Deutsche Bahn pulls out of proposed rail and port project in Amazonia

Apr 9, 2025

For the past year, Rainforest Rescue and partner organizations have worked hard to make Deutsche Bahn (DB) aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of a planned rail-and-port project in Brazil – with success: DB has now informed us that it no longer intends to participate in the GPM infrastructure project in the Amazon rainforest.

“The agreement signed with GPM in 2023 has expired and has not been renewed,” DB told us upon request. “We are not currently in active contact with GPM and are not planning any further cooperation at present,” says DB.

This is very good news for the Amazon region in Brazil and the people living there. Our partner organizations in Brazil, such as Justiça nos Trilhos, are elated and thank us for the successful cooperation.

In April 2024, we arranged meetings with an activist from Brazil at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and with staff members of the German Bundestag in Berlin to warn them about the GPM project and its impacts. DB is wholly owned by the German state.

At the end of May 2024, we protested together with German and Brazilian partners in front of the DB headquarters at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin against the then planned participation of the railway in the GPM project. We also filed a complaint under the German Supply Chain Act.

In August, we launched the petition “Brazil: Keep Deutsche Bahn out of Amazonia!”, which has since been signed by over 64,000 supporters.

It is not only GPM’s plans to build a private 520 km long freight railway line in the rainforest and an export port in the mangroves on the Atlantic that would have serious negative consequences for nature and the people living there. The effects of the raw materials boom envisaged by the project would also be absolutely catastrophic: the expansion of cultivation, extraction, and transportation of raw materials such as soy and iron ore for the world market.

Another success: No EU funding for GPM

Together with our Brazilian partners, we successfully prevented potential funding of the GPM project through the European Commission’s Global Gateway initiative. Global Gateway is the European counterpart to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The European Commission plans to finance infrastructure projects worldwide with 300 billion euros to secure European industry’s access to raw materials and sales markets in its competition with China.

After numerous letters sent to relevant EU officials, we arranged a meeting with the European Commission in Brussels in November 2024 to discuss GPM. During the meeting, we were informed that the EU would not financially support the project at this time. DB had facilitated contacts with the EU for GPM and participated in at least three presentations of the project in Brussels.

Cooperation with Justiça nos Trilhos in Brazil continues

Our collaboration with Justiça nos Trilhos in Brazil continues, as it remains uncertain what will happen next with GPM. Without DB and EU funds, it will be significantly harder for the operators to realize the planned freight railway and port construction project.

DB subsidiaries such as DB E.C.O. Group are also involved in other controversial rail projects for exporting raw materials in Brazil. These include two railway lines operated by Brazilian mining company Vale, which DB aims to make “climate neutral.” Vale transports over 100 million tons of iron ore annually from the Carajás mine in the Amazon rainforest to a company-owned export port near São Luís on the Atlantic Ocean via the 900-kilometer Estrada de Ferro Carajás (EFC).

Further south, the 700-kilometer Estrada de Ferro Vitória Minas (EFVM), which runs from inland mining and agricultural areas to a port near Vitória on the Atlantic, is also used to transport raw materials such as iron ore, wood, pulp, and soy.

Additionally, DB is interested in another railway project – the “Corredor Fico – Fiol.” Existing rail connections in Brazil’s interior are planned to link with a new, nearly 900-kilometer railway line leading to a proposed export port near Ilhéus on the Atlantic.

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1. two railway lines operated by Brazilian mining company ValeDB E.C.O. Group, 2021. Klimaneutralität für Eisenerz -Transportrouten in Brasilien: https://db-engineering-consulting.com/de/aktuelles/klimaneutralitaet-fuer-eisenerz-transportrouten-in-brasilien/

2. Corredor Fico – FiolDB, February 14, 2023. FICO – FIOL y GPM. Corredores férreos multimodales en Brasil con el know-how de Deutsche Bahn:https://uic.org/events/IMG/pdf/east-west_inrtegration_corridor_in_brazil_-_carsten_puls_db_engineering_and_consulting_230214.pdf

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