Illegal gold mining surges in Brazil's farm state near the Amazon

Illegal gold mining is on the rise in Brazil's farm state close to the Amazon, leading to environmental destruction and legal challenges. This surge in activity threatens the region's ecosystems and highlights the growing conflict between economic pursuits and environmental preservation. The situation underscores the urgent need for stronger enforcement and sustainable practices in this vulnerable area.

As Brazil intensifies efforts to combat illegal gold mining in the Amazon, thousands of wildcat miners have swarmed a new site in Mato Grosso's farm state, Greenpeace reported on Thursday. Shocking photos, taken by Greenpeace from a plane on Wednesday, revealed vast areas of forest stripped bare within the Sararé Indigenous territory. Despite law enforcement efforts by federal police and environmental agency Ibama, including a July operation to clear the area and destroy miners' machinery, around 5,000 illegal miners are estimated to remain on the site, according to federal prosecutors.

Greenpeace highlighted that Indigenous lands, legally protected under Brazil's constitution, are off-limits to mining and commercial agriculture. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has vowed to eradicate illegal mining on Indigenous lands and reduce illegal deforestation to zero by 2026. Last year, his government launched a military and police operation to evict thousands of gold miners from the Yanomami territory, Brazil's largest Indigenous reserve.

However, driven by soaring gold prices, illegal miners continue to infiltrate these areas, bringing disease, violence, and widespread malnutrition to the Yanomami tribe, South America's largest relatively isolated group. In the Sararé reservation, home to around 250 Indigenous people in seven villages, illegal mining now poses a significant threat, compounded by the relentless expansion of agriculture into the Amazon.

Data from Brazil's DETER satellite imagery system shows a sharp increase in deforestation and mining alerts, with new "garimpos" (mining sites) soaring from 273 hectares last year to 570 hectares in the first half of this year. The Sararé territory, covering 67,000 hectares of ancestral land, is located about 500 km west of Mato Grosso's capital, Cuiabá, near the Bolivian border. The closest town to the reservation is Conquista d'Oeste.

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Source: Reuters‍