Miners concerned about strike at Brazilian environmental regulator

Mining companies are concerned about the impacts of persistent strikes affecting public services in Brazil, particularly at environmental regulator Ibama.

"The Brazilian mining association, Ibram, expresses its concern about the effects of the strike of employees in the federal government's environmental area, especially ... Ibama, and advocates for a process of understanding between the government and the workers in order to resume normal environmental permitting," Ibram said in a statement.

"The mining sector warns about the negative effects on several projects already in operation or in the process of obtaining preliminary permits, which particularly impacts the 2,700 mining municipalities and the country's economic development, given the importance of the mineral chain both for Brazilian production chains and for exports," it added.

In recent months civil servants in various areas have called a series of strikes demanding better working conditions, salary increases and more people to be hired due to significant understaffing.

Although the federal government has said it wants to meet these demands, the scenario has become more complicated as the administration is facing restrictions on public spending, forcing it to tighten its belt.

"There's a problematic situation involving all public services due to budgetary constraints, but regarding the environmental agency, I don't foresee a very concerning scenario in the short term because, in one way or another, the environmental permitting processes are very lengthy, and short-term strikes don't have such a negative impact on mining," Valdir Farias, CEO of mining consultancy Fioito, told BNamericas.

However, stakeholders in other sectors that are also highly dependent on environmental permitting to advance projects, such as infrastructure, oil and gas, and energy, are already claiming that there are major impacts on the progress of environmental licensing requests.