CHEMICAL WARFARE IN THE MARANHÃO COUNTRYSIDE: AGRICULTURAL DRONES, ENVIRONMENTAL BARRIERS, AND VIOLATIONS OF TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES (2024–2026)

Abstract

The advance of agribusiness over Maranhão's territory — particularly through soybean expansion in the MATOPIBA region — has produced a growing health, humanitarian and environmental crisis: the aerial spraying of pesticides by drones and conventional aircraft over traditional communities, quilombola settlements, indigenous territories, and agrarian reform settlements. This article analyzes, based on primary data collected by the Maranhão Agroecology Network (RAMA) in partnership with FETAEMA and LEPENG/UFMA, the phenomenon researchers themselves call the "chemical war": the systematic use of agricultural pesticides as an instrument of expulsion, contamination, and destruction of life in traditional territories. The temporal scope covers 2024 through February 2026, consolidating data from 495 communities affected across at least 45 municipalities in Maranhão.

The research articulates three analytical dimensions: (i) meteorological conditions structurally incompatible with safe spraying in Maranhão — temperatures above 30°C, relative humidity below 55%, and thermal inversion in the early morning hours — which constitute environmental barriers systematically ignored by operators; (ii) the profile of affected communities, with emphasis on environmental racism evidenced by the concentration of  impacts on traditional peoples' territories (85.1% of victims in 2026); and (iii)  fragmented and insufficient institutional responses to a crisis that has already  engaged the Federal Public Ministry, the National Council of Human Rights,  and the UN Special Rapporteur on toxic substances.

Results indicate that the apparent 47.2% drop in 2025 records compared to 2024 does not reflect an actual reduction in attacks, but rather structural underreporting aggravated by intimidation and concealment tactics — such as so-called "ghost drones." The article concludes with the urgent need for state legislation prohibiting aerial spraying across Maranhão's entire territory and effective protection mechanisms for exposed communities, in accordance with ILO Convention No. 169, Decree No. 6,040/2007, and the principles of international environmental law.