“Global demand for manganese puts Kayapó Indigenous land under pressure”, 14 July 2021

…There were 21 applications registered in 2020 to mine for manganese on Indigenous lands. That’s almost as many as for the entire period between 1980 and 2019…The Amazônia Minada project has revealed cases where the mining agency authorized prospecting even when the requests overlapped with Indigenous lands…Sixteen of the 17 rejected requests in 2020 were made on behalf of a single company: Patium Beneficiamento de Minério. All of its applications targeted the Kayapó Indigenous Territory...The company has by far the highest number of requests to mine for manganese within protected areas…[O]ther Borges-linked companies have applications pending to mine within Indigenous areas, including RMB S.A. itself and RMB Manganês, a subsidiary...The company has justified its requests, saying the permits granted “are not located within Indigenous lands, but in the bordering neighborhoods”...One of these applications stands out because it was approved more than 30 years after being requested, and because it threatens to intensify a conflict between the Xikrin Indigenous people, one of the communities of the Kayapó people, according to the Instituto Socioambiental, and Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A. The Xikrin are suing Vale for harm caused to their community by three of its mining operations...The company says it does not seek to prospect or mine on Indigenous lands in Brazil…[T]ests detected manganese levels in the Indigenous people that are 500% in excess of what’s considered safe for humans...Sabóia attributes the high levels of manganese in the community to Vale’s operations. The company denies that its activities around the Indigenous area are polluting the river or harming the health of the local community…

Patium Beneficiamento de Minério's response to Mongabay (in Portuguese)

Vale's response to Mongabay (in Portuguese)