Minas Gerais

A terra na vai te querer, which means the earth won't even want you.

Most people think it's just an expression, something abuelas say, but in the countryside of Minas Gerais, up in the green hills, where the dirt's road twists through coffee farms and the night gets cold and foggy, people will tell you that it's not an expression at all.

They'll tell you it happened and that it's still out there.

His name was Severino.

He lived on a small farm outside of a little town in the hills of Minas Gerais, a few hours from Belo Horizonte, with his mother, Doña Bendita.

His father died when he was a boy, so it was always just the two of them.

She raised him alone.

The next morning it was gone.

E de lá pra cá, é, foi uma pujança econômica, naturalmente, pela produção em larga escala.

E nesse período todo, Itabira já exportou mais de dois bilhões de toneladas de minério de ferro de alta qualidade, né, ajudando a industrialização de Minas, do Brasil, da Alemanha, do Japão, agora da China, cada vez mais.

Então é uma história de, de, de, de economia minerária, né, dessa monoeconomia, de muito sucesso.

Tanto é que a Vale, que nasceu em Itabira, hoje é uma das principais empresas mineradoras do mundo, uma grande multinacional muito respeitada.

E com isso, é, a, com a água, é, sendo uma, um, uma realidade estrutural importante, a gente tem um eco distrito que cê mencionou.

Então o eco distrito é um novo condomínio industrial, né? São uma área de três milhões de metros quadrados, um terço área aproveitável, o resto matas, lagos.

Então é um, é um condomínio industrial que vai ser um diferencial em Minas Gerais, seguramente, né.

E ali nós vamos oferecer perto de cinquenta terrenos pra começar a atrair essa nova indústria.

I was interested to ask him about the recent congressional and presidential elections in Brazil from an indigenous and environmental perspective.

quilombola communities traditional communities from amazon to minas gerais sao paulo they organizing themselves to go to vote for the first time people getting like three four people in a motorbike in the canoes boats and walking the whole night to be early in the morning to vote and have enough time to go back home because many villages live very far away from the voting office This movement in the villages together with the streets taken by the youth, taken by the civil society movement was so powerful, energetic, inspiring that I was so confident that we will make

history.

The first half of this interview was recorded on the 21st of October.

Were you as surprised as the UK press? What was the reaction like from you and your network?

Almost surprised because I was very anxious and afraid of Lula wouldn't be able to turn around the results in the first round.

There was one moment on Saturday and Sunday when I saw Lula not only through the news, but also receiving several messages from indigenous communities, from quilombola communities, traditional communities, from Amazon to Minas Gerais, São Paulo, they organizing themselves to go to vote for the first time.

People getting like three, four people in a motorbike, in the canoes, boats, and walking the whole night to be early in the morning to vote and have enough time to go back home because many villages live very far away from the voting office.

It was the southeast region of Brazil, which is not definitely the poorest.

So the states of Rio, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, all of them turned into a greater vote sharing to Lula.

So I'm not sure, you know, which factor counted the most.

But what I can share with you is that it was absolutely unexpected