tommaso rada

A Story on Oil, Racism and Pollution” documents the life of the Communities of Ilha da Maré researching the causes and the consequences of pollution and historical facts that create an environmental racism contest.

Ilha da Maré is a small island located in the Bahia de Todos os Santos in the state of Bahia, populated by Quilombola’s communities living of fishing and shellfish picking. The Quilombos are settlements founded between the 1500 and the beginning of 1900 by people of African origin; most of the members of these communities are descendants of runaway slaves who formed quilombo settlements. In 1940, oil deposits were discovered in the Bahia de Todos os Santos; oil extraction wells were installed in the sea of the Bahia de Todos os Santos, in the Candeia zone and in the Ilha de Maré. In 1950, located in front of the Ilha de Maré, the Ludulpho Alves-Mataripe refinery were inaugurated. In 1953 the national oil company was founded and in 1967 the Industrial complex of Aratu was built: a commercial port for the exportation of gas and petrochemical products.  The Petrochemical Complex of Camaçari, the Aratu-Candeias Port the refinery and the oil wells are responsible of the level of environmental pollution and environmental related incidents. The researcher Neuza Miranda has shown the high contamination of Cadmium and Lead coming from the local industries in the children of Ilha de Maré. The Environmental Racism has been used to describe environmental injustices in a racial contest. The researcher Beatriz Moreira Bispo underline the lack of communication and compromise between the institutions, the company and the local Communities generating local conflicts. Despite the community of the Ilha de Maré tried to established a dialogue with the Institutions and the Companies to improve the environmental situation, very little has been done to decrease the pollution level or the factors that affect the Community of Ilha de Mare making them suffer of environmental racism.