Iphan received a request to heritage-list the Pedral do Lourenção, in the Tocantins River, as national historical, archaeological, landscape, and ethnographic heritage. The request was submitted by the Association of the Extractive Riverine Community of Vila Tauiry (Acrevita), six days after some 200 fishermen, riverside dwellers, farmers, and researchers carried out a "popular heritage-listing" of the complex.
The measure comes amid federal government plans to blast the rocks to make the river wider and deeper, opening a navigation channel that allows the passage of larger barges. The Ministry of Transport and Dnit proceed with the rock removal of the Pedral, with detonations scheduled for 2027.
The document argues that the Pedral holds records of long-duration human occupation, archaeological sites, and materials. The local communities want Iphan to recognize this territory as Brazilian cultural heritage, which would open a new front in the dispute over one of the government's main waterway projects.




