Brazil mulls lifting ban on foreign firms mining near border

Rio de Janeiro

OPPONENTS of unbridled development of Brazil's Amazon region scored a victory this week when environmentalists fronted by supermodel Gisele Bundchen persuaded President Michel Temer to veto legislation that would have removed protections on more than one million acres.

But a battle over Amazon land about 300 times that size may be looming. The mining ministry has proposed legislation that would end a nearly 40-year ban on foreign-owned mining companies operating on land near the roughly 16,000 km border. The zone, which extends about 150 km inland, accounts for 27 per cent of Brazil's national territory, according to the mining ministry.

Because most of Brazil's western border also incorporates parts of the world's largest rainforest, the amount of Amazon biome in the border zone would total more than 1.7 million sq km, an area about the size of Ala…