Amazon, Brazil (February 2026) – Since January 22, more than 800 Indigenous people from 14 peoples of the Lower Tapajós have occupied access to the facilities of the transnational corporation (TNC) Cargill in Santarém, in the Brazilian Amazon. The mobilization demands the immediate revocation of Federal Decree No. 12,600/2025, which paves the way for the privatization and dredging of the Tapajós, Madeira, and Tocantins rivers for the benefit of agribusiness.
The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign) expresses its full solidarity with this struggle and calls for urgent international mobilization.
A decree against peoples and against life
Decree No. 12,600/2025, signed on August 28, 2025, and included in the National Privatization Program (PND), turns Amazonian rivers into logistical corridors for soybean exports. In December 2025, the Brazilian state announced 74 million reais for the dredging of 250 km of the Tapajós River, between Itaituba and Santarém, aiming to allow navigation by large private vessels, including those of Cargill.
This project directly threatens the territorial rights, autonomy, and ways of life of Indigenous peoples, fishers, and riverine communities, and violates ILO Convention 169, as there was no free, prior, and informed consent of the potentially affected communities, as denounced by the Tapajós Arapiuns Indigenous Council (CITA).
Suspension of dredging following mobilizations
After weeks of mobilization and occupations, the federal government announced the suspension of the hiring process for dredging the Tapajós River, in direct response to Indigenous protests and community actions in Santarém; however, this measure does not revoke Decree No. 12,600/2025 nor fully address the movement’s main demands, which continue to call for its complete annulment.
The suspension was presented as a “gesture of negotiation,” and the state announced the creation of a working group including Indigenous representatives to discuss consultation processes, although Indigenous leaders stress that the main demand remains the revocation of the decree and free, prior, and informed consent before any decision concerning waterways.
Cargill, symbol of corporate impunity
Cargill, a U.S.-based agribusiness transnational, is one of the leading drivers of global deforestation and the expansion of transgenic soybean monoculture in Brazil. Positioned at the base of supply chains of several TNCs, it is associated with environmental destruction, water contamination, pressure on small-scale food producers, and human rights violations.
Its economic power enables it to influence global markets and impose a destructive model, in Brazil and in other regions of the world.
A local struggle, a global conflict
This project worsens the water crisis, accelerates the climate catastrophe, and sets a dangerous precedent: the commodification of rivers for the benefit of transnational corporations. Trade agreements such as the EU-Mercosur agreement tend to reinforce this dynamic, to the detriment of peoples, ecosystems, and peasant agriculture, including in Europe.
The struggles of the peoples of the Lower Tapajós are our struggles. Rivers are living beings, and their destruction constitutes ecocide.
We call for solidarity actions, for denouncing Cargill and its partners, for material and political support to CITA, and for mobilization against legal frameworks that guarantee the impunity of transnational corporations.
The Amazon is a frontline against global capital.
It is up to us to defend it, wherever we are.
Our rivers are not for sale – Tapajós lives!
