topic: Amazon Mining

topic: Amazon Mining

Social media activity version | Lean version

Brazilian Amazon’s most violent city tied to illegal gold mining on Indigenous land
Violence has escalated in the small Brazilian town of Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade as illegal gold mining on the nearby Sararé Indigenous Territory has exploded over the last two years, according to the 2025 Amazon Violence Atlas. Located in Mato Grosso state near the Bolivian border, Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade recorded the highest […]
One small Indigenous territory emerges as illegal mining hotspot in Brazil’s Amazon
One small Indigenous territory is currently the site of roughly 70% of deforestation in Indigenous territories across the Brazilian Amazon due to illegal mining over the last two years, according to government data. The Sararé Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso state is home to about 200 Nambikwara people. From January 2024 to August 2025, illegal […]
What was achieved for Indigenous peoples at COP30?
- The two-week COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, saw the largest global participation of Indigenous leaders in the conference’s history.
- With the adoption of measures like the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, a $1.8 billion funding pledge, and the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), the summit resulted in historic commitments to secure land tenure rights for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant people.
- Yet despite these advances, sources say frustrations grew as negotiators failed to establish pathways for rapid climate finance for adaptation, loss and damage, or to create road maps for reversing deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels.
- While some pledges appear ambitious, Indigenous delegates say effective implementation of the pledges will depend on government transparency and accountable use of funds.

Colombia bans all new oil and mining projects in its Amazon
Colombia will no longer approve new oil or large-scale mining projects in its Amazon biome, which covers 42% of the nation’s territory, according to a Nov. 13 statement by its environment ministry. Acting Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres said the entire Colombian Amazon will be made a reserve for renewable natural resources. She made the […]
Strategic ignorance, climate change and Amazonia (commentary)
- With the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, essentially all of Brazil’s government outside of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is promoting actions that push us toward tipping points, both for the Amazon Rainforest and the global climate.
- Crossing any of these tipping points would result in global warming escaping from human control, with devastating consequences for Brazil that include mass mortalities.
- The question of whether Brazil’s leaders understand the consequences of their actions is relevant to how they will be judged by history, but the climatic consequences follow automatically, regardless of how these actions may be judged, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The price of gold: In Venezuela, mining threatens Indigenous Pemón
- Across southern Venezuela, Indigenous communities have been drawn into mining for gold as their traditional way of life has been disturbed and they lack other economic opportunities.
- Armed groups and a push for extractives have turned the Imataca Forest Reserve in the state of Bolivar into a mining hotspot, sources tell Mongabay, boosting deforestation and river pollution and destroying the livelihoods of Indigenous Pemón families.
- In Canaima National Park, the collapse of tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed communities into mining. Many operations in the park are run by Pemón, who own rafts, employ local workers and partner with external financiers providing machinery and fuel in exchange for a share of the gold.
- In theory, Venezuela legally guarantees land rights for Indigenous people and requires consultation on extractive projects, but communities denounce a lack of consultation, with both legal and illegal mining encroaching on their territories.

Indigenous delegates prepare for COP30 with focus on justice, land and finance
- The 2025 U.N. climate conference, COP30, will run from Nov. 10-21 in Belém, Brazil, and is expected to host the largest participation of Indigenous peoples in the conference series’ history, with more than 3,000 Indigenous delegates registered.
- Mongabay spoke with some of the delegates from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific about their expectations for the conference and their objectives.
- They’re calling for recognition of Indigenous lands as a climate solution, a just energy transition, protection for forest defenders, and financial pledges that ensure at least 20% of forest conservation funds be directed to Indigenous and local communities.
- COP30 is expected to launch initiatives such as the Belém Action Mechanism for a just transition and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. In the lead up to the conference, governments and donors also announced major commitments to recognize customary lands and provide funding support land rights.

Suriname’s plan to capitalize on carbon: Q&A with President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons
- Suriname’s first female president, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, sat down with Mongabay to discuss her goals for the U.N. Climate Change Conference taking place next week in neighboring Brazil.
- She’s been a vocal proponent of climate financing for countries meeting their emission targets and conserving the rainforest.
- At the same time, Geerlings-Simons is grappling with Suriname’s deep-seated mining industry, which often skirts regulations and destroys natural ecosystems with mercury and cyanide.
- Geerlings-Simons said she recognizes the importance of extractive industries for funding the country’s infrastructure, law enforcement and the agencies that provide environmental oversight.

Indigenous communities protect Colombia’s uncontacted peoples
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For more than a decade, two Indigenous communities deep in Colombia’s Amazon have been safeguarding those who wish to remain unseen, reports contributor Pilar Puentes for Mongabay. The residents of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and the neighboring […]
Brazil dismantles hundreds of illegal dredges in major Amazon mining crackdown
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Brazilian police backed by Interpol have destroyed hundreds of dredges used in illegal gold mining along the Madeira River, in one of the biggest coordinated crackdowns yet on criminal networks operating across the Amazon Basin. The international police agency said officers dismantled 277 floating mining rafts worth an estimated $6.8 million. […]
Critical minerals drive legalization of mining on Amazon Indigenous lands
- Brazilian lawmakers are advancing controversial bills to legalize mining on Indigenous lands, where hundreds of mining bids have already been filed, as the nation positions itself as a key supplier for the energy transition.
- The proposed expansion of mining would intensify deforestation and mercury pollution, bringing violence to Indigenous communities and threatening the Amazon, reports show.
- The move raises concerns among Indigenous organizations and experts, who warn that the bills are unconstitutional and may be taken without properly consulting traditional communities.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
- For generations, the Pakayaku community in Ecuador’s Amazon has successfully kept unsustainable mining, logging and oil extraction activities out of forests while preserving their cultural traditions and ecological knowledge.
- Mongabay visited the community to see their guardian program, made up of 45 women warriors who constantly patrol 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of rainforest to detect incursions — which few have been allowed to witness firsthand.
- The community created a “plan of life” map that details their vision, identity and economic alternatives to extraction.
- Leaders worry Ecuador’s concentration on courting international investment in sectors like mining and natural gas could threaten the forests.

A closer look at Peru’s Amazon reveals new mining trends, deforestation
- A new analysis from the Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program shows differences in mining patterns in the central and northern departments of the country, compared with southern departments like Madre de Dios.
- The mapping analysis is one of the first visualizations of Peru’s mining problem on a nationwide scale.
- The organization called for a better gold traceability system and for small-scale and artisanal mining activities to be subject to stricter environmental oversight.

Indigenous monitoring project helps protect isolated peoples in Colombia’s Amazon
- Indigenous communities neighboring the peoples living in isolation in Colombian Amazon have spent more than a decade helping the latter remain separate from the outside world.
- Members of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and of the community of Manacaro use traditional knowledge and technology alike to monitor threats to their territory and to protect nearby communities living in isolation.
- In Manacaro, women take on traditionally masculine roles by patrolling the rivers, collecting data, and safeguarding their neighbors’ lives amid the advance of armed actors and illegal mining.
- Surveillance work has provided evidence of uncontacted peoples, such as the Yuri and Passé ethnic groups, which was fundamental in the federal government’s decision to formally recognize them.

Mamai Lucille Williams, a quiet symbol of dignity amid destruction, has died, aged about 93
- Mamai Lucille Williams, a Patamona elder from Karisparu in Guyana’s North Pakaraimas, was forcibly evicted in 2018 when miners—accompanied by police and a mining officer—destroyed her home and farm to clear land for gold extraction.
- Her case, raised by local Indigenous councils, became emblematic of the wider struggle against illegal and unsafe mining that continues to displace Amerindian communities across Guyana and the Amazon.
- Despite government promises of compensation, Mamai spent her final years away from her ancestral land, which she had occupied since childhood, symbolizing the precariousness of Indigenous tenure amid extractive expansion.
- She died in September 2025, remembered by her community as a “living symbol of courage, resilience, and dignity” and honored for preserving the Patamona language through her contribution to the first Patamona Learning Handbook.

Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas
- Mining giant Vale has obtained a preliminary license for its Bacaba project, the first step toward doubling its copper production in the Brazilian Amazon over the next decade.
- Experts warn the expansion, near several conservation areas, will worsen deforestation, increase water stress and raise the risk of pollution.
- The global demand for copper is expected to rise by more than 40% by 2040, and almost all of Brazil’s known reserves are in the Amazon.

MPs across Latin America unite to stop fossil fuels in the Amazon
- On Oct. 7, a network of more than 900 lawmakers presented the results of a parliamentary investigation into the phaseout of fossil fuels in the Amazon at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasília.
- The report by Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future links fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon to deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation, pollution from spills and toxic waste, community displacement, health problems and violence from armed groups.
- MPs from five Amazonian countries — Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia — have presented law proposals in their national parliaments to halt the expansion of fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon region of their countries. But the level of ambition varies across nations, with countries still relying heavily on extractive industries.

Report finds 226 Indigenous land defenders in Peru at risk of violence
- A report by Indigenous rights advocacy groups ProPurús and AIDESEP shows a panorama of violence faced by environmental defenders in Peru’s Amazonian region.
- The report found 226 cases of Indigenous defenders at risk between 2010 and 2024 in Ucayali department and neighboring parts of the departments of Huánuco and Loreto.
- Illegal activities such as drug trafficking, gold mining and logging are the main drivers of violence, according to the report.
- The expansion of monoculture plantations, many of them with legal protection, is another source of persistent pressure on Indigenous territories.

Indigenous women in Peru use technology to protect Amazon forests
- Kichwa, Ticuna and Matsés women are leading forest patrols and training other women in the use of technology such as GPS, drones and satellite alerts.
- They are protecting the forest not only as an ecosystem, but also as a vital source of life, food, medicine and cultural heritage for their communities.
- Studies show that access to such technology has helped Indigenous communities significantly reduce forest loss.
- Through cunas, community childcare spaces, women are able to participate actively in forest monitoring workshops while passing ancestral knowledge to new generations, ensuring cultural continuity.

Brazil can green its environmental crime-fighting in the Amazon (commentary)
- Brazil’s special operations unit known as the Grupo de Especialização de Fiscalização (GEF) targets destructive criminal groups involved in illegal gold mining in the Amazon, which encroaches on territories inhabited by Indigenous communities and releases heavy metals such as mercury into the environment.
- While GEF’s strikes against such operations are often effective in disrupting them, their methods can also be destructive, as they typically rely on burning mining equipment and infrastructure.
- A new op-ed argues that GEF should add environmental stewardship to its operations: “Fighting illegal gold mining cannot rely on destruction alone. Protecting the rainforest can mean transforming enforcement into a tool for healing.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The making of an autonomous Indigenous nation in Peru’s Amazon
- The Wampís Indigenous people of northern Peru have spent decades resisting the expansion of oil drilling and other extractive projects in their Amazonian territory.
- In 2015, they became the first Indigenous group in the country to declare themselves an autonomous nation.
- While this has led to some positive results in the form of security and conservation work, the Wampís lack the resources to develop productive initiatives and expand guard posts across their 1.3-million-hectare (3.2-million-acre) territory.
- The state has not recognized the autonomous nation, a requirement for the Wampís people to receive direct funding from the state and international donors.

California lawmakers seek to curb oil imports from Amazon
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The California Senate has unanimously approved a resolution calling for a review of its imports of crude oil from the Amazon rainforest and an eventual phase-out, following years of advocacy from Indigenous leaders in South America. Environmental groups say oil drilling in the Amazon is driving deforestation, destroying biodiversity and violating Indigenous rights, […]
What’s at stake for the environment in Bolivia’s upcoming elections?
- Bolivians will go to the polls on Aug. 17 to vote for a new president, vice president and 166 combined members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.
- Polls suggest that conservative candidates Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga and Samuel Doria Medina have the best chance of winning, with a focus on economic recovery rather than the environment.
- Their policies will determine the future of the lithium industry, illegal gold mining and forest loss in the Amazon and Chiquitania.

Formalizing small-scale gold mining can reduce environmental impacts & crime (commentary)
- Small-scale gold mining provides more jobs than any other mining sector, yet it’s also the world’s largest source of mercury pollution, a major driver of tropical deforestation, and its informal nature breeds organized crime and corruption.
- One proposed solution to these ills is investment in centralized gold processing plants — which are already operating in nations like Peru and Tanzania — because they use less toxic techniques to extract the ore, while reducing the prevalence of criminal networks in the industry.
- The next international climate summit, COP30, which will be hosted in Brazil’s Amazon, offers a strategic opportunity to put the gold mining issue squarely on the international agenda, a new op-ed argues: “Gold’s glitter will not fade, but if mined without reform, it will continue costing the world its forests, its rivers, and its security.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Surge in critical minerals claims puts Brazil’s land reform communities at risk
- The greed for critical minerals is invading land reform settlements in Brazil, threatening food production and environmental protection.
- An analysis has identified 3,391 mining processes overlapping with 1,432 areas demarcated by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), covering 25 Brazilian states.
- Almost half of the mining projects impacting rural settlements are in the Brazilian Amazon, which concentrates 52% of the mining areas in settlements; the northeast region accounts for 40% of the occurrences.
- The interest in critical minerals in rural settlements in Pará tends to exacerbate conflicts in an area historically marked by land ownership disputes.

Why is Lula still silent on Brazil’s ‘Bill of devastation?’ (commentary)
- A bill that would essentially eliminate Brazil’s environmental licensing system is moving rapidly toward approval by a large anti-environmental majority in Congress.
- An amendment has been added to the bill allowing “strategic” projects, such as the mouth-of-the-Amazon oilfields and the BR-319 highway, to get accelerated licensing with a deadline for approval, after which approval would be automatic.
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has not supported his environment minister in opposing the bill, and has not mobilized his supporters in Congress to push against it.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Nine takeaways on Brazil’s crackdown on illegal mining in Munduruku lands
Mongabay published a five-part series delving into Brazil’s ongoing operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories, deep in the Amazon Rainforest. While there has been some disruption to mining in the region, Munduruku organizations told Mongabay the operation is not yet completely successful, with small groups of illegal miners, or garimpeiros, still […]
After crackdown on illegal miners, Indigenous Munduruku still grapple with health aftermath
- In November 2024, the Brazilian government launched an operation to oust illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in the Amazon Rainforest.
- However, there was little government action to address health issues in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by gold mining, Indigenous leaders and experts say.
- A wide range of diseases linked to mercury contamination and other environmental destruction derived from illegal gold mining spread in Munduruku lands, including diarrhea, itchiness, flu, fever, childhood paralysis and brain problems.
- Munduruku leaders sent a letter to the federal government requiring actions to provide health assistance to their people, detailing a list of required actions, including measures to combat mercury contamination, malaria, food insecurity and lack of drinking water.

Why Brazil should abandon its plans for oil and gas in Amazonia (commentary)
- The Brazilian government has major plans for oil and gas extraction both in the Amazon Rainforest and offshore — including at the mouth of the Amazon River — with a drilling rights auction scheduled for June 17 for fields both in the forest and offshore.
- Under intense pressure, the head of the federal environmental agency has now overridden his technical staff to allow the proposed mouth-of-the-Amazon project to move forward for approval.
- In addition to the risk of an uncontrollable oil spill, the economics of opening this and other new oilfields implies continued extraction long past the time when burning fossil fuels must cease if a global climate catastrophe is to be avoided.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Amazon illegal gold mines drive sex trafficking in the Brazil-Guyana border
- Poverty and poor border controls have allowed young women to be trafficked into the sex trade catering to illegal gold miners in Brazil’s border areas with countries like Guyana and Venezuela.
- Research by the Federal University of Roraima identified 309 people who were victims of human trafficking between 2022 and 2024.
- In the Guyanese border town of Lethem, young women, mostly from Venezuela but also from Brazil, are trafficked into bars from across the border in Brazil, seemingly without restriction.
- Organized crime networks associated with illegal mining use elaborate recruiting tactics and exploit the vulnerability of victims, who often don’t recognize themselves as trafficked or are afraid to speak out.

A new mall for the village: How carbon credit dollars affect Indigenous Guyanese
- Indigenous communities in Guyana, such as the Kapohn people, have received funds from carbon credit sales negotiated by the government, but many criticize the lack of consultation, rushed implementation, and projects that have not met local needs.
- Although Indigenous lands contribute to the Guyanese carbon credit program, many remain without full legal recognition or protection, and leaders argue that their autonomy and traditional rights are being undermined in favor of state-managed initiatives.
- Amid growing concerns over land rights, mining concessions and transparency, Indigenous voices are calling for meaningful participation, cultural respect, and development plans rooted in their own priorities and knowledge systems.

From chickens to cassava, Brazil’s Munduruku seek alternatives to mining
- The Brazilian government has expelled illegal miners from two Munduruku territories in Pará state, but alliances with some Indigenous groups may facilitate their return, local leaders warn.
- According to Munduruku leaders, the absence of income sources and public services makes illegal mining increasingly attractive to young Indigenous people.
- The federal government promised to offer economic alternatives to the communities, but for now, they count just on a few projects like chicken breeding and cassava flour production, Indigenous people say.
- Some leaders see carbon credits as a viable economic alternative, while others denounce unfair contracts and violations of their autonomy.

‘We can’t talk solutions without understanding complexities: Kari Guajajara on Brazil’s Amazon
- Mongabay interviewed Kari Guajajara, a lawyer and the first Indigenous person to obtain a law degree in Brazil’s state of Maranhão, to hear her take on some of the latest and biggest events affecting Indigenous communities and forests Brazilian Amazon.
- These events include a government operation to evict illegal miners from a Munduruku territory, threats to the lives of Indigenous land defenders, the influence of the agribusiness lobby, and President Lula’s drop in popularity.
- Kari Guajajara and other Indigenous delegates came to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City to spotlight issues they face in their country.
- Kari Guajajara is a lawyer at Amazonia Alerta and a legal advisor for COIAB, a Brazilian Amazon Indigenous network.

Gold rush moves closer to Amazon’s second-tallest tree
Illegal gold miners are now operating very close to the second-tallest tree in the Amazon Rainforest, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reported in April. Six giant trees, including a red angelim (Dinizia excelsa) that stands 85 meters (279 feet) tall, are found inside the Iratapuru River Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil’s Amapá state. Despite the area’s protected status, […]
Indigenous delegates at the U.N. raise alarm on isolated peoples in the Amazon
- Indigenous delegates at the 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called attention to the threats faced by Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, or PIACI.
- Isolated peoples are affected by the exploitation of natural resources in their territories, drug trafficking, logging, and other illegal economies.
- Indigenous peoples and organizations at the forum urged states to adopt a territorial corridors initiative and to implement policies, standards and cross-border mechanisms to secure their territories and rights.
- There are 188 records of isolated Indigenous peoples in South America, however national governments officially recognize 60.

Tree rings reveal mercury pollution from illegal gold mining: Study
New research has found that some tropical trees in the Peruvian Amazon can be used to monitor mercury pollution from gold mining, offering an alternative to expensive air monitors. Roughly 16 million people worldwide engage in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, much of which is illegal due to environmental and human health concerns. In many […]
Officials share strategies to stop spread of illegal miners from Munduruku land
- An eviction operation to remove illegal miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory has been underway since November 2024.
- While the actions so far have led to a reduction in illegal mining, Munduruku organizations and officials have raised concerns that miners will return or migrate to conservation units once security forces withdraw — as is common.
- Researchers and federal officials said the government should maintain a long-term presence in territories, as well as carry out actions to target high-level criminals and implement a recovery plan to ensure Indigenous peoples involved in mining have other options.
- A leader of the federal task force told Mongabay the National Public Security Force and Funai will remain in the region with patrol actions and the other agencies will carry out inspection and control actions to prevent the miners from trying to return.

Yanomami youth turn to drones to watch their Amazon territory
- In the Yanomami Indigenous Land, the largest in Brazil, leaders believe in their youths’ skills to maintain their ancestors’ legacy and safeguard the future of a sprawling territory covering almost the size of Portugal.
- Located in the Brazilian Amazon between the states of Roraima and Amazonas, the Indigenous territory faced a severe humanitarian and environmental crisis with the invasion of around 20,000 illegal miners in search of gold and cassiterite.
- Trained youths can now act as multipliers of drone monitoring and watch the land against new invasions.

As the rainforest gets drier, Amazon Indigenous groups thirst for clean water
- The 2024 extreme and historical drought that hit the Amazon exposed a chronic problem: access to drinking water and sanitation in Indigenous lands, where only a third of households have proper water supply systems.
- In some Amazon rivers in Brazil, cases of diseases related to inadequate basic sanitation, such as malaria and acute diarrhea, have been increasing amid climate change and population growth.
- Indigenous organizations have been demanding the implementation of adapted infrastructures in the villages, such as water tanks, wells, cesspools and septic tanks.
- The Brazilian federal government already has resources and plans to begin addressing these issues.

Mining dredges return to Amazon River’s main tributary, months after crackdown
- Five months after a major operation by federal forces, illegal mining dredges are back on the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The return of the floating structures shows the resilience of illegal gold mining in the Amazon, which destroys the riverbeds and contaminates the water with mercury.
- As the federal administration closes miners’ siege of Indigenous territories, the illegal miners are migrating to less-monitored areas, experts says.

The Pan Amazon as a hotspot of cultural diversity
- The Amazon is known not only for its biodiversity, but also for its cultural richness, built by Indigenous nations and other groups that have migrated to the region over the past 500 years.
- Indigenous communities in the region include those that have experienced various amounts of cultural loss and/or modification of their cultural traditions, as well as urban dwellers who retain their ethnic identity while partially joining a different stakeholder group.
- Non-governmental organizations provide a moral counterweight to many of the forces that make frontier societies unfair, representing both conservative and progressive viewpoints that reflect the diversity of Pan Amazonian society.

Conservation and the rise of corporations in the Pan Amazon
- Despite agreement on the importance of protecting the Amazon’s biodiversity, most people in the Pan Amazon depend directly or indirectly on conventional development and extractive production models.
- Investments by the extractive sector in the mid-nineteenth century were more successful because they were organized by multinational corporations with experience in managing operations in remote geographies (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname) or by state-owned corporations with practical knowledge of their own country (Brazil, Venezuela).
- In Brazil, some family enterprises evolved into complex holding companies that now finance expansion via joint ventures and international credit markets. A select few have chosen to raise capital by selling equity shares on domestic or international stock markets, although they typically retain majority control to maintain the family legacy.

Brazil’s illegal gold miners carve out new Amazon hotspots in conservation units
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration reduced the expansion of illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, but miners keep finding new sites.
- In 15 conservation units, illegal gold miners destroyed 330 hectares (815 acres) in only two months.
- According to experts, gold miners expelled from Indigenous territories may be migrating to conservation units.
- Alliances with narco mafias and the rise in gold prices are obstacles to fighting illegal mining.

‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
- In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury.
- In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

Migration opens up new territories in the Brazilian Amazon in the 20th century
- Internal migration in Panamazonia was driven by the gold rush, improved infrastructure, land grabbing and job opportunities in large-scale infrastructure projects such as industrial mines and hydroelectric plants.
- Rondônia’s population grew from 100,000 in 1972 to more than 400,000 in 1982, when it became one of Brazil’s states. By 1990, it had surpassed one million inhabitants.
- Migration within the Brazilian Amazon is now largely internal, as Amazonian residents move to cities. Internal migration is motivated by lack of opportunity in rural communities and the creation of temporary jobs linked to construction sites

New Canadian-backed potash mine under fire from Amazon Indigenous groups
- For more than a decade, Potássio do Brasil, a Canadian-backed mining company, has tried to exploit the Brazilian Amazon’s potash reserves, despite legal challenges.
- In April, the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute (IPAAM) granted the company several installation licenses, which authorized the project’s implementation as well as the construction of a road and shipping port.
- According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) and Funai, the issuance of these licenses by the Amazonas government was illegal, as the project overlaps with Indigenous lands and many communities were not consulted.
- Many Mura residents, most of whom are concerned about the impact the project will have on the environment and their livelihoods, say the company did not consult them and instead co-opted leaders and falsified documents.

Report reveals how environmental crime profits in the Amazon are laundered
- A recent report from the FACT Coalition analyzed 230 cases of environmental crime in Amazon countries over the past decade to better understand how crimes are committed and how the associated profits are laundered.
- It found that the U.S. is the most common foreign destination for the products and proceeds of environmental crimes committed in the Amazon region.
- The most popular way to launder money involves the use of shell and front companies, and corruption was the single most prevalent convergent crime mentioned.
- Of the cases analyzed, only one in three appears to have included a parallel financial investigation.

‘Indigenous women in the Amazon must be empowered’: Interview with Nemonte Nenquimo
- The new book Seremos Jaguares (We Will Be Jaguars) by Indigenous leader Nemonte Nenquimo is the memoir of a woman who fought against large oil companies to preserve her people’s land and thousands of hectares of Amazon rainforest.
- The book, written with her husband and executive director of the organization Amazon Frontlines, Mitch Anderson, is a story of hope and resistance from the Amazon in the fight against climate change and the protection of nature.
- In this interview, Mongabay speaks with Nemonte Nenquimo about her work to defend the Amazon and what her new book symbolizes for Indigenous women around the world.

In Ecuador, booming profits in small-scale gold mining reveal a tainted industry – investigation
- In 2023, three small gold mining companies in Ecuador exported $268 million in gold to the UAE and India, 20 times more than in 2022, an investigation by Mongabay and Codigo Vidrio has found.
- The amount of gold the companies claim to have processed is highly unrealistic, industry experts say, and checks on their concessions show no indication mining ever took place.
- More than 35% of Ecuador’s gold exports come from small-scale gold mining companies, but irregularities in their sourcing, permits and operations, as well as an ongoing crisis in authorities’ monitoring capacity, suggest that most of these players are trading gold from illegal sources.
- Our investigation shows mining regulators approved export permits mostly without on-site verification; and even the country’s mining registry was suspended in 2018, the agency in charge continued to approve hundreds of mining concessions.

Brazil cracks down on illegal gold mining, sparking anger in the Amazon
Brazil has ramped up efforts to quell illegal gold mining over the last two years. Police raids in the Brazilian Amazon’s gold capital have destroyed mining machinery, leaving miners angry and struggling to keep their operations running, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reports. Federal agents destroyed 150 backhoes and 600 dredgers used in illegal mining in 2023, […]
Wildcat miners: will cyanide displace mercury?
- Although wildcat miners might be expelled from Indigenous territories and areas with high levels of protection, unallocated public lands and waterways will remain exposed to their harmful practices, as well as unregulated mining operations on private landholdings.
- Formalization of the sector should be accompanied by migration from mercury-based extraction technologies to other chemical and physical technologies, alongside incentives for illegal miners to adopt those practices.
- Existing oil and gas fields will continue to operate over the medium-term, with new production wells and feeder pipelines being established on landscapes adjacent to existing production fields. At the same time resistance from Indigenous and local communities against extractive projects – including for extracting gas resources underneath the Amazon Basin – will likely continue.

Resilient and resourceful, Brazil’s illegal gold capital resists government crackdown
- Following regulatory changes and heavier enforcement of the gold trade, the Amazonian municipality of Itaituba, notorious as Brazil’s illegal gold capital, is struggling to deal with the new restrictions.
- Yet a series of raids and destruction of mining equipment hasn’t fazed the illegal miners, known as garimpeiros, who have simply picked themselves back up again and started working to resume their operations.
- The crackdown on illegal gold and its environmental destruction has outraged the garimpeiros, who accuse the government of preventing them from working in a region historically dedicated to gold extraction.

The future of extractive industries in the Pan Amazon
- In Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, reliance on extractive industries for local livelihoods and state revenue could indicate that mining will remain the dominant economic activity for decades to come or, perhaps, more.
- Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) requirements will also play an increasing role in the industry’s decision making and project approval, especially in the case of publicly-traded companies.
- As the application of free, prior and informed consultation concept evolves, it will also play a key role in deciding on the future of mining projects.

Nearly all Brazilian gold imported by EU is likely illegal, report says
- A new study concludes that nearly all of the gold imported into the European Union from Brazil comes from Amazonian areas with a high risk of illegality.
- That amounts to 1.5 metric tons of the precious metal in 2023, sourced from wildcat mines known as garimpos, which have a long history of illegality and opaqueness.
- The Brazilian government implemented a series of measures in 2023 to increase oversight of the gold trade, but experts say much of the trade continued underground.

Could the ‘rights of nature’ save Yasuní and keep its oil in the ground? (commentary)
- Nearly 60% of Ecuador’s voters supported a referendum last year to stop oil drilling in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil field, which would protect the nature of Yasuní National Park and its Indigenous communities, while keeping a billion barrels of oil in the ground.
- People worked for a decade to bring this to a popular vote, but the nation’s current crises have shaken the government’s resolve to enforce the rule. Now, advocates are turning to a relatively new legal instrument, the ‘rights of nature,’ to cement the decision.
- “The vote to protect the Yasuní was not based on the rights of nature, but on the right of people to participate in decisions on matters of public interest. The rights of nature, however, provides a path forward to protect the Yasuní,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

The challenge of the next oil and gas investments further in the Pan Amazon
- The expansion of Camisea, a hydrocarbon development in the tropical landscapes of Cusco region in Peru, faces opposition by Indigenous groups and environmental advocates for its proximity to isolated tribes and for the authorities’ failure to run a free, prior and informed consent process with communities involved.
- The risk of social conflicts, environmental liabilities, and the increased competitiveness of solar energy in the coastal desert have caused the hydrocarbon sector to reduce its concessions in Peru over the last decade.
- The development of hydrocarbons in Suriname and Guyana has broad civil society support, largely because these countries are short of development options. A similar exploration boom is occurring off the coast of Amapá, Brazil, in the Foz de Amazonas sedimentary sub-basin known, but environmental authorities are worried about potential impacts on marine ecosystems.

The indelible traces of oil and gas in the Peruvian, Ecuadorian and Colombian Amazon
- This section focuses on the first exploratory discoveries in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, where the abundance of oil and gas has had a great impact on the forests and those who depend on their existence.
- In Ecuador, to this day, a lawsuit has been filed against Texaco (now Chevron) for the numerous abandoned oil wells contaminating rivers and previously forested lands. In Peru, a similar situation exists in the case of oil Blocks 8 and 192.
- Although Colombia has invested less in oil exploration compared to its two neighboring countries, the potential for hydrocarbon exploitation in the Putumayo and Caquetá river basins is enormous. There, dozens of Indigenous communities have long been pointing out the problems associated with extractive industries that afflict their livelihoods.

The Andes are a key supplier of gold for the Amazon Basin
- In recent decades, gold mining in Peru is no longer only taking place in the Andean areas but also in the Amazon. There, illegal miners are increasingly exploiting the precious metal found in alluvial deposits.
- A similar situation can be observed in the Bolivian Yungas, very close to the Peruvian border in the Madre de Dios region. Despite operations against illegal mining, the activity persists.
- On the border of Ecuador and Peru, much of the area comprising the mineral-rich Cordillera del Condor has been set aside as a protected area or Indigenous territory, but there are still large areas open to mining, particularly in Ecuador where multinational corporate miners are investing in both copper and gold mines.

Mining gold in the greenstone belt of Panamazonia
- The Barama-Mazaruni volcanic and rocky area of Panamazonia has the privilege of being an area rich in gold, so the extraction of this mineral has been constant since the early twentieth century.
- The country most favored with these deposits is Venezuela, where state-owned mining companies and informal mining lead the way in their exploitation. In total, around 80 tons of gold are obtained each year.
- They are closely followed by Guyana and Suriname, with annual productions of between 40 and 20 tons. In these countries there are not only informal miners but also garimpeiros from Brazil, who exploit surface gold deposits. At the same time, in French Guyana there are open-pit mines operated by foreign companies.

New datasets identify which crops deforest the Amazon, and where
- Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM), the Atlas of Pastures and Amazon Mining Watch have released or updated satellite data and visualization tools this year that show what crops are grown in the Amazon, where cattle ranching overlaps with other kinds of land use and how much of the rainforest is being cleared for mining.
- Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Amazon Project (MAAP) compiled the data into one report this month, creating an “overall estimate” of land use across the nine Amazon countries.
- Some of the crops are well-known drivers of deforestation, such as soy, but lesser-discussed crops are also present in the region, such as rice and sorghum.

Expanding the colonization of the Brazilian Amazon through gold mining
- Gold mining has played a significant role in the colonization of the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, starting with the bandeirantes in the 18th century and reignited by the garimpeiros in the 1970s.
- The gold rush continued in the placer mining camps called garimpos across the region, extending to other states including Rondônia, Amazonas, Roraima and Amapá, and several Indigenous lands have been encroached upon.
- With increased political influence over decades, the gold mines continued to persistently invade Indigenous territories, notably the Yanomami and the Macuxi, while several rivers have been polluted by mercury and cyanide from the extractive industry.

Gold mining in the Amazon has doubled in area since 2018, AI tool shows
- An artificial intelligence tool trained to track gold mines through satellite imagery found that the deforestation linked to the activity doubled in the Amazon Rainforest from 2018 to 2023.
- Mines are widespread in the biome, affecting especially Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela and Peru.
- The spread of gold mines followed a sharp increase in the price of the metal, which nearly doubled since 2018.
- In Brazil, the federal government has succeeded in reducing the rate at which illegal mining is expanding inside Indigenous territories, but still struggles to block its spread outright.

Minerals for agricultural use can already be found in Amazonia
- Many fertilizers that ensure the world’s food security are supported by minerals. For years, these compounds came from various countries and have recently been discovered in the Amazon.
- The large deposits were discovered as part of other infrastructure work in the Amazon.
- Potash, phosphorus and agricultural lime improve the performance of farmland, but are also generating new demands and criticism from indigenous communities as well as environmental activists.

Report reveals widespread use of smuggled mercury in Amazon gold mining
- Enforcement against illegal gold mines in the Brazilian Amazon ramped up in 2023, but the contamination from the mercury used in mining will likely be felt for generations to come.
- According to a report from Brazilian think tank the Escolhas Institute, up to 73% of all mercury used in Brazil’s gold mines is of unknown origin; the country’s environmental agency states practically all mines in Brazil use illegal mercury.
- Mercury affects primarily children, who may be born with severe disabilities and face learning difficulties for the rest of their lives.

Industrial minerals in the Pan Amazon
- The Brazilian Amazon hosts a huge mineral wealth, ranging from bauxite and cassiterite to tin, nobium, tantalum and coltan, providing raw materials for the steel industry, electronics, technology and medical sectors.
- This mineral abundance has also been enormously detrimental to ecosystems and Indigenous people across the region.
- Many of the mines that were once state-run are now managed by Canadian and Chinese transnational corporations. As global demand for rare earth elements increases, production in the mines will have to diversify.

Brasil, Venezuela and Peru: the geography of industrial metals
- Industrial metals ores occur across the Amazon basin; this article offers an overview of their geological origins in the region and their economic importance.
- In Brazil, in Carajás and Pará, large deposits are focused on iron ore production, which has grown by 50% in recent years. Copper is also being exploited and recently the expansion and diversification towards strategic metals necessary for the transition to renewable energies has begun.
- In Venezuela and Peru there are other similar examples of mines that provide mineral inputs for the manufacture of steel and iron.

Organized crime brings renewed threats to Yanomami in Brazil
- Government efforts to evict several thousand illegal miners from the Yanomami Indigenous Territory have so far been insufficient, as organized crime groups work with miners to confront state agents.
- Miners receive logistical, financial and weapons support from criminal groups, such as the First Capital Command (PCC), which has complicated actions by the country’s environmental protection agency (IBAMA), which fights miners with a reduced budget and resources.
- Meanwhile, hundreds of Yanomamis continue to suffer from disease, mercury contamination in their rivers, severe malnutrition, attacks and deaths.

Mineral hotspots in the Pan Amazon
- There are three important macro-regions where geographic conditions are favorable for mining extraction: The Amazon Craton, the Andes Mountains and the Western Amazon Sedimentary Plain.
- Geophysicists are still debating the details of the geological history of the Amazon Craton, but they all agree that it was created and has been modified repeatedly by tectonic forces over billions of years.
- Two sedimentary basins in the central part of South America are the source of the region’s oil and gas reserves.

The most prominent mining companies in the Pan Amazon – a review
- Following on from the previous section, Killeen explains the particularities of the extractive industries in Brazil and Peru.
- In both countries, mining operations, despite being backed by large international companies, still face various difficulties ranging from social grievances to the effects of deforestation on their own business model.
- Communities accuse companies of not applying on the ground the ESG and sustainability principles in their strategies.

Solutions to avoid loss of environmental, social and governance investment
- ESG strategies pro-actively support the planet and societal well-being in order to maximize profits over the short and long term. The goal is to align a company’s strategies and operations with the growing demand for the sustainable production of goods and services.
- Critics on the left brand ESG investing as greenwashing, arguing that corporations view it through a public relations lens rather than as a true reform of business models.
- Supporters contend the emerging ESG schemes are different in both scope and scale from previous sustainability initiatives, where the power of consumers was dispersed via complex supply chains and political processes.
- A very large company may have a good ESG score overall, but a poorly conceived project in the Pan Amazon. Moreover, the global corporations that participate in ESG initiatives are not representative of the dozens of domestic mining companies that operate in the Pan Amazon.

How real action on environmental justice comes from Latin America’s community alliances (commentary)
- Despite the regional Escazú Agreement coming into force in 2021 to ensure the protection of the environment and its defenders in Latin America, it is not being enacted and has still not been ratified by countries such as Peru, Brazil and Guatemala.
- Real action for environmental justice is rather coming from self-governed media and activism alliances forged between communities in different regions of Latin America, like the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM), an Americas-wide network of grassroots groups working together to fight extractivism.
- “While we wait for states to act on environmental protection and to implement existing mechanisms like the Escazú Agreement and UNPFII goals, regional autonomous alliances like BILM are crucial for pushing this agenda forward and ensuring that strategies come from the grassroots,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary, the views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Sustainability in the extractive industries is a paradox
- Adopting environmental management as a central component of the extractive business model has been a priority in the last two decades, which has made environmental impact assessments (EIA) critical for companies’ operations.
- The objective of an EIA is to identify, describe and quantify all potential impacts of an extractive company. It seeks to avoid, minimize, remediate and compensate for all environmental damage.
- When consultation processes are added and are properly executed, they can substantially improve a mine’s profitability by limiting environmental mitigation costs and avoiding conflicts with local and Indigenous communities.

Global markets and their effects on resource exploitation in the Pan Amazon
- Extractive companies operate to maximize their profits as global demand is highly fluctuating. Prior to 2000, the prices of industrial minerals were at historical lows, but jumped through the next two decades as China began its infrastructure boom.
- As of January 2023, another commodity boom appears to be underway. In part, this is due to the war in Ukraine and the (as yet unknown) dimensions and duration of the sanctions regime imposed on Russia by the United States, the European Union and their allies in Asia-Pacific.
- As minerals required by the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy are plentiful in the Pan Amazon, there will be significant economic pressure to develop those resources.
- Governments in the Pan Amazon are predisposed to support the mining and hydrocarbon industries because they are export-oriented and generate revenues for the state.

Extractive industries look at degraded land to avoid further deforestation in the Pan Amazon
- Mining and power generation companies invest in the Amazon because it is profitable. But their development is costly, so before setting up, the companies evaluate not only the richness of the mineral deposit but also the volume of the geological formation. In this way they estimate the return on such investment before disbursing the financial capital.
- At the same time, investors tend to mismanage social and environmental risks associated with projects, with opposition from civil society frequently delaying extractive initiatives.
- Large expanses of the Amazon are still considered wilderness and any sort of development will trigger robust opposition from local, national and international organizations. Various factors influence whether an extractive company will pursue a greenfield development (exploring virgin land) or brownfield development (an area already used by the industry).

Is the extractive sector really favorable for the Pan Amazon’s economy?
- The Pan Amazon is an important source for several key industrial raw materials. Although financially, its minerals sector is minor within the world economy, the economy of Amazonian countries is highly dependent on extractive activities.
- Extractive industries in the region play a strategic role. Without them, Brazil would suffer a major economic disruption from mineral revenues, and the impact would be catastrophic for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
- Most other countries in the Pan Amazon region return only a portion of royalties from revenues to local jurisdictions, while corporate income taxes go to the central government. However, despite criticism on lack of investment in Amazonian hinterlands, local governments continue to support extractive industries.
- None of the money from royalties is allocated to conservation, nor is any allocated to the remediation of the environmental impacts linked to its exploitation.

State management and regulation of extractive industries in the Pan Amazon
- Extractive industries have become economic and political pillars across all Pan Amazon countries. Relationships between states and private companies in the region are managed via three main models: concessions, production sharing agreements, and service contracts, with the usage of those models varying across the region.
- In all cases, corruption, bad governance and adverse social conditions prevent the exploitation of resources in the Pan Amazon from being sustainable and generating real wealth.
- States capture revenues from extractive industries in different ways: via royalties, corporate income taxes and profits from state-owned companies. These are complimented by licensing fees, property taxes and signing bonuses as well as windfall-profit taxes.

Latest Peruvian oil spill cuts Indigenous communities from life-giving river
- On March 5, a collision between two oil barges in the Peruvian Amazon led to an oil spill in the Puinahua River, near Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a protected region of rainforest.
- Since the spill, local Indigenous communities, who almost exclusively depend on the river for their livelihoods, have been unable to collect water or fish due to fear of contamination.
- The impacted communities are awaiting compensation for their losses, yet face a deadlock as environmental assessments, which could take weeks, must be conducted first before payments are made.
- The ecological, economic and social impacts of the oil spill have not yet been published; for decades, the Peruvian Amazon has been subjected to hundreds of oil spills and leaks, which experts say have wreaked havoc on the basin.

Outdated infrastructure and oil spills: the cases of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador
- Outdated oil pipelines built by foreign companies in the Andean Amazon have repeatedly put at risk ecosystems and Indigenous communities in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, exposing them to oil spills and wide-scale contamination.
- Unlike modern extractive infrastructure, those pipelines are built on the surface, making them vulnerable to the elements, accidents and sabotage. For example, in Putumayo, Colombia, oil infrastructure was attacked more than 1,000 times between 1986 and 2015, triggering at least 160 oil spills.
- Highly dependent on oil revenues, governments in the region are unlikely to give up on the income provided by the old pipelines in order to remedy environmental impacts that affect a small percentage of their population.

Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities
- Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, considered one of the best-protected nature reserves in the world, has seen a spike in deforestation on its fringes from the expansion of illegal coca cultivation and mining, and new road construction.
- The forest loss appears to be affecting the ancestral lands of several Indigenous communities, including the Harakbut, Yine and Matsiguenka peoples, according to a new report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
- The report found that 19,978 hectares (49,367 acres) of forest have been cleared in the buffer of the reserve over the past two decades.
- According to Indigenous leaders, the state is doing “practically nothing” to address deforestation drivers in the buffer zone, and they warn that if left unchecked, the activity will spread into the protected area itself.

The environmental mismanagement of enduring oil industry impacts in the Pan Amazon
- The history of extractivism in the Pan Amazon shows that environmental damage has been commonplace, only now there are new demands from the parent companies that influence all service providers involved.
- In this section, Killeen explains that any hydrocarbon project (whether oil or gas) entails a high risk of social conflict with the communities living next to exploration and exploitation areas.
- The governments of countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil must ensure that there is real environmental responsibility for the oil spills that are damaging ecosystems and the livelihoods of communities.

Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.
- In Itaituba, the hub of the Amazon illegal gold trade, taxes from gold sales fell by more than 90% in just the first quarter of this year.
- Experts attribute this drop to police raids on illegal mining operations and on requirements for sellers to issue electronic invoices.
- But they warn the illegal gold still persists, shifting to unofficial channels to evade the eye of regulators.

Illegal mining in the Pan Amazon: an ecological disaster for floodplains and local communities
- Floodplains are extraordinarily productive because they are the connection between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are socially and economically vital because tens of thousands of families depend on their natural resources for their livelihoods.
- However, placer mining – as Killeen explains in this section – generates catastrophic impacts when miners remove and turn over topsoil as they search for gold sediments. The most optimistic estimate is that 350,000 hectares of forest and wetlands have been lost in the Pan Amazon region as a result.
- Although visible on the banks of rivers and their headwaters, the damage caused by mercury is invisible when it comes to the health of miners, their families and communities. In reviewing 33 studies conducted in the Tapajós watershed, Killeen found that high levels of mercury were widespread.
- Remediation can be very costly economically and politically, as governments need to take measures against illegal mining and protect affected communities.

Mining in the Pan Amazon in pursuit of the world’s most precious metal
- Gold exploitation is usually carried out by large mining companies with dedicated subsidiaries. However, the exploration companies in charge of discovering the ore are usually small specialized companies.
- The environmental and social impacts of corporate gold mines are similar to those of other industrial polymetallic mines; they vary though according to the type of mining – underground or at the surface – and to the type of ecosystems they overlap.
- Illegal miners are the source of two of the most insidious environmental and social impacts associated with the extractive industries in the Pan Amazon: floodplain destruction and mercury pollution. About 20% of total annual gold production comes from illegal mining.

The environmental and social liabilities of the extractive sector
- Many environmental advocates consistently oppose mining and hydrocarbon development because they believe that the Amazon should remain intact. A similar view is held by Indigenous peoples, who fear that their communities will be transformed by immigrants or altered by catastrophes that will damage their livelihoods.
- Despite numerous initiatives and significant investment in redesigning tailings storage facilities and improving risk management, the number of incidents classified as ‘serious’ or ‘very serious’ has increased over the last thirty years.
- Long-term liabilities created by mining must be remediated – as is the case of tailings storage facilities – or offset, for example, where habitat loss can be compensated by creating a protected area with similar biodiversity.

Mineral commodities: the wealth that generates most impacts in the Pan Amazon | Chapter 5 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- The paradox of minerals is that thousands of families depend on their exploitation and the economic activities generated, but at the same time suffer the impacts on their ecosystems, livelihoods and health.
- According to Killeen, governments know that the promotion of mineral development generates an unfavorable balance of payments in the long term. Thus, the overall cost-benefit equation may require a different development strategy.
- In the meantime, people living in the surrounding of projects are often torn between the desire for employment (however temporary) and the fear of environmental impacts that persist for decades.

Soraida Chindoy: the Indigenous guardian defending the sacred Putumayo mountains
- An Indigenous woman from the Inga community in the Condagua reservation in Putumayo, Colombia, is leading the struggle against a Canadian mining company that plans to mine the community’s sacred mountains for copper and molybdenum.
- Within Soraida Chindoy’s territory is the Doña Juana-Chimayoy páramo, where eight rivers have their source and where there are 56 lagoons. The site, where the Amazon rainforest and the Andes meet, is sacred to the Indigenous population.
- Her campaign against mining was borne of tragedy. In 2017, she and her family were among the almost 22,000 people affected by the landslide in Mocoa, when Mother Earth provided a stark warning as to why it is so important to take care of her.

Scientists now know how the Brumadinho dam disaster happened, and the lessons to learn
- In 2019, the collapse of an iron-ore tailings dam in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil, killed 272 people, flattened entire villages, and caused widespread environmental damage.
- Since then, engineers have tried to understand the mechanics of how a dam that hadn’t been in use in three years, and of which there are tens of thousands around the world, could have failed so suddenly and catastrophically.
- A newly published study by researchers at the Swiss institute ETH Zurich proposes a model for the mechanism that caused the collapse and the main causes behind the delayed failure.
- They posit that this model could be useful to help facilitate future risk assessment for other decommissioned tailings dams.

Science panel presents COP28 with blueprint for saving the Amazon
- Five policy briefs launched at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai highlight the critical challenges facing the Amazon Basin, as well as the immediate actions and solutions needed to ensure a sustainable future for the region’s ecosystems and the 47 million people living there.
- The reports, published by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), a high-level science body, cover cross-cutting topics, from root causes of deforestation and rethinking Amazon infrastructure to restoration and finance solutions.
- Stressing the urgency of preventing the rainforest from crossing a tipping point into a dry scrubland, the panel calls for leveraging nature-based solutions and Indigenous knowledge to consolidate new social bioeconomies that can “leave forests standing and rivers flowing.”
- Based on a previous SPA brief, Brazil launched Arcs of Reforestation, a $205 million program to restore 6 million hectares (15 million acres) of deforested and degraded forest land in some of most affected parts of the Brazilian Amazon.

Mining company Belo Sun sues environmental defenders in intimidation tactic, NGOs say
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun has filed a lawsuit against community leaders and environmental rights defenders, including members of Amazon Watch and International Rivers, for their alleged support or involvement in the illegal occupation of company-owned land.
- A coalition of environmental lawyers and human rights activists say the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic part of a pattern the company uses to silence and weaken those who speak against its operations near the biodiverse Xingu River.
- Belo Sun denies persecuting or threatening environmental defenders and says it is only acting to preserve its rights, preserve the rights of the protesters and stop criminal activity.
- The lawyers of those accused have started to provide their defense in court and plan to present a complaint of the lawsuit to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N.

Ecuadorian farmers protest against a new environmental consultation process and an open-pit mine
In 2023, tensions escalated in Las Naves, Ecuador, where farmers clashed with police during protests against a new environmental consultation process and the upcoming launch of a large-scale open-pit mine in their region. This environmental consultation is part of the contentious Decree 754, enacted in May 2023 by outgoing President Guillermo Lasso. The decree aims […]
Peru’s crackdown on illegal gold mining a success, but only briefly, study shows
- Peru’s state intervention against illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios region succeeded in halting the activity for a couple of years, pushing miners into concessions allowing mining, according to recent research.
- Operation Mercury, which ran between 2019-2020, led to the abandonment of almost all targeted illegal mining sites in La Pampa, an area found in the buffer zone of a major national park.
- But while there’s been some forest regeneration in the affected areas since then, this has been undone by even higher rates of deforestation in the legal mining areas where the miners have moved into.
- Experts also say the effort has been unsustainable, as law enforcement in the area has waned and miners have started to come back, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a major role in cutting enforcement budgets.

Sieged by mining and megaprojects, the Munduruku push for land rights in the Amazon
- In the face of threats from illegal mining and major infrastructure projects, the Munduruku people of the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory have for years performed annual “self-demarcation” expeditions to protect the land and press for official protection.
- The land is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
- The Munduruku say they now hope that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will sign its protection, which, given the vast array of threats to their land and culture, they say can’t come soon enough.

Paradise lost? Brazil’s biggest bauxite mining firm denies riverine rights
- Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), Brazil’s largest bauxite producer, launched a new mining project in the Amazon region in 2019 but failed to notify and consult four impacted traditional riverine communities that have been established for generations. The villages say their lives are heavily impacted.
- MRN’s stance of no significant impact is backed by IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, because it only is required to recognize Indigenous and Quilombola populations as legitimate traditional peoples guaranteed prior, free, informed consultation — a right enshrined in international law.
- Other traditional riverine communities are being denied such a right, say critics who are calling on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to instruct IBAMA to reduce the impact of mining on riverine communities.
- Action by IBAMA could help preserve the way of life for hundreds of traditional riverine people likely to be affected by a series of new mines planned by MRN. The ruling could also act as a precedent for other traditional communities not currently guaranteed prior, free, informed consultation.

Brazil’s biggest bauxite mining firm denies riverine rights
ORIXIMINÁ, Pará state, Brazil — In 2019, Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), Brazil’s largest bauxite producer, initiated a controversial new mining project in the Amazon region without notifying or consulting four traditional riverine communities that have thrived there for generations. These villages report significant disruptions to their way of life due to the mining activities. […]
Can blockchain clean up the gold industry in Brazil and across the globe?
Gold, whose value has spiked by more than 55% since the 2008 financial crisis, is notoriously difficult to trace. Once mined, it can follow a maze-like path to market, passing through intermediaries that mix and melt it with other sources, often erasing signatures of its origin in the process. The result? Illicit gold routinely slips […]
Amazonian Indigenous leaders call for 80×2025 at Climate Week (commentary)
- As the world gathers in New York for Climate Week, Indigenous leaders are calling on UN delegates, environmental organizations, and the research community to back a stronger goal for Amazon protection.
- A central element of the “Amazonia For Life” campaign endorsed by 511 Indigenous nations across Amazonia and 1,200 organizations around the world, it calls on governments to protect at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025.
- “As a mother, a grandmother and a voice for a coalition of Indigenous peoples…I urge every state and each one of you to join us in our fight to protect at least 80% of Amazonia by 2025,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Can Lula balance the transition to renewable energy with Amazon mining expansion? (commentary)
- At a recent summit in Colombia, Brazil’s President Lula emphasized the importance of avoiding an ecological transition based on the “predatory exploitation” of critical minerals, warning about the dangers of concealed neocolonialism.
- At the same time, his government is also promoting a “Green Plan” to transition away from fossil fuels, which paradoxically relies on an expansion of mining like he opined against.
- “While it is imperative that our societies move swiftly toward ecological transition away from fossil fuels, it is just as imperative that such a transition be just and not replicate the colonial extractive logic that underlies today’s climate crisis and that is exemplified by the mining industry,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Drug trafficking fuels other deforestation drivers in the Amazon: report
- The 2023 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime looks at the impact of organized crime on deforestation and pollution in the Amazon rainforest.
- While coca cultivation is often discussed as the main driver of deforestation connected to drug trafficking, the report argues that it has a minimal impact compared to some other peripheral activities.
- Drug trafficking is intimately connected to cattle ranching, illegal mining, wildlife trafficking and land grabbing, all of which have major environmental footprints in the Amazon.

Six months on, the Yanomami crisis continues amid rising violence
- Local groups and family members have appealed to the federal government to join the investigation of the death of Indigenous health worker Angelita Prororita, whose remains were recently found.
- The case underscores the continued violence that hampers the region, where illegal gold miners have threatened and harmed the Indigenous populations.
- In addition, the illegal mining has contaminated local waters and led to a humanitarian crisis of malnutrition, malaria, pneumonia, and other illnesses that have increased child mortality rates and, six months on, continues.

No new mining operations on Yanomami land after raids and deaths
- The alerts of illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have zeroed for the first time since 2020, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian Federal Police.
- Military operations continue in the region to drive out the last of the illegal miners and federal operations are also underway to remove criminal activity in the Karipuna and Munduruku Indigenous Territories.
- At least 15 people have been killed in the Yanomami land since April and evidence suggests one of South America’s most powerful mafias is operating in the region, putting the safety of federal agents and Indigenous people at risk.
- On June 14, the Brazilian Senate unanimously approved a set of solutions to tackle the Yanomami health disaster, which critics said focuses more on legalizing development in the region than on addressing the humanitarian crisis.

A powerful U.S. political family is behind a copper mine in the Colombian rainforest
- Two members of the Sununu family, a powerful U.S. Republican Party dynasty, are among the directors or shareholders of Libero Copper, a copper mine promoted in the Colombian Amazon. John H. Sununu, a powerful former governor of New Hampshire and former White House chief of staff to George Bush Sr. is one of its ultimate beneficial owners. His son Michael Sununu sits on the mining company’s board of directors.
- The government sees the mine as strategic to the clean energy transition by providing copper used in electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines. However, Libero’s two Sununus are known in the U.S. as skeptics of the scientific consensus that climate change is man-made, raising questions now that they are at the helm of a ‘green energy’ mining project in the midst of such a fragile and strategic biome as the Amazon rainforest.
- In order for Libero Copper’s project to become a reality, the company says it requires not only an exploitation license and an environmental permit from the Colombian government, but also that authorities lift the protected area status of part of the deposit. The reason is that one-fifth of the copper that the mining company seeks to extract is buried under a protected natural area known as a nationally protected forest reserve.
- The prospect of this mine is a cause of concern for the Indigenous communities in its area of influence, especially the Inga reservation of Condagua to the north and Kamentsá Biya of Sibundoy to the west, who fear disruption of critical waterways and the destruction of their territory.

Venezuela’s environmental crisis is getting worse. Here are seven things to know.
- A new report from the Venezuelan Observatory for Political Ecology (OEP) details the most pressing environmental issues facing Venezuela.
- They include oil spills, illegal mining, deforestation, tourism, poor waste management, water shortages and climate change.
- The Venezuelan government has done very little to address these problems, the report said, and has even turned a blind eye to them in order to improve the country’s economy.

In a Bolivian protected area torn up for gold, focus is on limiting damage
- Artisanal gold mining by local cooperatives abounds in protected areas across Bolivia, in particular the Apolobamba highlands near the border with Peru.
- The mining boom here began in the late 1990s, and since then the cooperatives have continued to use mercury amalgamate the gold.
- There are worries over mercury contamination as well as the diversion of river flows away from wetlands to the mines.
- NGOs working with the cooperatives say the local miners are keen on making their operations more sustainable, but that the cost and lack of government support are hurdles to achieving this.

A frontline view of the fight against illegal mining in Yanomami territory
- In the Brazilian Amazon, Yanomami Indigenous people have been suffering a health crisis aggravated over recent years by the dismantling of Indigenous health care support services and the illegal mining invasion.
- Since the start of operations against miners in February, Brazil’s environmental inspectors have been setting fire to gear used to support illegal mining activities, both inside and outside the Indigenous territory.
- “The Yanomami land is one of the most difficult areas in the country in which to conduct our operations,” said one inspector who spoke to Agência Pública.

Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy
- How does public land in the Brazilian Amazon, including chunks of protected areas and Indigenous territories, end up under private ownership?
- This investigation unveils the network of realtors and engineers who take advantage of Brazil’s disjointed land registration system to launder stolen land.
- Experts say the CAR land registry in particular, which was meant to prevent environmental crimes, has instead made land grabbing easier than ever.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.

Report sums up Bolsonaro’s destruction legacy and Amazon’s next critical steps
- A damning report confirms what many environmentalists already knew: that the destruction of nature in Brazil from 2019 to 2022 was a deliberate campaign of sabotage led by the government of the time.
- The report compiled four years of data to describe record levels of land invasions, illegal mining and Amazon deforestation under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.
- Against this challenging scenario, experts have mostly praised President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s initial actions in his first 100 days, especially his efforts to address the health crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.
- However, key actions remain pending, they say, including the quashing of anti-environmental bills and an end to the plan to pave a controversial highway through the Amazon Rainforest.

‘Gold library’ helps Brazil crack down on Amazon’s illegal mining
- Launched in 2019, the Ouro Alvo program is creating a gold database with samples obtained from different parts of Brazil.
- The information is allowing the Federal Police to create a chemical fingerprint of each sample, which they can then use to cross-reference the origin of seized or suspicious gold.
- This strategy could be complemented with other methods, including physically tagging the gold and tracking transactions using blockchain.
- While technology can be a great ally to fight the illegal gold trade, experts say the country still needs stricter regulations governing the industry.

In central Brazil, mining company ignores Quilombola concerns over gold project
- Canadian mining company Aura Minerals plans to establish a major gold extraction project in Brazil’s Tocantins state without hearing the Quilombola (slave descendant) community that will be affected by the operations, thus violating their right to free, prior and informed consultation.
- So far, the company has not been transparent toward the community and has not described the potential impacts.
- Meanwhile, Aura Minerals has seen its value rise nearly 700% on the Toronto Stock Exchange between 2019 and 2022 — the best performance among 3,500 listed companies.
- The Quilombola estimate that, in the event of an accident with the company’s dam, the Baião community would be instantly engulfed and would disappear completely, with no chance to react.

Can a new regional pact protect the Amazon from environmental crime? (commentary)
- Police, prosecutors, money-laundering experts and others convened last week in Brazil to tackle drug and environmental crimes like illegal mining and logging that are growing in scale across the Amazon.
- The group resolved to move law enforcement beyond occasional raids and periodic destruction of machinery used by organized crime syndicates and toward a concerted and pan-Amazonian push for local, regional and global cooperation on law enforcement.
- While acknowledging the increasing scale of these crimes, participants were optimistic: “We are living in a new moment to fight environmental crime and protect the Amazon,” said the newly appointed director for Amazon environmental crime with Brazil’s federal police, for example.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Libero Copper, a Canadian company, plans to mine copper, molybdenum and other metals in the richly biodiverse Andean-Amazon Piedmont, which has led to strong divisions within Indigenous and local communities.
- The copper and molybdenum project is framed as a green project that could contribute much-needed minerals for the country’s energy transition, a proposal that aligns with the goals of the new left-wing government of Gustavo Petro.
- However, some communities and environmental activists oppose the mining project over concerns of deforestation, landslides and loss of forest-based livelihoods in the region.
- Others support the clean energy transition and the company’s promise of jobs in the historically neglected region.

Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- As the details of the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory unfold amid action to remove illegal miners, mercury left by the rampant gold mining in the area will remain a lingering toxic legacy.
- A range of solutions is needed to support communities at risk, monitor the situation, assist in the remediation of forests, and prevent continued pollution, experts say.
- New technologies that can filter mercury are under development and testing, but are still far from being viable solutions at the scale that the problem inside the Amazon calls for.

Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
- Within weeks of taking office, the new Brazilian government began an emergency operation to provide health care assistance to Indigenous people in the Yanomami territory and remove the 20,000 illegal gold miners there who have sparked a humanitarian and environmental crisis.
- So far, over 6,200 Yanomami people have been treated and more than 100 health care personnel have been recruited. However, a lack of health care workers, deteriorating infrastructure and minimal support from the military is preventing access to communities most in need.
- As miners have begun to flee the area and environmental authorities seize and destroy their equipment, some Indigenous leaders say important progress is underway but more remains to be done.

Yanomami crisis sparks action against illegal gold in the Amazon
- Brazilian Attorney General Augusto Aras requested the Federal Supreme Court to overturn a law establishing the concept of “good faith” of gold buyers, which eases illegal gold laundering.
- Under the law, passed in 2013, the word of gold traders is enough to ensure that the mineral came from a legal mine, opening a route to the illegal gold extracted from protected areas and Indigenous territories, such as the Yanomami reserve.
- The Federal Police and the Public Ministry are investigating authorized gold trading companies, known as DTVMs, suspected of laundering the Amazon’s illegal gold.
- Indigenous federal deputy Célia Xakriabá is trying to speed up the vote of a new bill that establishes new rules for the gold trade in Brazil, including overriding the “good faith” concept.

‘Mercury is a complex problem’: Q&A with Colombian Mining Minister Irene Vélez Torres
- Illegal gold mining has long plagued Colombia’s ecosystems and communities, while small-scale miners have lamented the difficulties they face in formalizing their operations.
- Despite Colombia’s 2018 ban on the use of mercury in mining, the highly toxic metal continues to be widely used to extract gold.
- The new government of President Gustavo Petro has vowed to tackle the problem of illegal mining and mercury contamination, but the prevailing mining legislation is outdated and ineffective.
- Authorities are developing a new Mining Code that aims to be inclusive, help formalize artisanal and small-scale miners, and eliminate mercury from the industry.

The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon
- This is the story of how three individual landowners engineered the single-largest instance of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The clearing of 6,469 hectares (or 15,985 acres) of forest in the southern part of Pará state could earn them nearly $20 million in profit at current land prices.
- The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms, or plant grass and sell it for cattle ranching.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.

Illegal road found in Yanomami land accelerates destruction
- In December, Greenpeace and the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) discovered a 150-kilometer- (93-mile-) long illegal road, as well as four hydraulic excavators in the Yanomami Territory, in Brazil’s northern Amazon region.
- While small-scale illegal miners have been active in the area for the past 50 years, the road and the use of heavy machinery could make mining activities 10-15 times more destructive.
- Currently, about 20,000 illegal miners operate across the Yanomami Territory, causing violence, health issues and child malnutrition for the region’s 27,000 Yanomami inhabitants.
- Newly elected President Lula has issued several decrees to protect Indigenous lands and the environment, most recently declaring a state of emergency in the Yanomami Territory.

Violence in Brazil’s Amazon are also crimes against humanity, lawyers tell international court
- Three organizations, including Greenpeace Brazil, filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) pressing for the investigation into a network of politicians, law enforcement and business executives they suspect are responsible for systematic attacks against land defenders.
- They documented over 400 murders, 500 attempted murders, 2,200 death threats, 2,000 assaults and 80 cases of torture that occurred between 2011 and 2022.
- Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is one suspect in these crimes, yet the organizations say the attacks are part of a larger system operating in Brazil, and will likely continue even when he’s out of office.
- If the criminal court choses to go forward with this case, it will be the first time they investigate crimes against humanity committed in the context of environmental destruction.

Dammed, now mined: Indigenous Brazilians fight for the Xingu River’s future
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, but faces opposition from Indigenous communities.
- In addition to the environmental impacts, experts warn of the risk of the proposed tailings dam rupturing, which could flood the area with 9 million cubic meters (2.4 billion gallons) of toxic waste.
- The same region is already suffering the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which diverts up to 85% of the flow of the Xingu River, leading to a mass decline in fish that traditional riverside dwellers and Indigenous people rely on.
- The Belo Sun project was legally challenged last year, prompting supporters to harass and intimidate those who oppose the mine’s construction; tensions in the region remain high.

Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park suffering increasing mining deforestation: report
- Satellite imagery analyzed by NGO Amazon Conservation revealed that illegal mining operations in Yapacana National Park, located in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, are clearing protected forest much faster than previously thought.
- Over 750 hectares (1,870 acres) of deforestation took place between 2021 and 2022 in the mining area of the park.
- Although law enforcement carried out raids in the area last December, many experts believe the problem will persist amid government complacency.

Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.

In Brazil’s Amazon, land grabbers scramble to claim disputed Indigenous reserve
- The Apyterewa Indigenous Territory has been under federal protection since 2007, but in recent years has become one of the most deforested reserves in Brazil, as loggers, ranchers and miners have invaded and razed swaths of forest.
- As President Jair Bolsonaro prepares to leave office, land grabbers are rushing to “deforest while there is still time,” advocates say, with forest clearing in Apyterewa on track to hit new highs this year.
- The surge in invasions has aggravated a decades-long tussle for land between Indigenous people and settlers, who first started trickling into Apyterewa in the 1980s and have since built villages, schools and churches within the reserve.
- The Parakanã people say the outsiders, new and old, are polluting their water sources, depleting forest resources, and threatening their traditional way of life.

Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2022
- Violence against activists and Indigenous people in the Amazon has made world headlines, with little progress on tackling impunity.
- The victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s presidential race and a more prominent role in the government for Indigenous representatives have brought more hope around slashing deforestation and preventing the Amazon from reaching a point of no return.
- Infrastructure and mining projects have continued sprouting across the Amazon basin, threatening the livelihoods of Indigenous people and driving more forest loss.
- Deforestation rates in Brazil dropped by about 11% in 2022, but an overview of President Jair Bolsonaro’s term shows the worst forest loss in decades.

Top 10 notable Indigenous stories of 2022
- This year was a historic one for many Indigenous communities around the world that marked many ‘firsts’ with successful land rights rulings, both on the global and national level.
- As Indigenous rights, roles and contributions in biodiversity conservation gain more attention, underreported and critical issues impacting Indigenous peoples were thrust into the spotlight this year.
- To end this impactful year, Mongabay rounds up its 10 most notable Indigenous news stories of 2022.

Gold mining invades remote protected area in Ecuador
- Due to its isolation in far-northern Ecuador, Cofán Bermejo Ecological Reserve, much of which also functions as an Indigenous territory, has been comparatively spared from the oil-driven deforestation that has affected other nearby protected areas.
- However, satellite data and imagery show clearings proliferating along rivers that form the northern and southern borders of the reserve.
- Conservation organizations, scientists and residents of local communities say illegal gold mining is behind this wave of incursions.
- Legal mining may also be on the horizon in Cofán Bermejo, with several mining concessions within the reserve pending approval by authorities.

Indigenous youths lured by the illegal mines destroying their Amazon homeland
- An increasing number of young Indigenous people in Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous Territory are leaving their communities behind and turning to illegal gold mining, lured by the promise of small fortunes and a new lifestyle.
- Work in the mining camps ranges from digging and removing tree roots to operating as boat pilots ferrying gold, supplies and miners to and from the camps; recruits receive nearly $1,000 per boat trip.
- The structures, traditions and health of Indigenous societies are torn apart by the proximity of the gold miners, and the outflow of the young generation further fuels this vicious cycle, say Indigenous leaders.
- Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of authorities monitoring the area, illegal mining in the region has increased drastically, with 20,000 miners now operating illegally in the territory.

In Brazilian Amazon, mining harm comes from beyond just the mines, study shows
- A new land-use-change model suggests that the indirect impacts of mining operations in the Brazilian Amazon have been grossly underestimated.
- Impacts include not only deforestation but also loss of biodiversity, contamination of water sources, and health hazards for the Indigenous peoples living in the area.
- The calculation comes after years of government attempts to change existing regulations on protected areas and open them up to exploration.
- New roads opened for mining could cause 40 times more deforestation than the mines themselves, wiping out an area almost the size of Puerto Rico in the RENCA protected area in the northern Amazon.

U.N. report calls for the ban of mercury trade and its use in gold mining
- Small-scale gold mining is the key driver of global mercury demand, according to a U.N. report on the highly toxic metal, with South America accounting for 39% of this demand.
- Hair samples taken from Indigenous communities in the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazonian regions showed mercury levels in excess of the safe limit prescribed by the World Health Organization.
- In Brazil specifically, mercury use has risen with the boom in illegal mining that has been largely overlooked — and in some cases even encouraged — by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.

COP27: ‘Brazil is back’ to fight deforestation, Lula says, but hurdles await
- At COP27 this week Brazil president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged “zero deforestation and degradation of biomes,” a goal to be achieved by 2030.
- Lula also plans to establish a Ministry of Indigenous People, and to end “all the exploration of Indigenous lands by miners, and… to prohibit timber cutters.” Activists said Lula has sent a “strong message” at the COP27 summit, a meeting which has so far seen little climate progress.
- The president-elect has also met with Norway and Germany about restarting the Amazon Fund, which helped finance efforts to keep the rainforest intact until it was frozen in 2019 due to the anti-environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Lula will likely have to pursue stricter forest enforcement through executive action, as he faces a congress with many members hostile to his Amazon protection promises.

As gangs battle over Peru’s drug trafficking routes, communities and forest are at risk
- Along the Peruvian and Colombian border, armed gangs formerly part of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are seeking control of the Putumayo River – a region inhabited by at least 25 Secoya, Kichwa and Huitoto communities.
- The river is the site of two important drug-trafficking routes: one to Brazil which goes on to Europe and Asia, and the other to Mexico and the United States.
- The armed groups frequently take part in illegal gold mining on the Putumayo to finance their activities, simultaneously contaminating the river, fish and people who live in the border area.
- Some community members, certain by force, engage in illegal businesses by deforesting areas, planting coca (made into cocaine) and transporting prohibited items.

Mercury rising: Why Bolivia remains South America’s hub for the toxic trade
- Bolivia is one of the few countries in South America yet to ban the import of the toxic chemical mercury, facilitating its use in illegal mining throughout the region.
- An October U.N. report highlighted Bolivia’s high rate of mercury imports and the need to regulate the distribution and use of the chemical, which has polluted entire watersheds in the country and poisoned animals and Indigenous communities alike.
- Some Bolivian government officials have called for a ban on the import of mercury and better controls on mining operations, many of which run without permits or government oversight.

Shady contracts, backdoor deals spur illegal gold mining in Bolivian Amazon
- In the northern regions of the department of La Paz, Bolivia, illegal gold mining has led to widespread deforestation and mercury pollution.
- The Bolivian Amazon, including protected areas like Madidi National Park, face a growing risk of environmental destruction in the years to come from this ever-expanding industry.
- Mongabay visited multiple illegal mine sites, interviewed the investors behind them, and reviewed their work contracts to better understand how the industry operates unchecked in secluded parts of the Amazon.
- The investigation found that miners take advantage of the government’s lack of resources and slow-moving bureaucracy to avoid accountability for the harm they do to the environment; they also rely on illegal, backdoor agreements with well-funded foreign investors to maximize production.

Bolsonaro loses election but finds big support in Amazon Arc of Deforestation
- In a close runoff, incumbent Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in his reelection bid against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
- Bolsonaro, however, won in eight of the 10 Brazilian municipalities with the biggest deforestation rates in the Amazon forest last year.
- Bolsonaro won in the majority of the 256 municipalities in the Arc of Deforestation, which accounts for about 75% of the deforestation in the Amazon, as well as in Novo Progresso, in Pará, where ranchers, loggers and land-grabbers orchestrated a significant burning of deforested areas in 2019.
- Historical, economic, social and religious elements explain the preference for Bolsonaro in a swath of Brazilian territory where people have been encouraged to cut the forest down.

Conservatives tighten grip on Brazil Congress, hampering environmental agenda
- Brazilians elected a more conservative Congress in the Oct. 2 ballot, with supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby winning seats in both the lower and upper houses.
- Experts say that if former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins the runoff presidential vote on Oct. 30, he could curtail some of the pressure from the agribusiness caucus and reverse the past four years of destructive policies for the Amazon.
- Two Indigenous women and former environment minister Marina Silva are expected to lead the opposition against the agribusiness, mining and logging agenda in Congress, after winning seats in the lower house.

Industrial mining’s tropical deforestation footprint spills beyond concessions
- Indonesia, Brazil, Suriname and Ghana account for 80% of all tropical deforestation linked directly to industrial mining, a new study has found.
- In two out of three tropical countries, large-scale mineral extraction leads to forest loss when effects over a wider area, beyond formal mining concessions, are considered.
- “We have to look beyond the mine fence,” Stefan Giljum, the lead author of the paper, said. “What is needed is a forest conservation plan for a whole region integrating all the activities that are going on.”
- It’s difficult to quantify forest destruction linked to the mining sector as a whole because both the indirect effects on surrounding areas and the impacts of artisanal mining are hard to pin down.

Can Two New Bills Reshape Indigenous Rights and Illegal Gold Mining in Suriname?
- Two bills currently before Suriname’s parliament aim to recognize the rights of the country’s Indigenous inhabitants and tackle the forest-poisoning mercury pollution associated with gold mining.
- But both bills face an uphill battle: Suriname has repeatedly refused to recognize Indigenous rights, making it one of the few Amazonian countries to do so, while gold mining is the backbone of the country’s economy.
- A key provision in one of the bills is the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), which would make it illegal to open mining concessions on Indigenous land without the community’s consent.
- The other bill, on stopping the illegal mercury trade, threatens to ruffle the feathers of powerful individuals with links to the gold industry, including Suriname’s current vice president.

Bolsonaro trails in polls, but his base in Congress looks likely to persist
- With Brazil’s presidential election scheduled for Oct. 2, environmental activists have expressed hope that a turning point in favor of nature could be just weeks away if Jair Bolsonaro loses.
- But two-thirds of the current lower house of Congress voted for anti-environmental bills, and experts predict that the profile of the lawmakers will remain right-wing and pro-agribusiness.
- Deforestation in the Amazon rose to its highest levels in 10 years under Bolsonaro, who vowed to open up the rainforest to agriculture and mining.
- However, experts say a greener agenda could be possible depending on who is appointed the next lower and upper house presidents, a decision that will be made early next year.

Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.

Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports
- Multiple recent reports show that deforestation has greatly increased in Venezuela’s Amazonian states of Bolívar and Amazonas, largely due to illegal mining, expanded agriculture and fires.
- Venezuelan protected areas have been especially hard hit, with illegal incursions and major deforestation occurring inside Caura, Canaima and Yapacana national parks.
- Soaring deforestation rates are blamed partly on Colombian guerrillas operating illegally within Venezuela’s borders, an invasion that one report alleges has been supported by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
- Forest loss has been well confirmed via satellite, while ground truthing has been obtained via firsthand accounts.

Brazil miner sees Indigenous land as ripe for exploration if protections expire
- Mining company Oxycer has filed five applications to prospect for gold in the Piripkura Indigenous Territory, in anticipation of restrictions being lifted this October.
- The territory is home to two of the last three surviving Piripkura individuals, who live in voluntary isolation and already face threats from invasions of their territory by illegal loggers and cattle ranchers.
- Mining in Indigenous territories is currently illegal in Brazil, which is why the Federal Public Ministry is pursuing lawsuits to scupper mining requests being filed with the National Mining Agency (ANM).
- However, the ANM continues to accept and register these applications for what’s clearly an illegal activity, though it’s unclear if the agency has approved any of them yet.

Raids reveal how illegal gold from Indigenous lands gets laundered in Brazil
- Coordinated raids on mining company Gana Gold have revealed how gold mined illegally in Indigenous territories and other protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon makes its way into the legitimate trade.
- The company only has a permit to prospect, but is alleged to have doctored other licenses and sourced gold from illegal mines, before laundering it into the legitimate supply chain.
- The raids also uncovered strong links between drug traffickers and illegal miners, who were found to use the same trafficking routes to get their respective illicit commodities out of the forest and into the rest of the world.
- Experts say that given that the vast majority of Brazilian gold is exported, there’s an onus on overseas buyers to establish chain of custody controls to ensure they’re not buying illegally mined gold.

Bolsonaro agenda gets a lift from dominance of ‘new right’ in Congress
- A ranking of federal lawmakers in Brazil based on their legislative and voting records has highlighted the rise of a “new right” that’s firmly behind President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda of rolling back environmental and Indigenous protections.
- The Ruralômetro scale, developed by investigative news outlet Repórter Brasil, shows at least 351 out of 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies scored unfavorably on socioenvironmental issues.
- Among the legislation they helped draft or voted in favor of include those that weaken environmental law enforcement, favor predatory economic activities, undermine labor protections, hamper access to social benefits, and hinder agrarian reform.
- Joênia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman elected to the Chamber of Deputies, said the strengthening of this “ruralist” base has forced environmentalists on the defensive, without much room to advance their own bills.

Big banks fund the heavy machinery used for Amazon deforestation, report says
- A new report from investigative outlet Repórter Brasil describes how the demand for heavy machinery like bulldozers, excavators and tractors is accelerating deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Heavy machinery is present at most steps of the process of nearly every activity driving deforestation, including cattle ranching, industrial agriculture and mining, among others.
- A lack of oversight by the government, manufacturers and the banks providing loans for the purchase of the machinery means that almost anyone can acquire one for any purpose.
- The report suggests that GPS tracking technologies be implemented for all heavy machinery and that banks carry out more rigorous due diligence measures.

Peru’s Amazon rainforest is threatened by an ecosystem of environment crime (commentary)
- While Brazil attracts more attention, deforestation is also substantial in the Peruvian Amazon, where forest clearing is on the rise.
- Carolina Andrade and Robert Muggah of Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank, write that “the scale and breadth of the assault” currently underway in Peru’s rainforest is “unprecedented”. They chalk up much of the damage to “resource pirates”.
- But while challenging, the situation isn’t without hope, argue Andrade and Muggah. “Resource pirates can be confronted,” they write. “Fostering closer cooperation between the many-layered and often competing oversight institutions could help focus government policy and action.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)
- Journalists in Brazil and around the world are devastated about the tragic end of a 10-day search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border in northern Amazonas state. Bodies believed to be theirs were found on June 15 after a huge outcry against the federal government’s inaction following their disappearance. Indigenous patrols bravely conducted their own search while the government did little.
- The murders of Dom and Bruno are emblematic of the plight of journalists across Latin America as violence against both journalists and activists in the region escalates. It also raises an alarm for the need to protect reporters as we report on environmental crime from Nature’s frontline.
- But these crimes will not stop us: Exposing wrongdoing across Brazil’s critical biomes — from the Mata Atlantica to the Cerrado to the Amazon — is more necessary than ever now. At the same time, demanding justice for the murder of Bruno and Dom became a fight for all of us.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

For Ecuador’s A’i Cofán leaders, Goldman Prize validates Indigenous struggle
- Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, young leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe in Ecaudor, led a movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining.
- In recognition of their struggle, they were awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize, widely known as the “Green Nobel.”
- The A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe forced the Ecuadoran state to revoke 52 gold mining concessions that threatened their territory and were awarded without the prior consultation stipulated in the country’s Constitution.

At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury
- When the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, the world’s biggest, was designated 30 years ago, the Brazilian army cleared out the illegal gold miners operating there.
- Today, miners are back in force, encouraged by the anti-Indigenous and anti-environment rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has vowed to open up the reserves to mining.
- The illegal activity has destroyed forests and contaminated rivers with mercury and has also brought with it violence, disease and death for the 27,000 Yanomami living in the heart of the Amazon.
- As it marks the 30th anniversary of its establishment, the Yanomami reserve faces of the prospect of losing up to a third of its area to mining — a very real prospect if a key Bolsonaro bill clears Congress.

Push for potash mine in Brazil’s Amazon looms over Indigenous people
- A Canadian-backed company seeking to mine potash in the Brazilian Amazon has finally begun a consultation process with Indigenous inhabitants — more than a decade after it arrived and started prospecting.
- Potássio do Brasil has promised jobs and prosperity for the municipality of Autazes, but Indigenous Mura communities say they’re worried the mine could pollute their rivers, killing the fish they depend on.
- But their resistance is undermined by the government’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge their land claims; officially recognized Indigenous territories in Brazil are off-limits to mining.
- The proposed mine is part of a wider push to exploit the Amazon by President Jair Bolsonaro, who says the potash project specifically will ease Brazil’s reliance on fertilizers imported from sanctions-hit Russia.

A new index measures the human impacts on Amazon waters
- Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
- According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon micro basins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
- The same index points out that 323 of the 385 Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon face a medium to low impact, which demonstrates the fundamental role of these areas in protecting the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon.
- The Amazon River Basin covers 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles) and contains 20% of all freshwater on the Earth’s surface; still, little is known about the impacts of increased human activity on aquatic ecosystems.

Saving old-growth forests: Q&A with Amazon Watch’s Leila Salazar-López
- A new documentary called “The Last Stand,” released on Earth Day 2022, goes inside the protests against the logging of the Fairy Creek old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada.
- Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch, an NGO dedicated to fighting deforestation and protecting the rights of Indigenous communities in the world’s biggest rainforest, spoke in the film about the larger implications of cutting down old-growth forests.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Salazar-López talks deforestation in the Amazon, the flaws of carbon offset policies, and the important role that Indigenous and local people play in conserving the last of Earth’s old-growth forests.

Canadian miners get high-level lobbying boost for Brazilian Amazon projects
- Canadian bank Forbes & Manhattan appears to be aided in pushing its mining interests in Brazil thanks to lobbying efforts by an old army acquaintance of the country’s vice president.
- F&M has been trying to secure environmental licenses for two of its companies, Belo Sun and Brazil Potash, for more than 10 years; both companies’ projects have been criticized for threatening Indigenous groups and traditional riverside communities in the Amazon.
- But F&M has managed to secure several private meetings with top government officials, which all appear to feature the same individual acting in a consulting or advisory role: Cláudio Barroso Magno Filho, a retired brigadier general in the Brazilian Army.
- Barroso Magno attended the military academy alongside Hamilton Mourão, who in 2019 took office as Brazil’s vice president in the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.

New report pieces together toll of environmental damage in Venezuela in 2021
- A report from the Political Ecology Observatory of Venezuela (OEP) lays out the worst environmental conflicts that the South American country faced in 2021.
- Among them are oil spills, deforestation, mining, and a lack of clean water in areas with degraded watersheds.
- The report notes the continuing difficulty of tracking environmental parameters in Venezuela, due to the lack of transparency by government at all levels.
- Regardless, it notes that last year’s events contributed to numerous public health crises.

Brazil Congress fast-tracks ‘death package’ bill to mine on Indigenous lands
- Thousands of protesters, including celebrities, activists and 150 Indigenous people from eight ethnic groups, gathered for the biggest environment protest ever held in Brazil’s capital against a series of bills dubbed the “death package” by critics.
- Protesters say the slate of five key bills will cause unbridled environmental damage and violate Indigenous rights by encouraging commercial activities in vulnerable regions and invasions of Indigenous territories.
- While the protests were taking place, the lower house of Congress voted to fast-track one of those bills, which would allow mining on Indigenous lands — an activity that’s banned under Brazil’s Constitution.
- While some lawmakers say they oppose the bills and will vote against them, the bills enjoy the support of President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful agribusiness lobby.

Gold used in Italian wedding rings linked to Amazon deforestation
- An investigation in Brazil has identified Italian company Chimet, which refines precious metals for the jewelry industry, as a buyer of gold mined illegally from an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The allegations follow a police operation that cracked down on the web of illegal miners, middlemen and exporters who “launder” the gold to conceal its origin.
- Chimet has denied the allegations, saying it only buys from suppliers whose paperwork is in order; Italian police say that if the export documents were forged in Brazil, it’s a matter for the Brazilian police.
- Mining in Indigenous territories is prohibited under Brazil’s Constitution, but a lack of enforcement has allowed the practice to flourish.

In a biodiversity haven, mining drives highest ever recorded levels of mercury
- A recent study has found that forests in the southwestern Peruvian Amazon collect mercury from the atmosphere that’s used in artisanal small-scale gold mining in the Madre de Dios region.
- The study’s authors found “the highest ever recorded” levels of mercury from the “throughfall” that ends up on the forest floor when the leaves fall or rain washes the mercury from their surfaces.
- Mercury is highly toxic, causing neurological and reproductive problems in humans and other animals.
- Organizations are looking at different ways to reduce or even eliminate the use of mercury, which miners use to bind the flecks of gold found in the region’s riverine silt.

From Wall Street to the Amazon: Big capital funds mining-driven deforestation
- Major U.S. and Brazilian financial institutions continue to underwrite the destruction of the Amazon by financing mining companies pushing to operate in Indigenous territories, a new report says.
- The top financiers include BlackRock, Capital Group and Vanguard from the U.S., along with Brazilian pension fund PREVI, all of which have a stake in, have issued loans to or are otherwise financially invested in nine mining companies to the tune of $54.1 billion.
- The mining companies, which include Vale, Anglo American and Rio Tinto, have records of environmental destruction and human rights violations in Brazil and elsewhere, and several already operate close to Indigenous lands in Brazil, polluting rivers and harming the health of native communities.
- A bill currently before Brazil’s parliament could allow mining in Indigenous territories, which is currently prohibited under the country’s Constitution; the national mining authority, meanwhile, continues to register applications to mine in areas that overlap into Indigenous territories.

Amazon to Alps: Swiss gold imports from Brazil tread a legal minefield
- The Brazilian Amazon is experiencing a new and potentially catastrophic gold rush driven by increased international demand for the precious metal.
- Over the past year, an estimated $1.2 billion worth of gold has been exported from Brazil to Switzerland, making it the second-largest export market for the country’s gold, after Canada. About a fifth of this gold comes from the Amazon, according to official figures.
- The scale of Brazil’s gold exports to Switzerland has raised concerns among environmental and transparency advocates that a significant quantity of illicit gold from the Amazon may be entering global supply chains.

Mongabay’s 10 hardest-hitting investigations of 2021
- Mongabay published numerous deep-dive investigations this year, some of them data-driven and others relying on on-the-ground interviews, to hold companies and governments accountable.
- The investigations ranged from Brazil to China to Nigeria, covering a wide range of issues, from deforestation to workers’ rights and discrimination against Indigenous peoples.
- In this article, Mongabay looks at some of the most impactful investigations from 2021.

Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows
- A study published today in Global Environmental Change shows that the approval of Brazil’s Bill 191 allowing mining on Indigenous land could be detrimental to up to 43 uncontacted Indigenous groups.
- Researchers also found that almost half of mining requests in the Brazilian Amazon registered through the National Mining Agency, a total of 3,600, were located in Indigenous territories with uncontacted groups.
- The authors recommend scrapping the bill and increasing research on isolated Indigenous groups so they can be better protected. Still, a dossier published this week by the Uncontacted or Destroyed campaign shows the Bolsonaro administration is not protecting known uncontacted groups.

Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.

In Peru’s Amazon, deforestation and crime sweep through Indigenous communities
- Mongabay Latam investigated the territorial security of Indigenous communities in five regions of the Peruvian Amazon: Loreto, Ucayali, Pasco, Huánuco, and Madre de Dios.
- A geospatial analysis of deforestation, illegal mining, and illicit coca crops in these five regions shows that 1,247 Indigenous communities have been affected.
- The study also revealed that 647 self-identified Indigenous communities in these five regions do not have official recognition from regional authorities to certify their existence and therefore obtain legal title to the land.

Ecuador’s consultation process for Indigenous lands comes under the microscope
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has selected two previous legal cases, involving the Cofan (2018) and Waorani (2019) Indigenous groups, as a basis to analyze the country’s process of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and how well it adheres to the rights in the constitution.
- Judges ruled in favor of both the Cofan and Waorani in their lawsuits against the state, both of whom sued three government bodies for selling, or trying to sell, their land to oil and mining companies without properly consulting the communities.
- This review, of which the first hearing will be held in Indigenous territory for the first time in Ecuador’s history, could set new standards for FPIC in the country and grant Indigenous communities more autonomy over their land.
- The new conservative government of President Guillermo Lasso has already passed two decrees to double oil drilling and mining in the country to boost its economy, without consulting with communities who live in the regions where these projects will likely be developed.

Bolsonaro evades genocide blame amid Indigenous deaths by invaders, COVID-19
- A Senate inquiry has opted not to call for genocide charges against President Jair Bolsonaro over his failure to sufficiently protect Brazil’s Indigenous population from the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating illegal invasions of their reserves.
- The final report nevertheless accuses Bolsonaro of crimes against humanity, saying he took advantage of the pandemic to harm traditional communities.
- The Senate’s backtrack on the genocide call comes a week after two Indigenous children in the Yanomami reserve were killed in an accident involving illegal mining machinery.
- The Yanomami, like other Indigenous reserves across Brazil, has faced a rising influx of invaders under Bolsonaro’s watch, which prosecutors attribute in part to the president’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric and support for illegal mining inside these territories.

$200 million in gold extracted in Amazon mine through illegal licenses
- Gana Gold generated R$ 1.1 billion (US$ 200 million) in revenue using illegally-obtained environmental licenses in Brazil, equivalent to 3 tons of gold extracted.
- By the company’s own reckoning, its operations should be producing annual revenues of around R$ 30 million ($6 million) if operating within licensing limits.
- Located inside a conservation area, the company has extracted 32 times more gold than the projected estimate it made to the regulating agency.
- An embargo has been placed on Gana Gold along with R$ 10 million (US$ 2 million) in fines following reports of illegal activity.

‘Join us for the Amazon,’ Indigenous leaders tell IUCN in push for protection
- At the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, Indigenous leaders and conservationists called for support of their effort to protect 80% of the Amazon Basin by 2025.
- Scientists say the Amazon region has already lost 17% of its forest cover and that an additional 17% has been degraded by forest loss, fragmentation, wildfires and drought, and that these pressures are pushing the rainforest toward a critical tipping point.
- While the recognition of Indigenous land rights would be a critical first step, experts say that Indigenous communities need support in enforcing their land rights and their efforts to defend the Amazon.
- A motion that would support area-based conservation targets with the view to protecting at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025 was eventually approved by the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

Rich countries may be buying illegal gold that’s driving Amazon destruction
- Nearly a third of Brazil’s gold production in 2019 and 2020 was potentially illegal or outright illegal, a new report shows.
- The findings suggest that institutional buyers in rich countries — Canada, the U.K. and Switzerland bought 72% of Brazil’s gold exports — are contributing to the violence, deforestation and pollution associated with illegal mining.
- The report used satellite imagery to show how illegal gold mined in Indigenous reserves was laundered by being reported as having come from legitimate mining concessions; the value of this illegal gold in 2019 and 2020 exceeded $229 million, the report calculates.
- Prosecutors have filed two lawsuits based on the findings: One seeks the suspension of financial institutions identified as buyers of illegal gold in northern Pará state, while the second aims to suspend all permits to mine, sell and export gold from the southwest region of Pará.

New artificial intelligence tool helps forecast Amazon deforestation
- A new tool co-developed by Microsoft using artificial intelligence to predict deforestation hotspots has identified nearly 10,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon that’s in imminent danger.
- Called PrevisIA, it uses artificial intelligence to analyze satellite imagery from the European Space Agency, and an algorithm developed by the Brazilian conservation nonprofit Imazon to find the areas most prone to deforestation.
- The tool, which the developers say could potentially be applied to any forested area on Earth, will be used for preventive actions, in partnerships with local governments, corporations and nonprofits.
- The next step of the project is to build partnerships with local governments and institutions to act on preventing deforestation, which is the most challenging phase of the project, according to Imazon researcher Carlos Souza Jr.

333 people rescued from slavery in Brazil mines since 2008, exclusive report shows
- A breakthrough report has mapped out all the raids carried out to rescue people working in slave-labor conditions in mines across Brazil since 2008.
- A total of 333 workers were rescued in 31 raids; Pará, in the Amazon, is the state with the most raids.
- Gold mines were the most common among the mines raided; in recent years their owners have expanded their criminal networks and tried to evade inspection.
- Bureaucracy and a waning pool of inspectors has hampered efforts to ramp up the frequency of raids, officials say.

Nearly 1 million km2 of intact forests menaced by extractives, study finds
- A new report shows that 975,000 km2 (376,500 mi2) of virgin forest, about the size of Egypt, is threatened by mining and oil and gas extraction.
- About 11% of the planet’s intact forests lie within mining concessions and 8% inside oil and gas concessions.
- Their loss spells trouble for efforts to save endangered wildlife, tackle climate change and preserve Indigenous communities inhabiting these undisturbed lands.
- The overlap between concessions and intact forests was the greatest in Central Africa, especially in the Congo Basin, which has seen a surge in extractive activity in recent years.

Brazil prosecutors seek ban on all gold mining in hard-hit Amazonian region
- Gold mining activities may be suspended in the southwest of Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, if authorities fail to implement measures to increase control and traceability over the country’s gold mining industry.
- That’s the main request of a lawsuit filed this week by the Federal Public Ministry based on a new study pointing to the municipalities of southwest Pará as being responsible for 85% of cases of gold laundering in Brazil in 2019 and 2020.
- The study, by researchers from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), also concluded that almost 30% of the 174 metric tons of gold sold in Brazil in the last two years was associated with some kind of irregularity, amounting to 9.1 billion reais ($1.8 billion) of potentially illegal gold — a value more than three times the Ministry of Environment’s 2020 budget.
- Experts say Brazilian law leaves the door open to gold laundering, by permitting miners to self-declare the origin of their gold and not requiring any verification; the process remains manual, with no electronic invoices to control the gold trade in the country.

Global demand for manganese puts Kayapó Indigenous land under pressure
- InfoAmazonia’s Amazônia Minada project has found an unusual rise in demand to mine for manganese last year in Brazil, one of the world’s top producers of the metal.
- Previously, only 1% of mining bids on Indigenous lands were for manganese; in 2020, it was with 15% of all requests, second only to gold.
- Some of the richest manganese deposits in the world are in southeast Pará state, overlapping with the territories of the Kayapó Indigenous people, which have been targeted the most by mining applications in general.
- Demand from Asia, particularly China, has increased the price of manganese, driving illegal mining; 300,000 tons of the ore were seized last year in Brazil, including from a company bidding to mine on Indigenous land.

Mining exposes Indigenous women in Latin America to high mercury levels
- A study carried out by the International Pollutant Elimination Network (IPEN) and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) analyzed the levels of mercury in the bodies of 163 Indigenous women of childbearing age.
- The study authors found considerably high levels of mercury in women from two Indigenous groups in Bolivia who base their diet mainly on fish they obtain from rivers near gold mines.
- According to the researchers, mercury in the mother’s body can put their health and that of their fetuses at risk.
- Communities evaluated in Brazil and Venezuela also had mercury in their bodies; in Colombia, Indigenous groups without nearby gold mining and with non-fish-based diets had the lowest levels of mercury.

Exhibition showcases Claudia Andujar’s half-century fight for the Yanomami
- Swiss-born Claudia Andujar fled Europe as a child at the end of World War II, and spent much of her later life in Brazil, becoming a celebrated photographer.
- In her adopted homeland, she found a strong affinity with the Yanomami Indigenous people, for whom she was an advocate for the establishment of their own territory — something that came to pass in 1992 as Brazil prepared to host the Rio Earth Summit.
- Now aged 90, Andujar remains deeply concerned for the people with whom she says she “totally identified,” noting that the present threat of illegal mining in Indigenous territories is doing far more harm than the government-driven road projects of the 1970s.
- Andujar’s years of work and life with the Yanomami are now chronicled in a major photo exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre through Aug. 29.

Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- Three Indigenous leaders were reportedly seriously injured after Brazilian police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters in the capital, Brasília
- The incident comes as Indigenous groups from across Brazil gather in the capital to protest against violence and invasions that they face on their own lands; the Munduruku people had to have a police escort to travel to Brasília after being attacked by illegal miners in their reserve in Pará state.
- The Indigenous protesters are also in the capital to press Congress to halt deliberations of legislation that they call the “bill of death,” that would severely undermine Indigenous rights. On the day after the confrontation, it was approved by a congressional commission and will go to a vote in the lower house.
- Among other measures, the bill would make it harder to demarcate Indigenous reserves; override Indigenous territorial sovereignty for “public interest” projects; and dismantle the current policy of non-contact with isolated Indigenous people.

With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fending off attacks and threats by settlers who reject their ancestral land rights over the territory.
- Settlers opposed to the recognition of the Tekohá Dje’y Indigenous Reserve yanked off a new identification plaque marking the reserve, threatened Indigenous leaders and tried to run residents over with a vehicle, the community alleges.
- The Indigenous group in Paraty, a municipality a four-hour drive from Rio’s capital, blames farmers and land grabbers for the attacks and for not recognizing their rights to the land; the community says authorities are not doing enough to protect them from attacks.
- The attacks come amid ongoing violence in the Yanomami and Munduruku reserves, where illegal miners have invaded Indigenous lands in search of gold. Indigenous groups are protesting in Brasília this week against a host of anti-Indigenous bills that could weaken land rights and legalize the mining.

Illegal miners block Indigenous leaders headed to protests in Brazil’s capital
- Illegal gold miners slashed the tires of a bus and threatened to set it on fire in a bid to block leaders in the Munduruku Indigenous Reserve from traveling to Brazil’s capital to attend planned protests this week, Indigenous groups and authorities say.
- Indigenous leaders had to be escorted by police as they tried to reach the capital and take part in protests against invasions of their lands and violence against their people, advocates say.
- The attacks come weeks after miners fired shots and set houses ablaze in the Munduruku reserve, fueling worries about more violence against Indigenous people after federal authorities retreated from the area.
- Federal prosecutors and Indigenous groups have called for firmer measures against the illegal miners and permanent protection for the Munduruku Indigenous people.

What’s the cost of illegal mining in Brazil’s Amazon? A new tool calculates it
- The launch of a gold mining impacts calculator this week — a joint project of the Federal Public Ministry and the Conservation Strategy Fund — marks a big step forward in combating illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon, experts and government agents say.
- The new tool was able to estimate damages of $431 million caused by illegal mining in 2020 on the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve, where local leaders have reported several attacks in the past month by miners, following an influx of mining activities since 2019.
- Since 2019, Brazil has exported $11 billion in gold, with Switzerland, Canada and the United Kingdom as the top importers; last year alone, these three countries imported $3.5 billion of the precious metal from Brazil.
- Improving traceability is another important step to cracking down on the environmentally devasting illegal gold market, says Sérgio Leitão, an expert in the fight against illegal mining in Brazil.

In less than a generation, legal mining in Colombia deforested over 120,000 hectares
- A study by researchers in Colombia found that forest clearing by legal mining operations has increased sharply in recent years.
- The study shows that just 1% of the 8,600 legal mining concessions in the country account for 60% of the deforestation associated with the sector.
- The authors say that if mining titles continue to be granted at current rates, Colombia could lose 400,000 hectares (990,000 acres) of forest from legal mining alone over the next two decades.

World’s richest tin mine pollutes rivers serving Amazon Indigenous villages
- Prosecutors in Brazil have demanded immediate remedial action following a leak of waste from the Pitinga tin mine into rivers that serve Indigenous communities in the Amazonian reserve of Waimiri-Atroari.
- Federal authorities and Indigenous expeditions confirmed the leak of tailings waste from six dams managed by Mineração Taboca, the Brazilian subsidiary of Peruvian tin mining giant Minsur, which has affected the water supply for 22 Waimiri-Atroari villages.
- Indigenous residents say they fear a catastrophic disaster from the potential failure of Taboca’s main dam; the structure is four times the size of Brazilian miner Vale’s dam in Brumadinho municipality whose collapse in 2019 killed 270 people.
- Besides the Pitinga mine outside the reserve, Taboca and a subsidiary have 37 applications pending to mine inside the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous Territory — an activity currently prohibited by Brazil’s Constitution, but which would be permitted under a bill currently before Congress.

Illegal miners fire shots, burn homes in Munduruku Indigenous Reserve
- Illegal gold miners set fire to homes of several Indigenous leaders in the Munduruku Indigenous Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon this week, before attempting to destroy police equipment used to expel outsiders, authorities and activists say.
- Indigenous groups say the attack was in retaliation to police operations aimed at expelling illegal gold miners from the Munduruku reserve, which is supposed to be under federal protection.
- The Munduruku people have been battling invasions for decades but miners have grown bolder amid expectations that the federal government may legalize wildcat mining on Indigenous lands; police forces withdrew from the region following the attacks, leaving Indigenous people vulnerable to further violence, federal prosecutors say.
- The attacks in the Munduruku reserve follow a wave of violence in the Yanomami reserve, where 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of land have been degradaded since January, according to a recent aerial survey, setting the stage for a new record for deforestation in the reserve.

Brazil court orders illegal miners booted from Yanomami Indigenous Reserve
- A court has ordered Brazilian authorities to remove all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve in the Amazon, following five days of attacks and intimidation by the miners against an Indigenous village.
- The federal government has still not complied with the May 17 ruling. Army officials say they are planning operations in the region, but have not provided dates. The Federal Police say a team will arrive May 21 to collect data for investigation.
- The attacks that began May 10 saw the miners shoot at the village of Palimiú, throw tear gas canisters, and station several boats nearby in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
- The violent conflict between miners and Indigenous groups follows a surge of land invasions and illegal mining in Indigenous reserves and other conservation areas, dubbed “The Bolsonaro Effect” by Brazilian researchers after its chief enabler.

After gold miners shoot Yanomani people, Brazil cuts environmental regulation further
- With 300 votes in favor and 122 against, Brazil’s Lower House passed the draft of a bill on May 12 that withdraws environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, ranging from construction of roads to agriculture.
- The measure, which was submitted to the Senate for its appraisal, is backed by President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful conservative agribusiness lobby — the ‘ruralistas’ — who champion it as a way of slashing red tape on environmental licensing, to facilitate “self-licensing” infrastructure projects.
- Congressmen, experts and activists opposed to it are convinced the new legal framework will inevitably fast-track approval of high-risk projects, leading to deforestation and the escalation of violence against traditional communities.
- As the Lower House moved to approve it, Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state. “They [illegal miners] are not shooting to try and scare us. They want us dead,” a Yanomami leader told Mongabay.

Nearly half the Amazon’s intact forest on Indigenous-held lands: Report
- A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC) draws on more than 300 studies from the last two decades to demonstrate the protection that Indigenous societies provide for forests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- According to the team’s research, about 45% of the intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in Indigenous territories.
- The forests occupied by Indigenous communities in the region hold more carbon than all of the forests in either Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the next two biggest swaths of tropical forest after Brazil.
- The report’s authors say investing in securing land rights for Indigenous communities is a cheap and effective way to address climate change, while also helping these communities recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Like losing half the territory.’ Waorani struggle with loss of elder, and of land to oil (commentary)
- The long life and sudden 2020 death of Waorani elder Nenkihui Bay encapsulates his community’s struggles against territorial loss, environmental degradation, oil drilling expansion, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Leaders like him are called “Pikenanis” and are local figures of authority, territorial guardians against external threats, and teachers of traditional knowledge related to environment, cultural laws, and livelihoods.
- Increasingly impacted by oil drilling, Bay helped his community navigate the changes and struggle for their rights.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

BlackRock must commit to Indigenous rights — not just climate change (commentary)
- BlackRock is an investment management firm reportedly with $8 trillion in assets. It is also well documented for its financing of large-scale mining, fossil fuel production and agribusiness projects across Latin America doing harm to Indigenous communities in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil and elsewhere.
- The company has recently become outspoken about its position to vigorously combat climate change. But even though the United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples as the best stewards of the environment, guardians of their lands and defenders against climate change, BlackRock remains virtually silent on Indigenous issues.
- If the company’s climate change commitment is to be taken seriously by the world, then BlackRock needs to step up now and adopt an explicit “Forest and Indigenous Rights Policy.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Anglo American won’t rule out mining on Indigenous lands in the Amazon
- Anglo American has up to 86 applications pending to mine on Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon — a practice that is currently prohibited but could soon be allowed under a controversial bill.
- The company has refused to commit not to mine on Indigenous lands, yet also claims it never intended to do so when it and its two Brazilian subsidiaries filed nearly 300 applications for that very purpose.
- Twenty-three of the applications target the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory in Pará state, home of the Munduruku people, while others target the Badjonkore, Menkragnoti and Kayapó reserves in Pará, and the Kayabi, Apiaká and Escondido reserves in Mato Grosso.
- Indigenous groups have demanded that Anglo American stay off their lands and have denounced the “death bill” that could eventually open up their territories to mining.

Brazil’s isolated tribes in the crosshairs of miners targeting Indigenous lands
- The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
- Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, Funai, holds 114 reports of isolated tribes, of which 43 are within Indigenous lands targeted by mining.
- In addition to the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria, mining activity poses health threats from the mercury used in gold extraction, which contaminates rivers and fish.
- Indigenous groups have filed a lawsuit with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court against the government, demanding protection for isolated Indigenous peoples.

Amid pollution and COVID-19, a quilombolas’ Amazon sanctuary turns hostile
- COVID-19 has ravaged the Afro-descendant quilombo communities throughout the Brazilian Amazon, amplifying the impacts of pollution, encroachment and lack of health care that they have long struggled with.
- In the Jambuaçu Territory, home to some 700 quilombolas, pollution of waterways from oil palm plantations may leave the communities lacking the clean water that’s essential to keeping infection at bay.
- Official data on COVID-19 infections and deaths among quilombolas are scant, as are most other statistics on this historically marginalized population group; one estimate suggests the mortality rate may be four times higher than the national average.
- The quilombolas’ fight for adequate health care and prioritization in Brazil’s vaccination drive is part of a larger struggle for official recognition of their land rights, advocates say.

Brazil guts agencies, ‘sabotaging environmental protection’ in Amazon: Report
- A new report documents draconian budget cuts to Brazilian environmental monitoring and firefighting of 9.8% in 2020, and 27.4% in 2021 — reductions, analysts say that were inflicted by the Bolsonaro administration in “a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies.”
- Brazil’s environmental agencies under Bolsonaro have also been subjected to nearly 600 administrative and rules changes, invoked by presidential executive order and resulting in massive environmental deregulation.
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared, with an increase of 34% in the last two years, even as capacity to punish environmental criminals fell sharply due to funding shortages. Fines imposed for illegal deforestation, instead of rising during this Amazon environmental crime wave, fell by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
- Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental agencies and protections, two Indigenous leaders — Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Paiter Surui Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.”

Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- Brazilian legislators in the Amazon state of Roraima have passed a bill legalizing garimpo wildcat mining on state lands without studies. Amendments would also legalize the use of toxic mercury in gold processing, and greatly expand the legal size of mining claims.
- Indigenous groups say the law was passed without adequate consultation, and will invite gold miner invasions of Indigenous reserves in the state, including that of the Yanomami, the largest reserve in Brazil. Since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro more than 20,000 illegal miners have been reported on Yanomami lands.
- Wildcat mining is already legal in some Brazilian Amazon states. Based on that experience, experts say that legalization in Roraima will enable fraud, with gold illegally mined in Indigenous reserves “laundered” to become “legal” gold, and illicit “conflict gold” trafficked from neighboring Venezuela laundered in Roraima.
- The Roraima garimpo mining bill now awaits the state governor’s signature.

Environmental assassinations bad for business, new research shows
- After years of research, economics experts say they can prove that financial markets respond swiftly and definitively when multinationals are publicly named in connection with the assassination of an environmental defender.
- The researchers analyzed 354 assassinations over two decades connected to mining and extractive minerals projects around the world, noting particularly significant violent action in the Philippines and Peru.
- Once a company is named, the data show that within 10 days the markets respond, hitting the company with a median loss in market capitalization of more than $100 million.

How the pandemic impacted rainforests in 2020: a year in review
- 2020 was supposed to be a make-or-break year for tropical forests. It was the year when global leaders were scheduled to come together to assess the past decade’s progress and set the climate and biodiversity agendas for the next decade. These included emissions reductions targets, government procurement policies and corporate zero-deforestation commitments, and goals to set aside protected areas and restore degraded lands.
- COVID-19 upended everything: Nowhere — not even tropical rainforests — escaped the effects of the global pandemic. Conservation was particularly hard in tropical countries.
- 2019’s worst trends for forests mostly continued through the pandemic including widespread forest fires, rising commodity prices, increasing repression and violence against environmental defenders, and new laws and policies in Brazil and Indonesia that undermine forest conservation.
- We don’t yet have numbers on the degree to which the pandemic affected deforestation, because it generally takes several months to process that data. That being said, there are reasons to suspect that 2020’s forest loss will again be substantial.

New innovations to clean up the impacts of mining
- We bring you two stories that illustrate some of the innovative new ways conservationists are attempting to address the impacts of mining on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Dr. Manuela Callari, a Mongabay contributing writer who recently wrote about Australia's tens of thousands of abandoned and shuttered mines, discusses novel solutions to restoring native habitat destroyed by mining, and how the industry is finally beginning to work with local and aboriginal communities in creating mine closure plans.
- And Bjorn Bergman, an analyst with the NGO SkyTruth, discusses Project Inambari, an open mapping platform that utilizes satellite radar imagery to detect the impacts of small-scale, illegal mining in the Amazon rainforest.
- Project Inambari was named one of the winners of the Artisanal Mining Challenge, a global competition that recently awarded $750,000 in prizes for innovative solutions.

Traditional and Indigenous peoples ‘denounce’ planned Amazon railway
- The Ferrovia Paraense (FEPASA) railway if fully completed would run 1,312 kilometers (815 miles) from Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará, along the state’s eastern border, to the port city of Barcarena on the Amazon River. It could carry 80 million tons of mining ores and agribusiness commodities annually.
- In 2019, Pará state signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Communication Construction Company for a R$7 billion (US$1.4 billion) investment to fund the building of 492 kilometers (305 miles) of the railway, from Marabá to Barcarena. Construction is currently expected to start in 2021.
- But that plan could be delayed by resistance from Indigenous and traditional communities who say they’ve yet to be consulted on the project, as required by international law. FEPASA and Ferrogrão (Grainrail) will integrate Pará into Brazil’s vast rail network, greatly aiding export of Amazon commodities to China.
- A letter from the Amazon communities to Pará’s government accused it and its allies of “forcing on us a development model that does not represent us, that is imposing railways,… expelling people from their lands, ending our food security, destroying our people, destroying our cultures,… and killing our forests.”

Historical analysis: The Amazon’s mineral wealth — curse or blessing?
- Mining of gold and other precious metals in the Amazon fueled the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, while bringing misery and death to unknown hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people and African slaves, forced to work the mines.
- Modern industrial mining came to the Brazilian Amazon in the late 1940s as transnational firms began digging up and processing manganese, iron, bauxite, zinc, and other ores. Like the earlier iterations of mining, transnational firms, investors, and nations profited hugely, while local people saw little benefit.
- Brazil offered massive subsidies and tax incentives to attract transnational mining companies, and built giant public works projects, including mega-dams, transmission lines, and roads to provide energy and other services to the mines. Though the government offered little to disrupted traditional communities.
- All this came with extraordinary socio-environmental costs, as Brazilian Amazon deforestation soared, land and waterways were polluted, and Indigenous and riverine peoples were deprived of their traditional ways of life and lands, and suffered major public health repercussions. This mining trend continues today.

Nazareth Cabrera fights for Colombia’s Indigenous Uitoto with the strength of her words
- She was instrumental in blocking the entry of mining companies into the community, and also advocates for social causes such as the rights of women and children.
- Those who know this powerhouse 52-year-old woman say she is among the “grains of sand” that contribute to the collective process of caring for the Amazon.

Brazilians impacted by mining assert: ‘Genocide legalized by the state’
- Residents of traditional communities in the Brazilian Amazon municipality of Barcarena, near the mouth of the Amazon River, say that their subsistence and commercial livelihoods, and their health, have been destroyed by an invasion of mining companies which began in the mid-1980’s.
- Among the gigantic companies moving into the region were Brazil’s Vale, Norwegian-Japanese Albrás, Norway’s Norsk Hydro, and France’s Imerys Rio Capim Caulim. Community complaints say that the firms allegedly stole community land and polluted land, water and air.
- Meanwhile, according to residents, the government rewarded the companies with subsidies, looked the other way when community lands were appropriated and pollution occurred, and paid for mining firm infrastructure, including the Tucurui mega-dam; port of Vila do Conde, and a network of new roads.
- Also, a string of mining disasters punctuated the years, with the worst by Norsk Hydro in 2018 at the Hydro Alunorte facility. Though local waters, blood and hair have proven to be contaminated with mining-related toxins, the companies defend themselves by saying no particular firm can be pinpointed with the harm.

The Amazon’s Yanomami utterly abandoned by Brazilian authorities: Report
- A new report highlights the escalating existential crisis among the 30,000 Indigenous people living in the Yanomami Territory, covering 9,664,975 hectares (37,317 square miles) in northern Brazil. Data shows that the Yanomami reserve is in the top ten areas now most prone to illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The report accuses Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazilian government of abandoning the Yanomami to the invasion of their territory by tens-of-thousands of illegal miners. While the administration has launched sporadic operations to stop these incursions, the miners return as soon as police leave the reserve.
- Bolsonaro is also accused of having done little to combat COVID-19 or provide basic healthcare. As a result, pandemic case numbers have grown by 250% in the last three months, now possibly infecting 10,000 Yanomami and Ye’kwana, about a third of the reserve’s entire population, with deaths recorded among adults and children.
- “Children, young people and the generations to come deserve to live healthy lives in their forest home. Their futures should not be cut off by the actions of a genocidal administration,” says the report compiled by the Yanomami and Ye’kwana and a network of academics. Brazil’s Health Ministry denied the charge of negligence.

Brazil sees record number of bids to mine illegally on Indigenous lands
- An exclusive investigation shows Brazil’s mining regulator continues to entertain requests to mine in Indigenous territories, which is prohibited under the country’s Constitution.
- There have been 145 such applications filed this year, the highest number in 24 years, spurred by President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric and a bill now before Congress that would permit mining on Indigenous lands.
- Prosecutors and judges say that by maintaining these unconstitutional mining applications on file and not immediately rejecting them, the mining regulator is granting them a semblance of legitimacy.
- Mining represents a real threat to the Brazilian Amazon, where the protected status of Indigenous territories is the main reason the forests they contain remain standing.

Mining covers more than 20% of Indigenous territory in the Amazon
- A new report from the World Resources Institute and the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network reveals that mining has impacted more than 20% of the Amazon’s Indigenous territory.
- The analysis shows that deforestation rates are as much as three times higher on Indigenous lands with mining compared to those without.
- The study’s authors suggest that improved law enforcement, greater investment in Indigenous communities and stricter environmental protections are necessary to combat the surge of mining in the Amazon.

Alcoa vs. the Amazon: How the ribeirinhos won their collective land rights
- In 2009, communities of ribeirinhos (traditional riverine settlers) launched a major land rights protest in the Amazon against Alcoa, the transnational mining company. Their action led to an agreement that proved decisive not only for the ribeirinhos, but for collective land rights activists across Brazil.
- Alcoa came to Juruti, Pará state, Brazil in 2000 with big plans to mine for bauxite. At first, the 44 communities on the south bank of the Amazon River, made up of Indigenous and traditional peoples, supported the plan, hoping it would bring jobs and prosperity.
- But land rights organizers argued the mine would be a disaster for the environment, traditional livelihoods and culture. Attempts to block the mine failed. But efforts to get collective land rights recognized, along with financial compensation, were successful.
- The government granted full collective land rights, and Alcoa agreed to pay rent for occupying community land, compensate for losses and damages, and give locals an annual share in mine profits. Land rights activists have pursued similar goals — with varying success — in the Amazon ever since.

Mercury from gold mining contaminates Amazon communities’ staple fish
- The four species of fish most commonly consumed by Indigenous and riverine people in the Brazilian state of Amapá contain the highest concentrations of mercury.
- In some species, researchers found levels of mercury four times in excess of World Health Organization recommendations.
- The mercury comes from gold-mining activity, where it’s used to separate gold from ore before being burned off and washed into the rivers.
- The health impacts of mercury contamination are well-documented, and include damage to the central nervous system, potentially resulting in learning disabilities for children and tremors and difficulty walking for adults.

Peru gov’t needs to act on COVID-19 in Amazon Indigenous cases, NGOs say
- A group of organizations has sent a letter to Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra asking for urgent support for Indigenous communities, which have been overlooked during the COVID-19 crisis, according to activists.
- The demands in the letter include the deliverance of food, medicine and medical supplies, as well as the cessation of extractive activities that are carrying the virus into traditional territories.
- It’s estimated that 125 Indigenous people have died from COVID-19 in the Ucayali region of the Amazon since the start of the pandemic. However, it’s difficult to get accurate numbers due to a lack of testing.

Life among the turtles: Traditional people struggle inside an Amazon reserve
- The Brazilian Amazon’s Trombetas River is well known for its exceptional biodiversity, including nesting turtles. In 1979, to protect flora and fauna there, the REBIO Trombetas was founded; it’s a highly restrictive form of conservation unit where today only very limited economic activity is permitted.
- The two traditional communities inside the reserve — the Último Quilombo and Nova Esperança Quilombo (Afro-Brazilian communities of runaway slave descendants) — complain that the government has unfairly penalized them for conducting forest and river livelihoods including Brazil nut collecting and fishing.
- Local residents also contend that while they’re fined for such minor infractions, MRN, the world’s fourth largest bauxite mining company, located near the REBIO, has done extensive ecological damage due to ore ship traffic and water pollution, which severely impacts turtle populations.
- In fact, MRN’s mines, ore processing and bauxite waste lagoons are located inside the Saracá-Taquera National Forest, a protected area known as a FLONA, on the Trombetas River. MRN has been fined often for its environmental violations there, fines it has appealed and not yet paid; the firm says it’s operating within the law.

Amazon gold mining wipes out rainforest regeneration for years: Study
- New research looking at Amazon artisanal gold mining in Guyana has found that the destroyed Amazon forest at mining sites shows no sign of recovery three to four years after a mine pit and tailings pond are abandoned, likely largely due to soil nutrient depletion.
- In addition, mercury contamination at the sites drops after a mine is abandoned; mercury is used to process gold. Mercury being a chemical element, it does not break down but can bioaccumulate, so its onsite disappearance means the toxin is possibly leaching into local waters, entering fish, and poisoning riverine people who eat them.
- The solution would be the proper restoration of mine sites, especially the proper filling in of mine holes and tailing ponds imitating replacement by natural topsoil. Better regulations, much bigger fines and other penalties, along with enforcement of mining laws would also help seriously curb the problem, say researchers.
- But so long as the price of gold continues topping $1,700 an ounce (as it did during the 2008 U.S. housing crisis), or $2,000 an ounce (its current price during the still escalating COVID-19 pandemic), it seems likely that there is little that can curb the enthusiasm of poor and wealthy prospectors alike for digging up the Amazon.

Goldminers overrun Amazon indigenous lands as COVID-19 surges
- Reports filed by NGOs including the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) and Greenpeace Brazil say that a major invasion of indigenous reserves and conservation units is underway, prompted by miners well backed with expensive equipment supplied by wealthy elites.
- Miners are emboldened, say the NGOs, by the inflammatory anti-indigenous and anti-environmental rhetoric of the Jair Bolsonaro administration which has sent a clear signal so far, that it has no major plans of stopping the invasions or penalizing the perpetrators.
- Through June of this year, deforestation by mining within conserved areas represented 67.9% of total tree loss in Legal Amazonia. From January to June, illegal mining destroyed 2,230 hectares (5,510 acres) of forest inside conservation units (UCs) and 1,016 hectares (2,510 acres) inside indigenous territories (TIs).
- The miners’ onslaught also poses a serious COVID-19 threat. The virus has so far infected at least 14,647 indigenous people and caused 269 deaths on indigenous lands. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is pressing for passage of legislation authorizing mining on indigenous lands; presently the bill is stalled in the house of deputies.

Niobium mining in Brazilian Amazon would cause significant forest loss: Study
- A recent study found that large-scale niobium mining proposals, if carried out in the remote northwest portion of the Brazilian Amazon, would likely cause significant forest loss and threaten biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.
- The study comes as President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for an expansion of industrial mining on indigenous lands and his administration turns a blind eye to expanding illegal mining that is threatening indigenous communities in the northern Amazon.
- There are two known niobium deposits in the region, at Seis Lagos and at Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, located in the Rio Negro River basin. The Brazilian portion of the Rio Negro River basin is home to 23 Indigenous groups, including the Yanomami people, and holds vast tracts of undisturbed rainforest, rich in biodiversity.
- The recent niobium study offers an example of how science can be proactive in analyzing the environmental impact of infrastructure development well before it happens, potentially helping guide policy decisions to prevent deforestation, pollution, the spread of disease and other problems.

Sounding the alarm about illegal logging? There’s an app for that
- Illegal timber accounts for 15% to 30% of the timber trade globally and is worth more than $100 billion. A significant share of this illegally harvested timber is sold in European markets.
- In the vast territories of both the Amazon and the Congo, the largest tropical rainforests in the world, authorities largely lack the capacity to monitor for illegal mining and logging activities.
- Using the customizable app ForestLink, people living within and around the forests can send alerts about illegal logging and mining activities to authorities and other stakeholders from remote areas without mobile connectivity or internet service.
- Community alerts have triggered more than 30 verification and enforcement missions by civil society organizations and local authorities in Cameroon, the DRC and Ghana in 2019 alone.

‘Unacceptably high’ risk of tailings dam failure in Canadian miner’s Amazon project
- A new report by a prominent geophysicist calls for Canadian company Belo Sun’s proposed gold mine in Brazil’s Pará state to be rejected by authorities.
- The report warns of the high risk of a failure of the tailings dam for the proposed mine, and cites the dam design’s lack of seismic safety criteria, which is a violation of Brazilian regulations.
- Belo Sun’s Volta Grande mine would be the largest open-pit gold mine in Latin America, but would overlap onto Indigenous territories, many of whose inhabitants have not been consulted about the project.
- The license for the project is currently suspended over permitting violations, while the project also faces a slew of legal inquiries from federal and state authorities.

Traditional villages dread living in shadow of Amazon tailings dams
- Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), the world’s fourth largest bauxite producer, encroached on riverine communities beside the Trombetas River in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1970s. Over the years, MRN became notorious for its contamination of local waters with bauxite mining waste, residents say.
- To resolve that problem, the company built 26 tailings dams. The largest of these waste-holding impoundments covers 110 hectares (270 acres). The entire system for managing mining waste encompasses 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) and is located within a national protected area.
- Brazil has suffered two catastrophic mining tailings dam collapses since 2015, leaving Trombetas riverine community residents concerned about the 26 MRN dams.
- Brazil’s National Agency of Mining has rated one of MRN’s dams as “high risk.” Fourteen more, should they fail, possess “social, environmental, economic and mortality risk.” MRN says its dams are safe. Locals are also worried over possible water contamination and loss of traditional livelihoods

Brazil bows to pressure from business, decrees 120-day Amazon fire ban
- 38 transnational companies in the agricultural, industrial, mining and service sectors, along with four major business associations, sent a letter Monday to Brazil VP Hamilton Mourão, president of the Amazon Council, asking him to address “environmental irregularities and crime in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes.”
- The letter — backed by Amaggi, Suzano, Vale, Bradesco, Alcoa, Bayer, Shell, Siemens, among others — comes just weeks before this year’s Amazon fire season begins, and as criticism of rapid Amazon deforestation under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro intensifies in the European Union and threatens the EU-Mercusor trade agreement.
- The administration — long resistant to all efforts to redirect its Amazon development and environmental policies — responded today announcing a decree for a 120-day ban on fires in the Amazon. The Army has also been deployed to the region to guard against a replay of last year’s wildfires. Analysts say this is not near enough to curb rampant deforestation.
- The business letter came just weeks after 32 international financial institutions that manage US$4.5 trillion in assets told Brazil that if it didn’t curb deforestation they would stop investing in Brazil. The problem, say critics, is Bolsonaro has set new policies that greatly undermine past socio-environmental safeguards, policies which need to be reversed.

Brazilian court orders 20,000 gold miners removed from Yanomami Park
- The Yanomami Park covers 37,000 square miles in the Brazilian Amazon on the Venezuelan border; it is inhabited by 27,000 Yanomami. Soaring gold prices have resulted in a massive ongoing invasion of the indigenous territory by gold miners who are well supported with monetary backing, heavy equipment and aircraft.
- On 3 July, a federal judge issued an emergency ruling ordering the Jair Bolsonaro administration to come up with an immediate plan to stop the spread of the pandemic to Yanomami Park, a plan which must include the removal of all 20,000 invading miners within ten days. Brazil’s Vice President pledges to back the plan.
- That eviction must stay in effect until the danger to the Yanomami of the pandemic passes. There have so far been five Yanomami deaths due to the disease and 168 confirmed cases. More are expected.
- The invasion has also resulted in violent clashes between miners and indigenous people. In mid-June two Yanomami were killed in a conflict, evoking fears of a replay of retaliatory violence that occurred in the 1990s. In response to the current crisis, the Yanomami have launched their “Miners Out, Covid Out” campaign.

Discovery of fish never recorded in the Amazon shows richness of Brazil’s Calha Norte
- Brazilian scientists have identified six fish species never before seen in the Amazon in Calha Norte, in the state of Pará, one of the best-preserved and least studied parts of the rainforest.
- Calha Norte lies north of the Amazon River, along the border with Guyana and Suriname, where those species were previously thought to be endemic, and 80% of its area is protected within conservation areas and Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian territories.
- Even though it is remote and hard to reach, illegal hunting, mining and deforestation are already placing local biodiversity at risk.
- These threats have made research even more urgent, with scientists warning the risk is that species will disappear before they are ever described.

Brazil could dynamite Amazon dolphin, turtle habitat for industrial waterway
- Brazil plans to excavate and dredge many millions of cubic meters of material, including the ecologically sensitive Lourencão Rocks, to create an industrial shipping channel on the Tocantins River in the Amazon. This article includes rarely seen video images of some of the endemic and threatened fish living in the Tocantins River rapids.
- Citing cost considerations, São Paulo-based DTA Engenharia plans to dump more than 5.6 million cubic meters of sand inside the Tocantins riverbanks, where Amazonian turtles now lay their eggs. The endangered Araguaian river dolphin would also be impacted.
- In September 2019, IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, identified dozens of mistakes in DTA Engenharia’s environmental impact studies, which failed to list a dozen endangered fish, ignored the specialized riverine rock environment, and didn’t study turtles in most affected areas.
- IBAMA ordered DTA to redo fish and turtle studies, with new studies conducted on local traditional fisherfolk’s fishing practices. Six fisherfolk village associations near the Lourencão Rocks (35 kilometers of which are due to be dynamited and dredged) warn that the fishery and the unique traditional culture it supports are in peril.

Gold priced at $1,700 per ounce brings new gold rush to Brazilian Amazon
- Global instability brought on by the Coronavirus and the meltdown of the world economy has sent gold prices soaring to US$1,700 per ounce, their highest value in 10 years. That surge has triggered a new, intensified gold rush in the Brazilian Amazon as entrepreneurs invest in expensive equipment and cheap labor.
- While some Amazon gold mining is legally permitted, much isn’t. The lucrative, unpoliced industry is causing deforestation, river destruction, mercury contamination (the element used in gold ore processing), and an invasion by hundreds of thousands of miners who could spread COVID-19 to the region.
- Despite being an illegal activity, large gold mining dredges operate openly in Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia state. Our Mongabay reporting team followed the daily lives of a dredge-owning entrepreneur and his crew of garimpeiros as they searched for the precious metal in the waters of the Madeira River.

Brazil’s indigenous hit especially hard by COVID-19: why so vulnerable?
- At least 78 indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon are infected by COVID-19, with 3,662 individuals testing positive and 249 dead among 45 of those peoples. Detailed data is lacking for the other 33 peoples. Experts say poverty, poor resistance to Western diseases, and lack of medical facilities may explain high vulnerability.
- The Coordination of Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), which gathered and tallied this data, expects cases and deaths are underreported. Many leaders and elders continue dying among indigenous people, including elders of the Munduruku, Kayapó, Arara, Macuxi, and Tuyuka peoples.
- COVID-19 has now penetrated the Xingu river basin, a vast area south of the Amazon River in Pará and Mato Grosso states. The Arara people there were devastated by disease and violence in the 1980s. Now, of 121 remaining Arara, almost half have tested positive for the coronavirus.
- Of the 1,818 Xicrin in southwest Pará state, 270 (15%) have tested positive, with seven deaths. Analysts speculate this high infection and death rate (higher than Brazil’s general populace, and even many other indigenous groups), may be due to poor underlying health due to water allegedly polluted by a Vale nickel mine.

MRN bauxite mine leaves legacy of pollution, poverty in Brazilian Amazon
- Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN) arrived in the Trombetas River basin in the 1970s with plans to mine bauxite on a gigantic scale. Today, MRN is the fourth largest producer of bauxite in the world, providing the valuable aluminum ore to nations and manufacturers around the planet.
- On arriving in the Amazon, MRN immediately annexed lands from the traditional riverine community of Boa Vista, reportedly displacing 90 families to build its port company town. Boa Vista is a quilombo, a community of Afro-Brazilians (known as quilombolas), the descendants of runaway slaves.
- While MRN says it provided jobs, education and health services, quilombo residents report a decade of horrendous water pollution from mine waste — never cleaned up — the loss of fisheries and hunting grounds, rampant poverty, a lack of electricity, health services, and proper sanitation.
- The harm done by industrial mining to Boa Vista, and lessons learned, and not learned, over the last 40+ years, are especially relevant today, as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro aggressively pushes forward his agenda to open indigenous reserves and other Amazon conserved lands to industrial mining.

Offensive against the Amazon: An incontrollable pandemic (commentary)
- The acceleration of Amazonian deforestation and environmental degradation — powered by the Bolsonaro government’s successive blows to environmental protection policies — is directly related to the precarious state of public healthcare in the region, amplifying the lethality of diseases like Covid-19.
- This commentary is being published at a time when Brazil is suffering from the worst deforestation in a decade, and is second only to the United States in the number of Covid-19 cases (515,000 in Brazil today) and fourth in the world regarding the number of Coronavirus deaths (topping 29,000).
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Coronavirus puts Brazil’s quilombos at risk; will assistance come?
- The Boa Vista Quilombo in Oriximiná, Pará state, is like many Brazilian quilombola communities. Quilombolas are Afro-Brazilian runaway slave descendants, and point to centuries of inequality and neglect by the government. Quilombos often lack running water, basic sanitation and health services.
- In the 1970s, Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN) annexed much of Boa Vista’s land and established the world’s fourth largest bauxite mine, along with a company town, Porto Trombetas, built on the former quilombo property; MRN also polluted local fisheries and provided mostly badly paid menial jobs to residents.
- Now, the pandemic is exacerbating fundamental governmental and corporate inequalities, say residents. MRN, for example, asked Boa Vista residents to clean a quarantine facility used by new arrivals. The residents refused. Meanwhile, the mine is fully operational, with planes and ships coming and going regularly.
- MRN says it has implemented strong preventative measures against the virus. But residents point out that the company’s hospital has just six intensive care beds; they fear, in keeping with past inequities, these beds would be reserved for MRN employees, leaving infected quilombolas without care.

Large indigenous territories are necessary for culture and biodiversity in Brazil, study says
- New research argues that large, legally protected territories are necessary for indigenous peoples to maintain their traditional livelihoods.
- The authors were surprised to find higher population densities inside versus outside of nearly half (295) of all indigenous territories.
- Indigenous lands provide global-scale environmental benefits. Nearly one-fifth of all Amazonian plants and animals live in these territories, and these areas retain 25.5% of all carbon stocks in Brazil.
- Altering the protected status of indigenous lands or opening them up to exploitative economic activities will affect ethnocultural integrity and compromise Brazil’s commitments to climate change and biodiversity protection.

The mining map: Who’s eyeing the gold on Brazil’s indigenous lands?
- Miners have their eyes on reserves that have been officially demarcated for 15 years and are inhabited by isolated indigenous peoples.
- Applications to mine on indigenous lands in the Amazon have increased by 91% under the Bolsonaro administration.
- The majority of applications to mine on indigenous lands are for areas in Pará, Mato Grosso, and Roraima.
- Among the applicants are mining giant Anglo American, small-scale cooperatives whose members are embroiled in a range of environmental violations, and even a São Paulo-based architect.

Fight against Amazon destruction at stake after enforcement chief fired
- Brazil’s environmental agency, IBAMA, has stepped up efforts to fight environmental crimes during the COVID-19 crisis amid concerns that loggers, land grabbers and illegal miners could infect indigenous populations.
- However, the fate of these operations is now uncertain following the firing of IBAMA enforcement director Olivaldi Azevedo last week.
- On April 20, Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) launched an investigation into Azevedo’s dismissal, questioning whether IBAMA’s operations in Pará state would be affected and citing risks to the region’s indigenous people.
- Elsewhere, indigenous activists are celebrating an important court victory after a judge ordered the removal of North American missionaries accused of trying to convert isolated indigenous communities in the Vale do Javari region, near the border with Peru.

Rapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
- Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health.
- Scientists warn that the next emergent pandemic could originate in the Brazilian Amazon if Bolsonaro’s policies continue to drive Amazon deforestation rates ever higher. Researchers have long known that new diseases typically arise at the nexus between forest and agribusiness, mining, and other human development.
- One way deforestation leads to new disease emergence is through fire, like the Amazon blazes seen in 2019. In the aftermath of wildfires, altered habitat often offers less food, changing animal behavior, bringing foraging wildlife into contact with neighboring human communities, creating vectors for zoonotic bacteria, viruses and parasites.
- Now, Bolsonaro is pushing to open indigenous lands and conservation units to mining and agribusiness — policies which greatly benefit land grabbers. Escalating deforestation, worsened by climate change, growing drought and fire, heighten the risk of the emergence of new diseases, along with epidemics of existing ones, such as malaria.

In Brazil, COVID-19 outbreak paves way for invasion of indigenous lands
- Reports of continuing land invasions, killings of indigenous leaders, and rising numbers of COVID-19 infections inside indigenous reserves has raise concerns about the increased vulnerability of indigenous communities to violence and infection by illegal extraction gangs as the pandemic rages.
- In Rondônia state, the epicenter of last year’s Amazon fires, members of the Karipuna indigenous people have submitted a complaint to the local Federal Prosecutor’s Office reporting non-indigenous people clearing forest inside their reserve, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the village where the group lives.
- Fear of the spread of COVID-19 by non-indigenous invaders inside Brazil’s indigenous communities has grown in recent days following reports of the hospitalization and death of a Yanomami teenager.
- At least five indigenous people have been infected by the virus in Brazil so far, according to a map produced by an NGO advocating for indigenous rights, and at least two indigenous people living in cities have died after being infected.

Gold mining threatens indigenous forests in the Brazilian Amazon
- MAAP, a program of the organization Amazon Conservation, has documented more than 102 square kilometers (40 square miles) of mining-linked deforestation in the indigenous reserves of Kayapó, Munduruku and Yanomami in Brazil. Mongabay had exclusive access to the report prior to its release.
- Though mining is still illegal in indigenous reserves under Brazilian law, President Jair Bolsonaro has introduced a bill awaiting a vote in Congress that would to allow mining, oil and gas extraction and other uses of these lands.
- Human rights groups like Survival International hold Bolsonaro and his policies responsible for the loss of forest, as well as mercury pollution, societal disruption and the introduction of diseases such as malaria and potentially COVID-19 that result from mining.
- The groups say Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, in favor of developing the Amazon, has emboldened would-be miners.

Canada’s Belo Sun hits legal hurdles in bid to mine indigenous land in Brazil
- Exclusive data obtained by Mongabay shows that Canadian miner Belo Sun has 11 survey applications pending with Brazilian authorities that would directly impact two indigenous reserves in the state of Pará, and continues to survey despite ongoing legal challenges.
- The project is expected to be the largest open-air gold mine in Latin America, extracting 74 tons of the mineral over 20 years of operation, in a region already heavily affected by the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, deforestation, land speculation, and a recent escalation in violence.
- The proposed mine remains in limbo for now, thanks to a series of legal challenges by state and federal agencies that have resulted in its installation permit, a prerequisite for obtaining an operating license, being suspended.

A third of Peru’s La Pampa forest cleared for illegal mining ponds, study finds
- A new study reveals that nearly 5,400 hectares (13,300 acres) of forests have been converted into mining ponds in the Madre de Dios region of Peru.
- The ponds have become contaminated with mercury and other chemicals in the mining process.
- Researchers analyzed satellite and drone images to evaluate the effects of illegal mining and related activities on the forest.

Anglo American seeking to mine on indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon
- Anglo American, one of the biggest mining companies in the world, and its two Brazilian subsidiaries have submitted nearly 300 applications to dig for gold and other minerals inside indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon, records seen by Mongabay show.
- The most recent applications, dating from 2017 to 2019, target the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Reserve, home to the Munduruku people, who have taken the initiative to start demarcate their territory in a bid to stave off invaders.
- But such efforts may prove in vain as the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for legislation that would allow mining in indigenous lands.
- Also at stake is the Renca national reserve, a massive protected area that Bolsonaro has indicated he wants reduced or stripped of its status in order to allow mining.

Qualified success: What’s next for Peru’s Operation Mercury?
- The Peruvian government’s launch of Operation Mercury to crack down on illegal mining had a burst of initial success, cutting deforestation by 92% since its kickoff in February 2019.
- Concerns have surfaced that the operation would simply displace miners, forcing them to deforest new areas.
- However, satellite imagery analysis published in January 2020 revealed that, while deforestation due to mining continues to be a problem in southeastern Peru, Operation Mercury has not led to a surge in forest loss adjacent to the targeted area.
- The government is also investing in programs aimed at providing employment alternatives so that people don’t return to mining.

NGOs charge Brazil’s Bolsonaro with risk of indigenous ‘genocide’ at UN
- At a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 2 March indigenous people from Brazil along with NGOs told the international community that the policies of Jair Bolsonaro, in office since January 2019, are resulting in a dangerous escalation in invasions of indigenous reserves in the Amazon and across Brazil.
- They especially emphasized impacts on the Moxihatetea and other uncontacted and isolated groups whose territories are being rapidly deforested by illegal miners, loggers and other intruders of conserved indigenous lands — while the government stands by and simultaneously dismantles indigenous protections.
- Meanwhile, the Arns Commission, a human rights body, is sending a petition to the International Criminal Court demanding an investigation into Bolsonaro’s attacks on indigenous human rights. Deforestation in 115 of the worst-affected indigenous territories totaled 42,679 hectares from 2018 to 2019, an 80% increase over 2017-18.
- The Arns Commission, and a new report, assert that the Bolsonaro administration’s socio-environmental policies are putting indigenous peoples at risk of ethnocide (the destruction of an ethnic group’s culture), and putting isolated groups at risk of genocide.

Barrage of mining requests targets Brazil’s isolated indigenous peoples
- Nearly 4,000 requests have been submitted for mining-related activities on 31 indigenous reserves and 17 protected areas in Brazil, according to recently obtained data from the nongovernmental Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) and the National Mining Agency.
- The targeted areas are home to 71 known isolated indigenous communities, a group whose population is already considered one of the most vulnerable in the country.
- The requests are part of a wave of sweeping measures led by President Jair Bolsonaro to clear the way for widespread exploitation of indigenous lands for mining, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric plants, ranching and more.
- While deforestation in the Amazon increased by an average of 25% last year, and by 80% on indigenous lands, deforestation rates in areas where isolated peoples are present rose by 114% last year compared with 2018; when compared with 2017, the rate of increase was 364%.

Early deforestation numbers for 2019 reveal trends in the Amazon
- The Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project, or MAAP, an initiative of the nonprofit organization Amazon Conservation, has published its analysis of preliminary deforestation data for the Amazon in 2019.
- The figures project that deforestation in 2019 tapered, if slightly, or held relatively steady in four of the five Amazon countries included in the study.
- Bolivia’s loss of forest in 2019 rose in comparison with 2018, likely as a result of widespread fires that burned standing forest.
- The researchers used early-warning alerts of tree cover loss in 2019 to estimate total deforestation in the five countries and then compared the figures with historical rates going back to 2001.

Database offers new details on the dams that hold mining waste
- A new database called the Global Tailings Portal pulls together information on 1,700 dams that store waste, or tailings, from mines around the world.
- Around 100 publicly traded companies have shared information about their dams with GRID-Arendal, the Norwegian foundation that developed the database.
- The portal’s creators say that much of the information, including the size, location, and risk factors associated with the included dams, hasn’t been publicly available before, even as catastrophic dam failures continue to occur.

Bolsonaro sends Congress bill to open indigenous lands to mining, fossil fuels
- President Jair Bolsonaro has long pledged to open Brazil’s indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism. This week he sent a bill to Congress that would do just that.
- And while the legislation would allow consultation with impacted indigenous populations, they would lack the power of veto, except in cases of “garimpo” or wildcat mining. Though the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is strong in Congress, it remains to be seen whether the bill will be approved.
- The legislation would also allow the use of GM, genetically modified, seeds in agricultural projects, a practice previously banned because of the danger of contaminating native seeds. Royalties would be paid to indigenous communities for the economic activities allowed in their reserves and communities.
- Bolsonaro called his project a “dream” but it has already met with withering criticism from indigenous organizations who see it as a nightmare. Apib, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples, called it a ‘death project’ which would, under the mask of false good intentions, effectively authorize the invasion of their lands

Carbon emissions from Peruvian gold mining ‘alarming,’ experts say
- According to a new study, small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon is contributing to the climate crisis.
- The study developed a novel approach toward measuring carbon emissions through deforestation, drawing on Earth imagery from a network of nanosatellites.
- In 2017, gold mining in one part of the Madre de Dios region emitted as much carbon as nearly 250,000 cars do in an average year.
- The study’s authors say their new approach will help global efforts to monitor forest destruction and carbon emissions.

Use it, don’t lose it: Q&A with Amazon eco scientist Marcelino Guedes
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.
- “Human practices can be managed to become the basis for conservation in Amazonia,” he says. Countering the idea that forests must be maintained in their virgin state, he says the rational use of a forest’s resources is the best way to create an effective conservation dynamic, considering the many pressures the region is undergoing.
- Guedes cites the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, which holds that small changes to the environment are crucial for increasing biodiversity. These disturbances can be natural, as in the case of a storm, or caused by humans, which is the case of the indigenous peoples of Amazonia, who have, over the last 5,000 years, been modifying and enriching the landscape through itinerant agriculture and dispersal of native species.

Impending Amazon tipping point puts biome and world at risk, scientists warn
- Climate models coupled with real world biome changes are causing prominent scientists to forecast that, unless action is taken immediately, 50 to 70% of the Amazon will be transformed from rainforest into savanna in less than 50 years.
- That ecological disaster would trigger a vast release of carbon stored in vegetation, likely leading to a regional and planetary climate catastrophe. The Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point is being triggered by rapidly escalating deforestation, regional and global climate change, and increasing Amazon wildfires — all of which are making the region dryer.
- While models produced the first evidence of the tipping point, events on the ground are now adding to grave concern. The Amazon has grown hotter and dryer in recent decades, and rainforest that was once fireproof now readily burns. Plant species adapted to a wet climate are dying, as drought-resistant species flourish. Deforestation is escalating rapidly.
- Scientists say the tipping point could be reversed with strong environmental policies. However, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is moving in the opposite direction, with plans to develop the Amazon, including the opening of indigenous reserves to industrial mining and agribusiness, and the building of roads, dams and other infrastructure.

Vale has filed hundreds of requests to exploit indigenous lands in Amazon
- Data obtained via the Access to Information Act reveals that Vale has 236 applications registered with the National Mining Agency for mineral exploration in Brazil’s Amazon Basin. Many of them are applications for research, the first step to obtaining authorization for mineral exploration.
- Of the total applications, 214 are on indigenous territory, including some of the largest in Brazil, such as Trombetas/Mapuera and Munduruku reservations. The Constitution prohibits mining in such areas without sanction by Congress and after hearing from the affected communities — something Vale has not done.
- More than 90% of the requests filed are for gold mining, but there are other minerals on the list too, including nickel, tin, lead, copper, manganese, diamonds, beryllium, silver, and platinum.
- Reached for response, Vale said it had only 76 “active” applications, but declined to provide details. The company has also requested that its mining application information be sealed, effectively keeping some of these processes out of the public eye.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro creates Amazon Council and Environmental Police force
- Brazil has formed a new Amazon Council headed by Vice President Hamilton Mourão, a retired general and supporter of Amazon mining development. The council will oversee “the activities of all the ministries involved in the protection, defense and development and sustainable development of the Amazon.”
- A new Environmental Police force is also being created made up of military police from state forces, which will have the potential to put thousands of agents into the field for Amazon operations.
- Meanwhile, Bolsonaro slashed the budget for IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, cutting it by 25% as compared to 2019. IBAMA has been recognized internationally for its key role in enforcing Brazil’s laws against illegal loggers and land grabbers, for reducing deforestation and fighting Amazon fires.
- Critics are concerned over Bolsonaro’s militarization of Amazon environmental, development, and security administration, seeing it as a throwback to the days of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, when new highways and other infrastructure projects greatly benefited land grabbers and wealthy landowners.

Fines for Amazon fires may go to indigenous communities under new bill
- Born in the northern reaches of Brazil, in the state of Roraima, Joenia Wapichana is the first indigenous lawyer in Brazil and in 2018 she became the first indigenous woman to be elected to the country’s lower house of Congress. She also holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona.
- In her first year in office, she wrote a bill proposing that the funds collected from fines for environmental infractions committed on indigenous lands be reverted back to the native peoples.
- In the bill’s text, Wapichana presents her justification: “The fires in the Amazon region were a recent news story, both nationally and internationally, a fact which also fostered the need to protect the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.”

Ten actions for Brazilian scientists to engage in environmental politics (commentary)
- Brazil has faced several environmental and political issues in recent years. For instance, three mining disasters caused the death of more than 250 people and major damage to biodiversity. Also, the unrestricted expansion of agribusiness has led to high rates of deforestation, a pattern that is only expected to increase in the near future.
- In this commentary, the authors look at the political aspects of the environmental crises in Brazil and argue that scientists have an important role to play in transforming the country.
- The authors propose ten actions that can help Brazilian scientists participate more effectively in political matters.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Bolsonaro’s Brazil: 2020 could see revived Amazon mining assault — part two
- President Michel Temer issued a presidential decree in 2017 to open up the vast 4.6 million hectare (17,800 square mile) RENCA preserve in the northern Amazon to mining. Meeting with a firestorm of criticism he abandoned the effort. Sources now say the Bolsonaro administration is poised to quietly revive plans to open RENCA in 2020.
- Likewise, with Bolsonaro in charge, transnational mining companies are pushing for a change in Brazilian law allowing the firms to mine inside protected lands and indigenous reserves across the nation. The change could be introduced in 2020 via the mining law, a bill long stalled in Congress.
- Should mines in RENCA and elsewhere go ahead, transport will be needed. The planned Ferrovia Pará railway (Fepasa) would move commodities from Pará state’s interior for river transport to the coast. Other plans call for 20+ new river ports, 2 thermoelectric power stations, and a transmission line crossing Pará.
- However, all these major projects face a legal hurdle. The Brazilian Constitution states that no major measure can be authorized allowing mining in indigenous areas, or large new infrastructure projects approved before prerequisites are satisfied, including consent of affected indigenous and traditional communities.

Amazon’s Mura indigenous group demands input over giant mining project
- In 2013, Potássio do Brasil, a subsidiary of the Canadian merchant bank, Forbes & Manhattan, began drilling exploratory wells for a giant potassium mine — a highly profitable venture that would allow transport of potash along the Amazon and Madeira rivers. Potash is a vital fertilizer for Brazil’s rapidly growing soy agribusiness industry.
- One big problem: the company was reportedly drilling inside the Jauary Indigenous Reserve and directly adjacent to other indigenous reserves and communities. Indigenous people said that the ancestral lands being drilled, though sometimes not demarcated as being within their reserves, were vital for hunting and other livelihoods.
- The mine was licensed in 2015. However, legal irregularities resulted in the project stalling. Finally, a court settlement was reached in which the Mura communities would be given the legal right of consultation — a democratic process of self-determination guaranteed under international law rarely practiced in the remote Brazilian Amazon.
- How the Mura will vote — and whether that vote will be respected by municipal, state and federal governments; agribusiness; a transnational mining giant; and international investors — remains to be seen. However, analysts agree that the result could have far reaching consequences for rural traditional settlements across the Amazon.

Mega-mining project slated for Brazilian Amazon sparks controversy
- Potássio do Brasil, a mining company; Autazes municipal authorities; the federal and Amazonas state governments; and large-scale soy growers all want one thing: to open a potash mine in the town of Autazes that would supply soy producers with Brazilian fertilizer, so as not to buy and pay for imported potash. All stand to profit.
- There’s just one major roadblock: the potassium deposits are on indigenous land, and the mining company started off on the wrong foot in 2013 by digging exploratory wells in secret, without getting indigenous permission to dig on their land.
- Years of acrimonious conflict and legal battles followed. The municipality of Autazes includes 12,000 Mura Indians among its citizens, most of whom live in one of the 20 indigenous reserves that have been officially demarcated or are in the process of being demarcated. They fear the potash mine’s social and environmental repercussions.
- They have successfully stalled the US$2.5 billion mining project up to now. But under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, the possibility that the potash mine could go forward without indigenous consultation — as required by international law — is becoming a looming possibility.

Antonio Donato Nobre: “The forest is sick and losing its carbon-sequestration capacity”
- A researcher at the INPE Center of Land System Science, Antonio Donato Nobre, describes the state of degradation threatening the future of the Amazon rainforest in an exclusive interview with Mongabay.
- Nobre fears the forest is nearing what he describes as a “tipping point,” after which it will no longer be able to regenerate on its own, thus embarking on the path to desertification. “This is not about protecting the forest simply to please environmentalists. The living forest is essential for the survival of human civilization,” he says.
- In order to reverse the current state of destruction, Nobre proposes the development of a forest economy – capable, in his opinion, of generating nearly 20 times as much revenue as extensive cattle ranching. As an example, he cites the project Amazônia 4.0, which defends the use of technology for the sustainable exploration of biodiversity.

Brazil on the precipice: from environmental leader to despoiler (2010-2020)
- Brazil’s 21st century environmental record is most easily visualized via Amazon deforestation: poor regulation and lawlessness led to peak deforestation in 2004, with 27,772 square kilometers cleared. Better laws and enforcement, and a soy moratorium led to a dramatic decline to 4,571 square kilometers in 2012.
- Since then, first under Workers’ Party President Dilma Rousseff, then under Michel Temer, deforestation rates began to rise. The rate saw its biggest jump this year under President Jair Bolsonaro, with a loss of 9,762 square kilometers — the worst deforestation since 2008.
- From 2011-2016, the Amazon saw numerous hydroelectric project controversies, including the construction of the Belo Monte mega-dam, two huge hydroelectric projects on the Madeira River, plus multiple dams on the Teles Pires River. The Lava Jato corruption scandal and an economic downturn curbed dam building.
- Brazil’s ruralist agribusiness interests consolidated power, first under Temer, and more so under Bolsonaro, launching multiple attacks on indigenous and traditional land rights. Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental and anti-indigenous policies are a mark of his administration, a trend expected to continue in 2020.

Amazon’s giant South American river turtle holding its own, but risks abound
- The arrau, or giant South American River turtle (Podocnemis expansa), inhabits the Amazon and Orinoco rivers and their tributaries. A recent six nation survey assessed the health of populations across the region in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.
- The species numbered in the tens of millions in the 19th century. Much reduced today, P. expansa is doing fairly well in river systems with conservation programs (the Tapajós, Guaporés, Foz do Amazonas, and Purus) and not so well in others (the Javaés and Baixo Rio Branco, and the Trombetas, even though it has monitoring).
- The study registered more than 147,000 females protected or monitored by 89 conservation initiatives and programs between 2012 and 2014. Out of that total, two thirds were in Brazil (109,400), followed by Bolivia (30,000), Peru (4,100), Colombia (2,400), Venezuela (1,000) and Ecuador (6).
- The greatest historical threat to the arrau stems from eggs and meat being popular delicacies, which has led to trafficking. Hydroelectric dams and large-scale mining operations also put the animals at risk — this includes mining noise impairing turtle communication. Climate change could be the biggest threat in the 21st century.

As 2019 Amazon fires die down, Brazilian deforestation roars ahead
- This year’s August Amazon fires grabbed headlines around the world. In response, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his administration accused the media of lying and exaggerating the disaster, then finally sent in the army to combat the blazes. As of October, many of the fires were under control.
- But experts note that the fires are only a symptom of a far greater problem: rampant and rising deforestation. Altogether, 7,604 square kilometers (2,970 square miles) of rainforest were felled during the first nine months of this year, an 85 percent increase over the same period last year.
- Unscrupulous land speculators are growing rich, say experts, as they mine, log and clear rainforest — operations often conducted illegally on protected lands. Typically, the speculators cut valuable trees, burn the remainder, and sell the cleared land at a heavily marked up price to cattle ranchers or agribusiness.
- So far, Bolsonaro has done little to inhibit these activities, while doing and saying much to encourage deforestation, mining and agribusiness. The government has de-toothed the nation’s environmental agencies and slashed their budgets, while hampering officials from enforcing environmental laws.

Venezuelan crisis: Government censors environmental and scientific data
- Venezuela is among the most biodiverse nations in the world. But it has become increasingly difficult to measure, assess and protect the nation’s environment as the federal government spreads a dense cloak of secrecy over environmental and scientific statistics — concealing invaluable baseline, annual and long-term data.
- When the country was experiencing prosperity in the first decade of the 21st century, data was readily available on the Internet. But from roughly 2011 onward, as the nation spiraled into economic and social chaos, statistics began disappearing from the Web, and being unavailable to the public, scientific researchers and activists.
- Many important government environmental and social indices have been hidden from public view, including updated data on inflation, unemployment, crime, deforestation, ecosystem and wildlife endangerment, mining, water and air quality, pollution, climate change, energy, national fisheries production and more.
- Compounding governmental restrictions on transparency are difficulties in collecting scientific data in a nation suffering economic and social freefall. For example, 70 percent of Venezuelan weather stations are inoperative, meaning that regional temperature and rainfall patterns are no longer being measured.

Vatican calls landmark meeting to conserve Amazon, protect indigenous peoples
- From October 6-27 Catholic Church bishops from nine Amazon nations, indigenous leaders and environmental activists will convene in Rome at the Vatican to develop a unified strategy for preserving the Amazon rainforest and protecting the region’s indigenous peoples.
- The event is an outgrowth of Pope Francis’ 2015 teaching document known as Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home — an indictment of capitalism’s excesses, global extraction industries, industrial agribusiness, and our consumer society, which the pope mostly holds responsible for climate change, deforestation and endangerment of indigenous cultures.
- The Vatican meeting to discuss the Amazon is seen as a direct threat to national sovereignty by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose spokesperson earlier this year said of the Amazon synod that “it’s worrying and we want to neutralize it.”
- In a conference call this week, a few of those who will participate in the Amazon synod took a more positive view, saying that: “People are afraid that they’re going to have to change their own interests. But change has to come and the time is now.”

State governors support Bolsonaro’s Amazon mining, agribusiness plans
- In a meeting with nine Amazon state governors called by Jair Bolsonaro to discuss the region’s wildfires, the president pushed the states to back his policies which seek to bring major mining and agribusiness operations onto indigenous lands. Doing so would be a direct violation of the 1988 Constitution.
- Backing Bolsonaro were the governors of Acre, Roraima, Tocantins, Rondônia, Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Amapá states. Only the Pará and Maranhão governors opposed opening more forest areas to development and favored upholding current indigenous land use rights.
- Most of the state governors agreed with Bolsonaro that indigenous groups hold control over too much Brazilian land that could be mined or turned over to agribusiness, greatly profiting the nation, while also bringing indigenous people into mainstream Brazilian society.
- The federal Congress is presently crafting legislation that could open indigenous lands to mining and industrial agribusiness. It is also preparing to vote on a bill that seems likely to pass and would allocate R$ 1 billion (US$ 240 million) to combat deforestation and fires in the Amazon and carry out land regularization.

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia