The development concerns the debate around Block 117, owned by Eneva and granted for natural gas exploration – the company has at least two licenses to open gas wells in this area this year. This area overlaps with 75% of the Krenyê indigenous land, and the Krenyê indigenous community claims it was never consulted about exploration activities.
The absence of prior, free, and informed consultation violates constitutional provisions and calls into question the legality of the authorisations granted to the company. The situation is inconsistent with both Brazil’s constitutional protections for Indigenous lands and principles of free, prior, and informed consent.
This local case also reflects more global patterns documented by the findings of Fueling Ecocide, a large journalistic investigation that revealed that licences for oil and gas operations overlapped with thousands of protected areas worldwide, despite regulatory safeguards. In the Brazilian context, such overlaps raise questions not about statutory interpretation, but the practical enforcement of environmental and Indigenous rights norms.
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