Photo By: Instituto Socioambiental Handout
As the working day starts, the sun rises, the streets bustle with the restless need to commute, you turn your eyes to your computer, a device that has become a lifeline to anyone interested in maintaining contact with the world, especially in times like these. A red light flashes in the upper right corner of the screen and a feeling of sudden urgency takes over you. Low battery. Thousands of emails drown your inbox, tens of zoom links permeate your calendar, documents, presentations, Excel sheets are pining for your attention, but as every worrying second passes, the battery percentage, too, diminishes. There is a charger near you, the solution to your problems, at least one of your problems, but you decide not to use it. Anxiety pounds your chest. Without the computer, you can’t work, you can’t communicate, you can’t successfully complete the tasks you have scheduled, but you chose to brush aside the solution. This situation seems utterly unrealistic. Why would one disregard an available solution to a pressing problem? Why would one accept an issue and, knowing that a predicament is looming, decide not to do anything about it? Let us take this situation out of the quotidian realm and into an example that seems to be further from the general population’s reach. Climate change is an indisputable fact. Although there is ideological debate on whether it is caused by humans or is part of a natural cycle, there is no denying that global temperatures are increasing, sea levels are rising, and every day people are put at risk of losing their homes and livelihoods because of the climate catastrophe. The Amazon Rainforest which is romantically called the lungs of the earth, in a way is like the aforementioned computer, slowly running out of battery. Deforestation, pollution, displacement of indigenous peoples, are all problems that increase the speed at which the forest loses its power, and all of these issues can be traced back to one overlying industry: illegal mining. The forest’s strength is being diminished by the need for money and the need to grow an industry which is accelerating the pace at which one of the power sources of the world is being destroyed. Governments, powerful private entities, mass media, and the global population, in general, are not reacting, we are consciously setting aside the charger, the solution—sometimes even going as far as ignoring the red flashing lights of a dying battery.
The Amazon rainforest covers around 6.9 million square kilometers, around 40% of the South American continent. With more than 16,000 tree species and 390 billion individual trees, the rainforest is now only around 80% forested, the latter 20% destroyed by money-seeking industries. As it extends through eight countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, the Amazon is a wonderful resource for income generation and the creation of job opportunities. It is even said that 70% of the South American GDP comes from places that receive direct water sources from the Amazon, meaning that a significant portion of the economy in South America is deeply reliant on the forest. However, the collective human hamartia is the excessive need for more. As the world population grows and businesses boom, the cradle of an extensive reservoir of resources is being actively exploited in order to satiate said greed. Although there are various layers to the issue of overuse and abuse of the rainforest, one of the main problems plaguing the region is the illegal mining industry, which has experienced a significant boom. Mainly located in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, illegal miners take over protected lands and indigenous areas in order to excavate the land for gold. In order to do so, they have to clear huge portions of land, destroying wildlife habitats and indigenous homes. In addition, the process of extracting gold and other minerals significantly pollutes water with toxic and heavy metals, said water being the main source of refreshment and food for the native communities. There is a direct correlation between miners and the increased numbers of mercury poisoning in indigenous regions and said affliction can cause irreparable health impairments and sometimes death. The indigenous peoples that are consequently exposed to polluted water have no choice but to continue drinking and using the contaminated rivers, leading to horrid health crises such as skin diseases, infertility, and birth defects. It is important to note that the mining industry itself is just one grain of sand in comparison with the other industries that are taking advantage of the Amazonian resources. Cattle ranching, for example, accounts for 70% of deforestation in the forest. Nevertheless, what makes the mining industry so worrying is that most of it is conducted under the radar. It is believed that 90% of mining projects in the region are completed outside official contracts, making them illegal and unregulated. Those that are legal, especially in Brazil, are seeing fewer and fewer regulations, which leads to endless opportunities for exploitation.
The current Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, is strongly in favor of mining and the use of forest resources. Since his appointment as president in 2018, invasions of indigenous areas in order to conduct industrial projects have increased by 135%. On February 5th, 2020, Bolsonaro proposed a bill to congress which would ease mining, hydroelectric power projects, and other projects in the Amazon. Human Rights Watch states that “With the new bill, Bolsonaro wants to eliminate illegal mining by simply legalizing it.” Furthermore, throughout his presidency, Bolsonaro was taken to easing restrictions on various industries by reducing environmental protections and disregarding indigenous rights. Maria Laura Canienu, the Human Rights Watch director in Brazil, said, “The difference now is that the federal government is run by an administration that has actively undermined environmental enforcement and the protection of Brazil’s Indigenous peoples’ lands.” Mining in the rainforest comes in two main forms. The first is industrial mining, which, given its large scale, requires leases and permits. However, the second, and equally as dangerous form is carried out by garimpos, literally translated as wildcats. These are small-scale illegal mining groups that invade indigenous territories with heavy machinery in order to complete the extraction of precious minerals. Interestingly, Bolsonaro’s father was a garimpo himself. There are certain regions in Brazil that are hotspots for illegal mining projects, most notably the Yanomami region. Yanomami is the name of an indigenous group that is mostly isolated from the modern world. The group consists of around 26,700 people, but recently, an additional 20,000 illegal miners have invaded their territory “destroyed forests, poisoned rivers and brought fatal diseases to the tribe” as stated by Reuters. Investigations using satellite imagery have shown that the illegal mining activity has led to the deforestation of an area equivalent to more than 1,000 soccer fields. Connecting to the idea of mercury poisoning as waste and toxic metals are leaked into native people’s water sources, a study conducted by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2018 concluded that 92% of Yanomami people in certain villages suffered from mercury poisoning. According to the World Wild Life Fund, a study in 1997, before illegal mining reached its current preoccupying peak, showed that 90% of the fish caught south of gold mining areas in the Tapajos River were contaminated with methyl mercury. Nevertheless, the government is largely unconcerned with these statistics, given that the mining industry has proven to be extremely lucrative. Since 2019, Brazil has exported $11 billion USD in gold, and although profits are high, the ciphers pertaining to the damages caused by said illicit activities to native groups are also astounding. Social and environmental impacts caused by illegal mining relating exclusively to the Yanomami people—without considering the other groups that have been deeply impacted— have resulted in $429 million USD in damage. This is what it would cost to repair all of the damages caused by illegal mining including damages resulting from deforestation, the removal of sediment in rivers, the stabilization of water sources, and the effects that mercury traces in food and water sources have left on indigenous communities.
Illegal mining, although extremely prevalent in Brazil, is not confined to this South American country. Countries like Peru and Colombia are suffering greatly with illegal miners who are exploiting the Amazon’s natural resources. The mining industry in Peru has been growing exponentially during the past few decades. As gold prices climb, people in search of employment take up jobs in illegal mining groups in order to feed the demand. As with the Yanomami region in Brazil, the La Pampa region in Peru has been extremely vulnerable to illegal mining. This region has abundant access to gold, and it quickly became a place where people looking to get involved in illicit activities gathered. Such was the concentration of illegal activities in the region that by February 2019, more than 5,000 miners were forced out of the region after the government declared martial law. Nowadays, La Pampa is completely under military guard. It was left barren by illegal miners and the landscape, once lush forest, is now a dry, lifeless desert . Unlike Brazil, the Peruvian government has attempted to quell illegal mining, especially using brute force. The Madre de Dios region is another gold hotspot, housing more than 30,000 miners. said region has lost more than 95,750 hectares of rainforest to gold mining between 1985 and 2017. The government has attempted to bomb equipment, arrest miners, and patrol protected zones all belonging to illegal operations. The mercury poisoning in the rivers reached such levels that in 2016 the government declared a state of emergency. The attempts are often in vain, given that the miners study the government’s tactics and moves and move to regions that are fundamentally inaccessible to them. Recent pictures taken from space show the extent of illegal gold mining. A satellite image developed by David Lutz, and environmental scientists at Dartmouth University, captured what appeared to be rivers of gold that were excavated by illegal miners. Colombia also is suffering greatly as a result of illegal mining. Ciphers in 2019 showed that around 2,300 local operations affected 83,000 people while also polluting more than 30 rivers. These operations take place within around 207 indigenous grounds that fall victim to the pollution, deforestation, and violence that come alongside illegal mining activities. Fortunately, Colombia has one of the best-preserved patches of the Amazon rainforest. The government started creating strict laws in the Amazonian region, especially because guerrilla groups like The FARC used to operate there. In 2015, for example, the government arrested 59 people who were involved in an illegal mining scheme that spread for 63 sites near the Brazilian and Venezuelan borders. Said operations were also working inside indigenous reserves.
Aside from being a breach of a country’s democracy and legal system, illegal mining has also led to an increase in violence against indigenous communities. Specifically in Brazil, illegal mining has resulted in the death of 591 children from ages zero to five in 2018, and 825 in 2019. A frightening shoot-out took place recently as a group of illegal miners opened fire on a group of Yanomami people. The confrontation took place on May 11th, 2021, after a series of smaller quarrels that took place that same week. Similar abuses happen in Peru, another country that has fallen victim to illegal mining. The Peruvian Public Ministry recorded 146 reports of human trafficking in the Madre de Dios region. An additional 4,500 people are believed to have suffered from sexual assault and exploitation. Although the illegal mining industry is not responsible for all of these victims, it has set a precedent of illegality and has shown gangs and others that illicit activity is permissible given that government troops have difficulty accessing the region.
The implications and consequences of deforestation, illegal mining, and the overall abuse of the planet go far beyond Climate change, a prospect that is truly worrying. In addition to the environmental circumstances that are slowly rendering portions of the planet inhabitable, they are destroying social, cultural, and economic systems. There are various possible solutions, plugs or chargers, in a way. The main solution is based on creating solid governmental institutions that respect bureaucracy and are dedicated to creating a clean democracy. Governments like the current Brazilian administration need to realize the damage that illegal activity and industry in the rainforest may be economically beneficial in the short term, but the long-term consequences will make those fundamentally irrelevant. Furthermore, the solution to many problems is to identify their roots, and in this case, finding and locating gold and mineral hotspots before illegal miners do so will facilitate the protection of these resources and the environment of those who live around them. Education, advocacy, and informed conversations are the ways individuals can make problems like these known. By communicating and voicing concern, higher officials and people in powerful positions will be able to receive these messages and hopefully be pressured into adjusting legislations to protect the world’s resources. Beyond greed and ego lies the point in which the world can be appreciated for what it is. By looking at the surrounding ecosystem with eyes of gratitude, comprehension, and responsibility, society can cultivate a relationship of understanding and appreciation of nature and its resources, thus leading to improved management of the plentiful—but finite—resources it provides.
Written By: Carolina Mejia Rodriguez
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