ABSTRACT
This practice note addresses the agreement between Alcoa World Alumina Brazil (Alcoa) and the Association of Communities of the Juruti Velho Region (Acorjuve), located in the Brazilian Amazon, on land use sharing for mining and community with compensation and benefits, such as land titling and mining royalties payments to communities. This process involves a comprehensive engagement involving the company, communities, and public authorities, and moving from a situation of conflict to one of cooperation with the achievement of a new relationship model. This is a unique case in the mining industry in Brazil which breaks with the usual absence of dialogue and prominence of conflict between communities and companies. We apply the multidisciplinary concept of Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement (MSE) to highlight the impacts of large projects on “affected stakeholders.” We argue that MSE is innovative for analyses of large projects affecting vulnerable stakeholders, but it does not guarantee sustainable development for local communities in the long run. To avoid the “boom–bust” cycle of mining exhaustion leading to harm to local smallholders, and in order to ensure good long-term living conditions for local people, we conclude that collaborative governance must be improved, and part of the mining income must be saved and invested in projects that target new economic pathways for the municipality and ultimately provide better working conditions for the next generations.
