Dispute processes in the social-environment conflict at HPP Formoso

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze and identify processes and mechanisms that arise in the socio-environmental conflict of the Formoso HPP in Buritizeiro/MG. To this end, there is a documentary and procedural analysis of licensing and other activities carried out by Coletivo Velho Chico Vive, and a literature review for the study of the case. Based on the analysis, it was possible to identify that the project is in line with neo-extractivist economic policies inserted in the capitalist production circuit. Furthermore, it is noted that the conflict reveals not only the territorial dispute, with institutional and State bias, and another that is articulated in popular organization, but also the very conception of nature and the river, as an energy resource on both sides, belonging to cosmology and traditional ways of life. Thus, it is concluded that the project goes beyond the limits of nature, making the affected population invisible, disregarding their rights and ways of life, disregarding international treaties in a social situation in which social movements become a power for social and environmental justice.