By John Woodside 

​​A Canadian mining company wants to open the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazil's history in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

However, Indigenous rights and environmental advocates are targeting the company's shareholders to stop it, saying Toronto-headquartered Belo Sun has made “misleading” claims to investors about its Volta Grande project.

The allegations about the proposed mine in the Volta Grande do Xingu region are spelled out in a recent report from Amazon Watch. The area is home to Indigenous communities as well as farming and fishing communities that rely on the land and water.

According to Amazon Watch, the chief “misleading” claim is that the project is “fully authorized.” Belo Sun’s CEO Peter Tagliamonte made that remark at the 2021 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada mining conference, and has downplayed the Volta Grande project’s social, environmental and legal risks, the report says. As Amazon Watch points out, the project is in fact bogged down in “seven different legal challenges from potentially affected communities and government agencies” and has had its operating licences suspended repeatedly.

The report alleges Belo Sun is engaged in a “deliberate attempt to attract uninformed investors, in clear violation of [Ontario Securities Commission] regulations.”
Belo Sun did not return multiple emailed requests comment.

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Read the full article at The National Observer.