March 15, 2007

 

Cargill says judge to keep Amazon soybean port open

 

 

Cargill's troubled soybean port on the Amazon River in Santarem, Para will remain open until a legal case is closed, despite a local prosecutor's office demanding it be closed two weeks ago, the company said Wednesday (Mar 14).

 

On Feb 26, the state prosecutor's office in Para state, located in the Amazon region, said the port had to be closed because Cargill failed to get an environmental permit to build it between 2001 and 2003.

 

A federal judge named Francisco de Assis Garces Castro Junior said Wednesday that the state had no legal power to close the busy Santarem soy port until the case was finished. Castro is the Santarem's region top legal authority. Expectations that the port could close any time were relieved by the judge's decision.

 

Cargill attests it abided by local and federal environmental laws when constructing the small, yet controversial port. But local Para prosecutor's requested additional studies, which Cargill said were not required.

 

The environmental study remains as the main legal dispute. The first sentence against Cargill's Santarem facility was made in 2004.

 

Greenpeace Amazon activists temporarily shut down Santarem port last year, arguing it was buying soybeans from farmers who were destroying the Amazon and that the US multinational did not have the required environmental permits to build the port in the first place.

 

Two weeks ago, on Feb 27, Nilson da Silva Viera, a Santarem agent from the country's environmental protection agency, known as Ibama, said the port would likely be forced to close in the first week of March.

 

Cargill ships about 2 million tonnes of soybeans out of the Santarem port each year, the company said.

 

Brazil is the world's no. 2 soy exporter behind the US.