How Brazil is taking the fight to destructive illegal mining

How Brazil is taking the fight to destructive illegal mining
President Lula's government is ramping up action against criminals operating in the vast Yanomami indigenous reserve

Michael Pooler in the Yanomami indigenous territory and Boa Vista August 12 2024

The illegal mining camp deep in the Amazon had been deserted in a hurry before the helicopters swooped down: its occupants had fled into the jungle with laundry still on the line.

Hidden in the undergrowth, the Brazilian team of armed operatives found radio devices, diesel jerrycans and a motor. They detonated explosives to damage the materials and a clandestine airstrip, then set alight the 2,000 litres of fuel, sending plumes of black smoke above the tree canopies.

"They're able to move quickly, but the losses will hit them hard and make it difficult to come back," said one of the dozen soldiers on the seize and destroy operation close to the Venezuelan border. 

This is the front line of Brazil's battle against destructive wildcat mining in the country's largest indigenous reserve, a remote expanse the size of Portugal that is home to a tribe still relatively isolated from the outside world.

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Illicit gold extraction is a multibillion-dollar industry globally, which is associated with a raft of ecological harms and human rights violations as it caters for voracious worldwide demand for the precious metal.

In Brazil it expanded under far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was accused by campaigners of giving a green light to illegal miners, loggers and cattle ranchers in the Amazon.

More than half of the country's estimated gold production in 2021 - some 53 tonnes, worth about $2.5bn - showed evidence of illegality, with some likely to have ended up in jewellery stores overseas, according to non-profit Instituto Escolhas.

In a sharp policy reversal, protecting the tropical rainforest and its people were totemic pledges of current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. "The Brazilian government will remove and end mining on any indigenous land from now on," he said shortly after taking office at the start of 2023.

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Within weeks, his administration launched emergency security and health actions in the Yanomami territory, where trespassing miners were blamed for a crisis of disease and hunger among its 28,000 inhabitants. But after initial success expelling many intruders, they began to reappear. 

That prompted Brasília to make a renewed push in the reserve earlier this year, permanently deploying federal police and military personnel as part of a multi-agency force.

"Last year, there would be operations for a period of time, [like] 10 or 15 days. Today, we're trying to undertake anti-mining actions every day," said Nilton Tubino, head of the task force, whose budget of R$1.2bn ($220mn) for 2024 is several times its budget under Bolsonaro, said the government. "We have to make their activities so expensive that it no longer pays."

Agents have destroyed boats, small planes and machinery, and have seized almost 11 tonnes of gold since the end of February. Close to 1,200 enforcement missions have taken place; medical posts have been reopened and two new support bases built by the military.

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Access to the territory is mainly by air. The mission in the Xiteí region involved a 300km helicopter flight across dense, hilly jungle, starting in Boa Vista, capital of Roraima state.

The soldiers, national guardsmen and environmental officers landed at a makeshift support site for a mine.

There they also discovered - and discarded - dozens of heavy sacks of cassiterite, an ore of tin - mineral critical to the energy transition. It is increasingly extracted by illegal miners alongside gold, according to enforcement agents.

"It was ready for dispatch. You can see from the runway there was activity here only a few hours ago," said one of the agents, speaking on condition of anonymity as a few indigenous villagers looked on from a distance. "Today was a success, but there's a lot more challenges ahead."

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Officials claim they are containing the spread of new mining sites, with alerts in the territory down by three-quarters in the first half of 2024 from a year earlier. But Jorge Eduardo Dantas, of Greenpeace, said: "Despite the reduction, we can still see new areas being opened up."

The miners use evasion tactics ranging from working at night to spreading out their camps. Internet satellite communications via Starlink devices allow advance warnings of incoming raids. Supply flights are increasingly launched from Venezuela, say officials.

Authorities are also trying to dismantle the illicit networks and logistics behind the mines. Federal police have requested court approval to seize R$2bn of proceeds from the trade, said detective Caio Luchini.

"When you attack the financial side of a criminal organisation, you take away its fuel," he said. A motor, he said, could cost R$120,000 to buy, transport and assemble. "Our daily challenge in investigations is to trace the movement of money and block it."

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Small-scale artisanal mining for gold and other minerals, known as garimpo, is often unauthorised and nearly doubled in Brazil's protected areas between 2018 and 2022, according to non-profit initiative MapBiomas. Bolsonaro came to power in 2019.

In the Yanomami land, it expanded by the equivalent of 2,500 soccer pitches in 2022, according to an analysis of satellite images by an indigenous association. That was a 54 per cent increase on the year before.

The miners cut clearings into forest, dig ponds to dredge for gold and dump mercury used in extraction into rivers. At the peak there were 20,000 trespassers, whose presence spread malaria and malnutrition among the Yanomami, leading to high infant mortality, said health workers, officials and activists.

There have also been reports of intimidation and violence in the Yanomani territory. In its Surucucu region, indigenous leader Júnior Hekurari said miners groomed youngsters to collaborate and sowed divisions in communities.

He said the government was "on the right track", but warned there was a long way to go. "It's very recent. The Yanomami people are still in grief. The water we drink is polluted. Our food doesn't flow because they also ruined the land. They left many holes with stagnant water, which breeds mosquitoes."

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Today there are an estimated 80 per cent fewer miners in the territory than in 2022, said Estêvão Senra, a researcher at the non-profit Instituto Socioambiental.

But he added that after years of underfunding, enforcement on Yanomami land required "more equipment and more manpower". "It encapsulates the challenge of protecting the Brazilian Amazon."

The crackdown divides opinion in Boa Vista, the heart of Brazil's most geographically isolated state, which suffered huge forest fires this year. A statue of a gold prospector panning stands in front of the governor's palace, displaying the role of garimpo in Roraima's history.

Boa Vista resident Giliard, who declined to give his full name, worked as a wildcat miner, or garimpeiro, for a decade and said it paid well.

But he has not returned for two years because of safety concerns, after colleagues were killed during raids. Authorities acknowledge some of their interventions have turned into armed confrontations, though they say most have not.

"We aren't criminals, we are workers," Giliard said. "Lula is persecuting garimpeiros. Bolsonaro let us work. We want a legalised area to work in."

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Gathered at his home, fellow miners deny causing ecological harm. They insist they provide indigenous people with clothing, food and even basic medical treatment.

Supporters of garimpo argue that indigenous reserves - which cover 14 per cent of national territory - are excessively large, given that indigenous people account for less than one in 100 Brazilians.

The illegal trade is important for the local economy, said locals in Boa Vista. The impact of the downturn is felt in a district known as "Gold Street".

Business has dropped sharply at the jewellery workshop that Neude Araujo Gomes runs with her husband. She said it was harder to get hold of the precious metal now. Some of their rivals have shut down.

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"In Roraima, work comes from garimpo or the government. There aren't big factories or companies," she added. "It isn't just gold shops that are affected but commerce as a whole. We have to hope that [garimpo] starts up again."

For indigenous rights campaigners, that gold is stained with Yanomami blood. Field operatives and activists warn that a lasting state presence is needed.

"It will take 10, 15 years for the Yanomami people to return to normality," said Júnior. "Our fear is that when these operations end and Lula's task force leaves, all the garimpeiros will return."

Cartography and data visualisation by Steven Bernard

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