2019-09-02 Bloomberg Businessweek

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Bloomberg Businessweek / SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 THE ELEMENTS

Photograph by Júlia Pontés

Last year, Brazil produced almost nine-tenths of the world’s

niobium, used primarily in steel alloys for airplanes, cars,

and electronics. The country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro,

who’s long touted the metal’s economic potential,

described his “Niobium Valley” dream in a 2016 promotional

video. Photographer Júlia Pontés—who took this shot

of a tailings pond at a niobium mining operation owned

by Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração and

Chinese partners in Araxá, in the state of Minas Gerais—

researches and documents the vast scale of such projects

so people can see the effects of mineral exploration and

consumption. A Niobium Valley “could be great only if it

primarily aimed,” she says, at “benefit for the community.”

Extraction industries, she’s found, have returned limited

benefits to Araxá’s people.

“I DREAM ...

THAT ONE DAY, WE’LL

ALSO HAVE A

NIOBIUM VALLEY”