Belo Sun’s gold project in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest poses significant risks

Belo Sun’s gold project in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest poses significant risks to investors, forest guardians, and biodiversity, report says

Investments in the Canadian mining company can create enormous political, legal, reputational, climate, and social risks for financial firms. 

Montreal, Canada - Investors may be exposed to severe risks by maintaining their investments in the Canadian mining company Belo Sun, a new report published today by Amazon Watch shows. The Risks of Investing in Belo Sun: How the Canadian gold mining company’s plans for the Brazilian Amazon pose significant risks to investors, biodiversity, and forest guardians, launched at the UN Convention on Biodiversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15), is an alert about the Belo Sun Mining Corp. and its Volta Grande Project (VGP) in the Brazilian Amazon. It exposes not just risks to financiers but also the severe impacts the project portends for surrounding communities, biodiversity, and climate stability in the Amazon region.

Currently under development in the Volta Grande do Xingu, or the Xingu River’s Big Bend, the VGP has been characterized by misleading claims from Belo Sun executives, legal controversies, community opposition, and concern by scientists and mining experts about the project’s potential impacts on biodiversity and the environment. If built, the project would be the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazilian history, threatening the already fragile Amazonian ecosystem that local communities rely on for their lives and livelihoods.

“Belo Sun’s Volta Grande Project is a disaster for the Amazon, its biodiversity, and the people of the Volta Grande region. Belo Sun continues to mislead about the grave risks this project poses, even while they violate communities’ rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, and their environmental license remains suspended. No investor should even think of touching this company”, said Gabriela Sarmet, Amazon Watch Brazil Campaign advisor. Sarmet will be presenting the risk assessment in a panel with Indigenous leaders and mining experts, on December 9th, in the Pavillon Sherbrooke de l’UQAM.

“We are putting any institution or company looking to invest in or acquire Belo Sun on notice: this is a bad actor selling a dangerous project. Anyone looking to get involved with them will be shouldering serious risk and will be complicit in the continued threats to the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous and traditional peoples, and the global climate”, said Christian Poirer, Amazon Watch Program director, who will be in Montreal leading an action outside the Royal Bank of Canada to alert Belo Sun financiers