The Reserva nacional de Cobre e Associadas (Renca) is an enormous natural cathedral, made of wood and leaves, the largest nature reserve in Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. On 23 August, Brazilian president Michel Temer had issued a decree abolishing the reserve, thereby opening the area to mining exploitation.

Protests from around the world

The news provoked widespread outrage around the world (with strong protests also from Brazilian citizens themselves). Public pressure was evidently truly intense, given that the federal judge in Brasília, Rolando Valcir Spanholo, decided to suspend the decree with immediate effect, accepting a popular petition submitted in recent days.

The reserve holds firm

The reserve, which extends over more than 46,000 square kilometres across the states of Amapá and Pará, is coveted by many mining companies, both Brazilian and international, interested in exploiting its precious underground resources, such as gold, copper, tantalum, ferrous minerals, nickel and manganese. Fortunately, this new gold rush appears to have been stopped in its tracks, also because, as the judge who struck down the decree explained, a decision of this kind requires prior intervention by Congress.

The world celebrates

The news of the decree's suspension was welcomed with joy by associations working for nature conservation and the rights of indigenous peoples, and by all those who care about the planet's last green lung and its extraordinary biodiversity. According to Randolfe Rodrigues, an opposition senator and member of the Sustainability Network party, "the Amazon has survived the greatest attack of the last fifty years".