The cancellation of the seven permits granted by Augusto Heleno Ribeiro, a close ally of President Jair Bolsonaro, was published this week in the official gazette Diário Oficial.
Barrick took control of the mine in 2019, when the country’s National Environment Management Council had closed down the TSF, then holding significantly more water than it should.
Besides limiting the accumulation of tailings in the environment, the process drastically cuts the almost one tonne of CO2 that is released into the atmosphere per tonne of cement produced under conventional mechanisms.