A federal court in Brazil has blocked the start of planned explosions along a 35-kilometer (22-mile) rock formation called Pedral do Lourenço in the Tocantins River, pausing a major infrastructure project until a judge can inspect the site.
The decision suspends the federal government’s attempt to clear the way for large cargo ships to travel year-round through the Tocantins-Araguaia waterway, which runs from the Cerrado savanna in central Brazil, an agricultural stronghold, north to the Amazonian state of Pará.
“The suspension is necessary to avoid irreversible damage,” the judge wrote in his June 26 ruling, calling the rock formation in the Tocantins River an area of “high socio-environmental relevance.”
The Pedral do Lourenço rock formation is considered a “significant refuge” for turtles such as the Amazon river turtle (Podocnemis expansa), at least 10 endangered fish species, as well as the critically endangered Araguaian river dolphin (Inia araguaiaensis). One catfish identified in the region, Baryancistrus longipinnis, exists nowhere else in the world.
Establishing the Tocantins-Araguaia waterway, which includes blasting rocks and dredging the river before and after the formation, is expected to take 36 months and cost 1 billion reais ($178 million), according to Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure.
Pedral do Lourenço currently blocks the passage of large ships during the dry season, June to December, when water levels are lower than the rest of the year. The federal government says opening up the waterway would allow the equivalent of around 500,000 trucks to traverse the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers all year round, potentially reducing logistics costs by up to 30% as the river provides a more direct route to ports in the Amazon.
But prosecutors say the environmental license granted by IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, in May 2025 was approved without properly consulting the potentially impacted communities.
Federal prosecutor Rafael Martins da Silva previously told Mongabay contributor André Schröder that the agency left fishing-related problems as an afterthought, adding: “This permit should not have been granted.”
An assessment of the impact that the explosions and subsequent ship traffic may have on fishing, the main source of food and income for the communities in the region, wasn’t carried out, prosecutors added.
“This new project threatens to further worsen the destruction of the river, the forest, and the communities,” Darcilene, a resident of one of the impacted communities, said in a statement by activist group Movement of People Affected by Dams.
“The suspension is a breath of relief. It’s time to listen to the communities, to truly measure the impacts, and to stop making top-down decisions,” she added.
No date has been set yet for the judicial inspection, when the court can “observe in person the facts and circumstances relevant to the case.”
Banner image: Plans to blast the Pedral do Lourenço rock formation in the Tocantins River have been suspended by a court. Image courtesy of Antonio Cavalcante/Ascom Setran-PA.
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