Visit to Brazil, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes Pesticides 23. Pesticide use in Brazil has increased over 338% since 2000.29 Brazil has been among the top three pesticide consumers in the world, and at times the largest consumer for over a decade.30 The tremendous use of pesticides is resulting in grave impacts on human rights in Brazil. Food production and economic growth are not a legitimate excuse for these preventable violations and abuses.31 Victims rightly allege deaths, health problems, as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment resulting from pesticide exposure. 32 Environmental degradation, including water contamination and biodiversity loss including of bees are grave effects.33 24. Far too many cases occur of the failure to respect legally required buffer zones to prevent the spraying of schools, houses and community centres by agri-business. Despite national restrictions on pesticide spraying within 500 metres of inhabited places, states have varying levels of implementation, and overall there is inadequate enforcement. 34 25. Landless peasants reported repeated efforts by local businesses to force their eviction by spraying of pesticides over their homes 2-3 times per month. Indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and other communities regularly allege powerful agribusinesses intentionally spray pesticides on them as “chemical weapons” to drive them from their lands, which farmers and ranchers wish to use.35 26. In 2018 an airplane sprayed pesticides over 340 families in Marabá Para, causing health problems for all the families, allegedly with the aim of evicting the community members. In January 2020, a court decision mandated a farmer, pilot, and contractor to compensate the indigenous community of Tey’i Jusu for aerial spraying of pesticides in and around their homes, which had caused headaches, sore throats, diarrhoea, and fever, with long-term health impacts yet unknown.36 Efforts have been made to ban aerial spraying, for example in Ceará. 37 However, such efforts came at grave costs to the communities’ human rights defenders as discussed below.38 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 6 Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics IBGE (2017) https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-sala-de-imprensa/2013-agencia-denoticias/releases/21905-censo-agro-2017-resultados-preliminares-mostram-queda-de-2-0-no-numerode-estabelecimentos-e-alta-de-5-na-area-total ; Campanha Permanente Contra os Agrotóxicos e Pela Vida et al (CPCAPV) (April 2020), https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Studien/Hazardous_20pesticides_ENG_final_202 00422.pdf. Londres, F. (2011); quoted in Samuel Carvalho De Benedicto (2019); Marcos Antonio Pedlowski et al (January 2012) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257085273_Modes_of_pesticides_utilization_by_Brazilian_ smallholders_and_their_implications_for_human_health_and_the_environment ; Eloisa Dutra Caldas (December 2016) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308013830_Pesticide_Poisoning_in_Brazil. A/HRC/34/48. A/74/480. HRC General Comment 36; Articulação para a Preservação da Integridade dos Seres e da Biodiversidade (APISBio) (March 28). Wanderlei Pignati et al (Dec 2014) https://www.scielosp.org/article/csc/2014.v19n12/4669-4678/pt/; Human Rights Watch (HRW) (November 2019) https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/06/brazilianspoisoned-pesticides-sprayed-near-homes-and-schools. CPCAPV et al (April 2020) https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Studien/Hazardous_20pesticides_ENG_final_202 00422.pdf. Id. Aliança pela Alimentação Adequada e Saudável (2019). Id. ; State of Ceara by State Law N. 16.280 of January 20, 2019.