JUST A QUICK FLIGHT: AIRBORNE DISPERSION OF PESTICIDES, TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES IN MARANHÃO, AND ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

The study attentive to the global urgency on the protection of human rights and the environment aims to analyze the decision-making of institutions and agencies on the aerial dispersion of pesticides in agricultural areas close to traditional communities in the municipalities of Buriti and Timbiras, in Maranhão, as an affront to the protection of human rights, socio-environmental plurality,  economic and cultural aspects of these communities that interact in different biomes and ecosystems in rural areas. The research is based on Convention No. 169 of the International Labor Organization – ILO, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda, the Ecological Transformation Plan (PTE), and the Maranhão 2050 Plan. The theoretical framework sees the widespread use of pesticides in Brazil as molecular violence that reaches human cells and other animals and causes damage to health and the environment that is not yet fully known. The violence comes from a geography of the abyss encouraged by European countries that allow the export of pesticides banned in their territories to producers of agricultural commodities, promoting a risky society (Bombardier, 2023; Beck, 2010). The methodology adopted is exploratory, descriptive, inductive, and documentary, with an examination of the connections between pesticides, traditional communities, and environmental protection. With an inductive and qualitative approach, the research strategy used is the case study of the aerial dispersion of pesticides over traditional communities, between 2021 and 2024, in the municipality of Buriti and Timbiras in Maranhão. As a result, there is a continuous vulnerability of those traditional communities, and the isolated and seasonal action of the various agents involved will not solve the problem. The enjoyment of human rights without obstacles must be full, uninterrupted, and unrestricted, provided that actions effectively coordinated, implemented, and evaluated by bodies and institutions with and between the various levels are urgently carried out.