Panel Series: Predatory Extractivism

5:15 – 8:00pm, Thursday, April 11 @ Tsai Auditorium 

Join us for a screening of "Ironland" (Brazil, 2021, 99'), a film by Lucas Bambozzi about how extractivism – and massive mining catastrophes – have shaped the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and its inhabitants. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Andresa Aparecida Rocha Rodrigues, a leader fighting for justice after the collapse of a tailings dam killed 272 people in her community, and Denise Bebbington, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Natural Resource Extraction and Society at Clark University. 

Moderator: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography; Chair, Brazil Studies Program; Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

Panelists: Andresa Aparecida Rocha Rodrigues, President, Association of Families of Victims and People Affected by the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam Crash in Brumadinho (AVABRUM) and Denise Bebbington, Research Associate Professor, Sustainability and Social Justice 

Dinner and refreshments will be served after the screening and Q&A. 

Panel #1: Trauma, (In)Justice, and Action: A Conversation with Community Leaders  

9:30 – 11:00am, Friday, April 12 @ Tsai Auditorium 

Data, infographics, and technical reports cannot communicate the trauma suffered by communities impacted by tailings dam collapses. Though the failures of the Samarco-operated Fundão dam in 2015 and Vale´s Córrego do Feijão dam in 2019 are years in the past, local communities in Brazil are still reeling. Many continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress, the loss of loved ones, contaminated drinking water, and the impunity of those responsible for the dam failures. Join us to learn what justice, reconciliation, and reparations looks like for impacted communities.  

Opening Remarks: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography; Chair, Brazil Studies Program; Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

Moderator: Alicia Yamin, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School 

Panelists: Mônica dos Santos, Member, Fundão Dam Commission of Affected People and Alexandra Andrade Gonçalves Costa, Treasurer, Association of Families of Victims and People Affected by the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam Crash in Brumadinho (AVABRUM)  

Discussant: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography; Chair, Brazil Studies Program; Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

CGIS South Concourse

Panel #2: Measuring the Unmeasurable: Health-Related Quality of Life Losses  

11:15am – 12:30pm, Friday, April 12 @ Tsai Auditorium

In 2015, the Samarco-operated Fundão dam collapsed in the municipality of Mariana, Brazil, unleashing a tsunami of nearly two billion cubic feet of mineral waste onto downstream communities. Over the course of 20 days, the waste traveled over 370 miles downriver, contaminating waterways and destroying almost 1,600 acres of vegetation. Nineteen people died and more than 600 families lost their homes. Brazilian economist Mônica Viegas will share the results of her 2021 study to estimate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) losses among affected communities. 

Moderator: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography; Chair, Brazil Studies Program; Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

Speaker: Mônica Viegas, Full Professor, Economics Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) 

Discussants: Alexandra Andrade Gonçalves Costa, 1st Treasurer, AVABRUM and Denise Bebbington, Research Associate Professor, Sustainability and Social Justice 

CGIS South Concourse 

Panel #3: Contested Spaces: Controlling Narratives and Territories 

1:30 – 2:45pm, Friday, April 12 @ Tsai Auditorium 

Since the Fundão and Córrego do Feijão dams collapsed in 2015 and 2019, respectively, local communities and the mining companies responsible for the catastrophes have battled over the causes of the failures as well as the control of impacted territories. Brazilian journalism professor André Luís Carvalho will share his experiences working with citizen journalists in affected communities to co-create and maintain media platforms to preserve memory and denounce violations. 

Moderator: Alicia Yamin, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School 

Speaker: André Luís Carvalho, Adjunct Professor of Journalism, Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) 

Discussants: Mônica dos Santos, Member, Fundão Dam Commission of Affected People

CGIS South Concourse 

Panel #4: The Long Road to (In)Justice and Reparations 

3:00 – 5:00pm, Friday, April 12 @ Tsai Auditorium 

The journey towards justice and reparations in the wake of the tailings dam failures in Brumadinho and Mariana has been arduous and protracted, marked by legal battles, environmental concerns, and demands for accountability. The legal process has been complex and international, with lawsuits filed against the companies for negligence, environmental violations, and human rights abuses in Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Efforts to secure reparations for victims, including compensation for loss of life, livelihoods, and environmental remediation, have been met with challenges, including disputes over liability, the adequacy of compensation, and the efficacy of remediation efforts.  

Moderator: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography; Chair, Brazil Studies Program; Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

Speakers: Guilherme de Sá Meneghin, District Attorney, Public Ministry of Minas Gerais and Andresa Aparecida Rocha Rodrigues, President, AVABRUM 

Discussant: Andrew Mergen, Emmett Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law in Environmental Law, Harvard Law School 

Closing Remarks: Tom Goodhead, CEO & Global Managing Partner, Pogust Goodhead

Alexandra has been a volunteer at AVABRUM since its foundation in 2019. She currently serves as the association´s treasurer. Alexandra´s brother and cousin were among the 272 fatal casualties of the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam collapse in 2019. Her brother, Sandro Andrade Gonçalves, had been a Vale employee for 14 years and was survived by his wife and three children. Her cousin, Marlon Rodrigues Gonçalves, worked for Vale for five years and was survived by his wife and daughter.  

Alicia Ely Yamin JD MPH PhD is a Lecturer on Law and the Senior Fellow on Global Health and Rights at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School; Adjunct Senior Lecturer on Health Policy and Management at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; and Senior Advisor on Human Rights and Health Policy at the global health justice organization, Partners In Health. 

She currently serves on the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Health Technology Assessments; the WHO Global Advisory Group on Legislating Maternal Perinatal Death Surveillance; the joint World Bank/Norwegian Institute for Public Health/Bergen Centre on Ethics and Priority Setting project on ‘Health Financing for Universal Health Coverage’; the Lancet Commission on Arctic and Northern Health; and as Co-Chair on the Interim Steering Committee of the Global Public Investment Network (GPIN). 

Yamin holds Juris Doctor and Master’s in Public Health degrees from Harvard University, and a Doctorate in Law from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. She has published multiple books and over 160 articles in law and policy journals, as well as peer-reviewed public health journals, in both English and Spanish. A revised and substantially expanded edition of her latest monograph, When Misfortune becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality, is due out from Stanford University Press in 2023. 

Andresa Rodrigues is the president of AVABRUM and mother of Bruno Rocha Rodrigues, one of the 272 fatal casualties of the 2019 Vale crime-tragedy in Brumadinho. 

Andrew Mergen is a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, Andrew Mergen served in the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division (ENRD) at the United States Department of Justice. Professor Mergen began his career at the Justice Department in the Honors Program and concluded his career as Chief of ENRD’s Appellate Section. He has presented oral arguments in all 13 federal courts of appeals, including two en banc courts, and before several state intermediate and supreme courts. He has also worked on over a dozen merits cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition, in 2009, Professor Mergen assisted the Office of White House Counsel on the confirmation of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. During his career at the Justice Department, Professor Mergen received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service three times. He also received ENRD’s Muskee-Chafee Award, honoring his work’s significant contribution to protecting the environment. 

Before entering clinical teaching, Professor Mergen taught at several law schools including, Harvard Law School (Advanced Environmental Law), the University of Michigan Law School (Natural Resources Law) and the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii-Manoa (Administrative Law).  

André Luís Carvalho is an Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Ouro Preto. Since the crime committed by Samarco/Vale/BHP in the city of Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brazil) in 2015, he’s been working alongside the affected communities of Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo (subdistricts destroyed by the mining tailings) in the creation, establishment and survival of media spaces for the memory and denunciation of the ongoing violence against these individuals.  

He collaborated as a photographer with A Sirene, a newspaper led by those affected by Fundão dam’s mining tailings, until 2023. Currently, he produces reports and audiovisual documentaries in partnership with journalists and collaborators from national outlets, such as Folha de São Paulo and Piauí Magazine, to denounce the precarious life conditions of impacted communities facing mining terrorism, as well as the compensation process that excludes them; and to confront the colonial necropolitics of erasure of their stories of struggle, survival and resistance.   

Denise Humphreys Bebbington is Research Associate Professor in the Department of International Development, Community and Environment at Clark University in Massachusetts, USA. She is Faculty Convener of A new Earth conversation at Clark, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Natural Resource Extraction and Society at Clark University (Extractives@Clark) and is an affiliate faculty member of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.  Her research has explored the political ecology of natural gas in Bolivia and the implications of the gas economy for both indigenous peoples and regional societies, the dynamics of socio environmental conflict and mobilization linked to natural resource extraction and large-scale infrastructure investments, and the relationship between gender, environment and development, specifically how women gain access to and control over natural resources. Prior to her academic research she served as Representative to Peru for the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), South American Regional Sub-Director for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and Latin America Program Coordinator for the Global Greengrants Fund (GGF).  She is co-author of Governing Extractive Industries: Politics, Histories, Ideas (OUP, 2018) and Evaluación y Alcance de la Industria Extractiva y la Infraestructura en Relación con la Deforestación: Amazonía (Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, 2019). Publications from her research have appeared in the Environmental Science and Policy, World Development, Iconos, Development and Change, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Ecuador Debate, Umbrales, and the Journal of Latin American Geography among others.  

Law graduate from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (2007). Specialist in Criminal Sciences by the Cândido Mendes University (UCAM). He has a master’s in law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Doctoral student in Law by UFMG. Guilherme worked as a Bailiff at the Minas Gerais Court of Law (2006-2007), Lawyer (2007-2008) and Civil Police Officer (2008/2011). He also worked as a professor of Criminal Law and Penal Procedure at the Higher Education Center of Itabira (2009), at the Law and Social Sciences University of Eastern Minas (2012-2013), and at the President Antônio Carlos University in Mariana (2016). He is a tutor of distance learning courses at the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais (MPMG) and at the National Secretariat of Public Security (SENASP), an interagency body of the  Ministry of Justice and Public Safety (MJSP). He is a public prosecutor at MPMG since 2011, working as titular of the 1st Attorney’s Office of Mariana/MG. He is part of MPMG’s taskforce to promote the reparation of rights damaged by the collapse of Samarco’s mining dam, in 2015, in the city of Mariana.  

Marcia Castro is Andelot Professor of Demography, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population, director of the Brazil Studies Program of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University, associate faculty of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and faculty member of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Her research focuses on the development and use of multidisciplinary approaches to identify the determinants of infectious disease transmission in different ecological settings to inform control policies. She has more than 20 years of research experience in the Brazilian Amazon, with a strong record in conducting household surveys and thorough knowledge of the local culture. Furthermore, she has more than 15 years of collaboration with Brazilian researchers, health secretariats, and the ministry of health, particularly related to infectious diseases. She serves on several advisory boards in Brazil, including the Institute for the Studies of Health Policies (IEPS), the Science Center for Early Childhood (NCPI), Instituto Todos Pela Saúde (ITpS), and Instituto Cactus. She is a columnist for Folha de São Paulo and an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Mônica dos Santos is a lawyer and, since 2015, is part of the Fundão Dam Commission of Affected People (CABF). A resident of Bento Rodrigues, she seeks justice and fights for the affected communities’ rights and for full reparation of the crime that took place when the Fundão dam collapsed. The disaster-crime impacted the lives of her entire community: it claimed lives, took away dreams, life projects and community relationships, as well as destroying tangible and intangible assets. Throughout her work in collective action, she contributed to the establishment of an Independent Technical Advisory[SS1]  Panel, resettlement, registry reformulation, damage matrix, recognition of new settlements, non-exchange, and the completion of cultural manifestations in the origin area[SS2] . Moreover, Mônica is part of Loucos pelo Bento, a group comprised of people who visit and tend to the territory destroyed by the mud – a territory that carries their and their ancestors´ history, beyond the tailings that destroyed the community.

Monica Viegas Andrade is a Full Professor at the Economics Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, where she is a faculty member since 1995. Monica Viegas works with applied microeconomics, specifically with health economics, evaluation of social programs, and economic evaluation. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Graduate School of Getulio Vargas Foundation (1996 to 2000), Rio de Janeiro. She spent a sabbatical year at Pompeu Fabra University in 2008/2009, at the Center for Health Economics and was a Takemi Fellow at the Global Health and Population Department at the T.H Chan School of Public Health in 2015-2016. Monica Viegas was the Dean of the Graduate Program of Economics from 2003 to 2008 and the Director of the Center for Development and Regional Studies of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 2016-2018. Monica is the leader of the Group of Studies in Health Economics and Criminality - GEEESC CEDEPLAR / UFMG. The GEESC has various activities, including monthly academic seminars and a broad spectrum of projects. She supervised 34 Master Dissertations and 13 Ph.D. Dissertations. In 2023 Monica won the CONFAP (National Council of Research Agencies) prize of distinguished researcher in Human Science (second place). She is Researcher 1D of the National Council of Research (CNPQ) in Brazil and Member of the Committee (Economics) of the National Council of Research in Brazil.   

Tom Goodhead graduated from the University of Oxford, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He holds a Master’s degree in Politics and Education Policy from the University of Cambridge, and is qualified as a Barrister, graduating from City University, London and the University of Law. Leading a team of over 500 lawyers at Pogust Goodhead on major class action litigations across the world, Tom is known for his innovative approach to the practice of law. He is currently litigating the largest class action in history against global mining giant BHP, representing over 700,000 victims of the Mariana dam disaster, Brazil’s worst ever environmental disaster. Passionate about business and human rights, Tom believes that whilst capitalism is the world’s most powerful tool to lift people out of poverty, transnational corporations must be held to account for violations of environmental, social, and competitive orders. Tom was named as one of the UK’s top 100 lawyers by leading legal publication, The Lawyer, in their annual Hot 100 feature.