Guarani indigenous people in São Paulo are buying shares of Rumo Logistics, the largest railroad operator in the country, in order to denounce the company to shareholders for not complying with environmental measures and protecting their rights.
The practice, still relatively unknown in Brazil, is known as corporate activism.
To participate in the shareholders’ meeting the Guaranis bought six shares of Rumo for R$17 each.
A new railroad construction project will impact 5,000 Guaranis who live on five indigenous territories in the municipals of São Paulo, Mongaguá and Itanhaém and Praia Grande (SP), in one of the few preserved regions of the Atlantic forest in São Paulo.
The indigenous said in a letter read to the shareholders this Wednesday, that of 101 mitigation and compensation activities being undertaken by the company, 72 "are totally paralyzed at that moment.”
Reports from Funai (National Indian Foundation) and protests by the Federal Public Ministry of São Bernardo do Campo (SP) say that the railroad is breaching the terms of a basic environmental plan created by the company in November 2013.
OTHER SIDE
In a note to Folha, Rumo said that it "had been carrying out the projects as expected" of CI-PBA (Indigenous Component of the Basic Environmental Plan) but in July of last year the company was informed that CI-PBA would receive the funds directly and “assume the execution of them.”
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon