disponível em https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/54/64.
https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/s...
).

The effects on health from oil are added to the covid-19 pandemic and are sometimes neglected in health services and actions. These difficulties experienced by the populations of the waters express a historical cycle of racism and environmental injustice of traditional peoples, disregard for ecosystems and the unbridled pursuit of profit. Environmental, socioeconomic and health aspects are articulated, since the economy imposes an unequal system, whose functioning occurs from the vulnerability of traditional peoples in favor of the accumulation of wealth by a select social group and the unbalanced exploitation of the environment (Garbois et al. 2017GARBOIS JA, SODRÉ F & DALBELLO-ARAUJO M. 2017. Da noção de determinação social à de determinantes sociais da saúde. Saúde Debate 41: 63-76.).

Social determinants of health understand the health-disease relationship as a result of historical and social processes experienced by the subjects, considering the social relationships constructed, and dimensions, both biological and social, connected in such a way that they influence each other, resulting in situations of attrition or strengthening, helping to understand the situation experienced in the territories affected by the oil spill (Breilh 2010BREILH J. 2010. Las tres ‘S’ de la determinación de la vida: 10 tesis hacia una visión crítica de la determinación de la vida y de la salud. In: Nogueira RP, editor. Determinação social da saúde e Reforma Sanitária. Rio de Janeiro: Cebes, p. 87-125., Borghi et al. 2018BORGHI CMSO, OLIVEIRA RM & SEVALHO G. 2018. Determinação ou determinantes sociais da saúde: texto e contexto na América Latina. Trab Educ Saúde 16(3): 869-897.).

Conflict response, sources and materials

Even with the lack of answers about the origin of the crude oil and the repercussions of the spill, the Brazilian government decreed in January 2020 the withdrawal of observation and monitoring teams from the affected sites (Disner & Torres 2020DISNER GR & TORRES M. 2020. The environmental impacts of 2019 oil spill on the Brazilian coast: Overview. Rev Gest Ambient Sustentab 7(15): 193-209.).

From the mapping, it was observed how much the late and precarious action of the Brazilian government increased the vulnerabilities and proportions of the disaster (Borges 2019BORGES A. 2019. Salles só formalizou plano 41 dias após manchas aparecerem no Nordeste. O Estado de S. Paulo. Available at: https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,salles-so-formalizou-plano-41-dias-apos-manchas-aparecerem-no-nordeste,70003059406 acessado em: jul 2022.
https://sustentabilidade.estadao.com.br/...
). Although the socioeconomic, environmental and health impacts were relevant for a large number of people, it is possible to observe that after the most critical period of the oil spill (September to November 2019), that is, with greater amounts of oil that arrived on the beaches, the disaster was progressively made invisible by the government and various media outlets, becoming yet another neglected socio-environmental injustice and racism in the country (Intervozes 2020bINTERVOZES. 2020b. Vozes silenciadas - justiça socioambiental e mídia A cobertura do vazamento de petróleo no litoral brasileiro. Available from: https://intervozes.org.br/publicacoes/vozes-silenciadas-petroleo/
https://intervozes.org.br/publicacoes/vo...
, Ramalho 2019bRAMALHO CWN. 2019b. A situação do comércio de pescados em algumas localidades pernambucanas: reflexões preliminares após os vazamentos do petróleo. Recife: Núcleo de Estudos Humanidades, Mares e Rios, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.).

The mapping shows that the affected populations will have to deal with the short, medium and long-term repercussions of the disaster through their own efforts, because since the beginning of the socio-environmental conflict they have not received effective support from federal, state and/or municipal government representatives (MPP 2019MPP - MINISTÉRIO PÚBLICO DE PERNAMBUCO. 2019. Carta de repúdio do Movimento dos Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais do Brasil (MPP) sobre o maior desastre ambiental do Brasil. Available from: https://racismoambiental.net.br/2019/11/05/carta-de-repudio-do-movimento-dos-pescadores-e-pescadoras-artesanais-do-brasil-mpp-sobre-o-maior-desastre-ambiental-do-brasil/.
https://racismoambiental.net.br/2019/11/...
).

CONCLUSIONS

Given the insufficiency of Brazilian institutions and large firms associated with the government in preventing and coping with environmental disasters, it is increasingly urgent and relevant to discuss this topic in the various formats of debate that current technology allows. This will allow to cover essential planning and articulation actions with the different sectors, to ensure more careful, transparent and participatory processes in the territories.

Apart from discussing the disaster, the denunciation of these events is a way of trying to highlight the historical damage that this unsustainable development has produced, mainly, to traditional populations (indigenous, quilombolas, artisanal fishermen, among others), united by socio-environmental injustices and the environmental racism reproduced continuously over the decades.

The publication of conflicts and injustices on platforms such as EJAtlas may be understood not only as an isolated event, but as processes that bring together different conflicts and their interrelationships, enabling a global articulation between institutions interested in social well-being. It will also illuminate the invisibilities experienced by different populations, effectively expanding access to information at the international level of these conflicts.

It has become urgent to build environmental and health diagnoses in order to take remedial and mitigation measures against the spill, to prepare an organized and hierarchical health care network, a participatory and community-based health surveillance, as well as socioeconomic recovery through social protection policies that are even more necessary in the current pandemic context. It is also necessary to prepare public institutions for accidents, disasters and global environmental problems that are increasingly recurring in Brazil, with repercussions on changes in ecosystems due to the complex interrelationship between the environment, production processes, health and the dispute for common goods.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was financed by the Public Call of the Research Program for SUS: shared management in health nº 06/2020 (PPSUS–Pernambuco/FACEPE – CNPq - Ministry of Health/Decit/SCTIE); Public Notice for Sustainable and Healthy Territories of the Inova and Institutional Program for Sustainable and Healthy Territories (PITSS/FIOCRUZ); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.

  • 1
    NT: The Peoples of the Waters are defined in a Ministry of Health decree as: …[peoples] that have knowledge developed from the use, observation, coexistence, and dependence on the natural resources found in marine and continental environments, as advocated by the policy of the countryside, forest, and waters “are peoples and communities with ways of life, production, and social reproduction related predominantly to aquatic environments” (Brasil 2014, art. 2nd).

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    11 Nov 2022
  • Date of issue
    2022

History

  • Received
    7 Jan 2022
  • Accepted
    1 Sept 2022
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