"Prosecutors in Brazil say the findings from a Mongabay investigation were key to obtaining a court decision this week to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations on Indigenous communities and the environment in northern Pará state.
On Oct. 4, the Federal Circuit Court for the First Region in Brasília approved a forensic investigation into pesticide contamination and the socioenvironmental and health impacts in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory and the production zone of the country’s largest palm oil operation in the Tomé-Açú region.
The green light to carry out the expert report was finally issued eight years after the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) filed a lawsuit to hold palm oil company Biopalma — acquired by Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) in late 2020 — accountable for environmental impacts.
A 2017 University of Brasília study, contained in the Mongabay investigation, found traces of three pesticides (two of them typically listed among those used in oil palm cultivation) in the major streams and wells used by the Tembé people in Turé-Mariquita."
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