GEOETHIC ISSUES INVOLVING TAILINGS DAM: VALUES AND CONFLICTS

Abstract

From the conceptions of Geoethics, this work analyzed the perception of students, future science teachers, in Brazil and Portugal. The purpose of the study was to explore the issue from a Geoethics point of view, regarding the environmental and social impacts caused by mining activities. A survey was applied to the groups of students, considering the environmental impacts caused by tailings dams in areas of exploitation of metallic minerals. Two different cases from each country were focused: in Brazil, the breakdown of the tailings dam of SAMARCO Mining, in Mariana, MG, still in activity; and in Portugal, the case of the abandonment of the Terramonte mine, in Castelo de Paiva, deactivated. The applied survey was composed of open questions, and the analysis of the answers considered the Discursive Textual Analysis (ATD) to help understand the positioning of students from both countries. Considering the intrinsic value (value that a thing has in itself) and the instrumental value (means to obtain some purpose or objective), in both groups the students expressed that they considered that the environment has intrinsic value, but they pointed out the instrumental value of mineral resources in the daily life of society. In relation to the environmental impacts caused in both cases, the groups presented different perceptions, mainly due to the fact that Brazil is a recent occurrence and widely disseminated, in relation to the Portuguese case, which is not very widespread in the media.