Why is Brazil pushing out illegal miners from its Yanomami territory?

“We will continue the operation to remove all the miners that are still there illegally,” Minister of Indigenous People Sonia Guajajara told the media. She also mentioned, “We will intensify the operation,” and added that the armed forces could be deployed to finish the job.

In January this year, Lula’s government launched a crackdown on illegal mines located across the Portugal-sized Yanomami region with the help of the country’s military, environmental agencies and police forces, who are forcing out miners from the area. So far, according to Guajajara, around 80 per cent of the more than 20,000 miners that invaded the territory have been evicted, Reuters reported.

Yanomami region, which stretches across Roraima and Amazonas states in the northwest corner of Brazil’s Amazon, has been a subject of interest for illegal gold miners for decades. They first arrived there in the 1980s, leading to the death of 20 per cent of the Yanomami community — there are currently 30,000 Yanomami people in the area — due to violence, the spread of diseases and damage to the environment. According to a CNN report, most of these miners were pushed out in 1992, when “the area was demarcated by the government of then-President Fernando Collor de Mello.”

However, Yanomami territory witnessed a massive uptick in the inflow of miners during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s regime, causing a humanitarian crisis.

How Bolsonaro caused the proliferation of illegal gold mines in Yanomami territory

As soon as Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in 2019, he signed legislatures that opened “indigenous protected areas (like Yanomami territory) to mining, reduced funding or dismantled agencies tasked with monitoring and enforcing environmental regulations, and repeatedly claimed that indigenous territories are “too big””, the CNN report said.

For instance, the Brazilian army, in 2019, had to close its two monitoring bases along the Yanomami area’s largest rivers, the Mucajaí and Uraricoera, both used by miners as entry routes. The army said it had to do so as its resources were overstretched by the large number of refugees coming into Brazil from Venezuela.

Such measures emboldened miners to enter the demarcated area, where gold mining has been strictly prohibited. A recent report by the Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), based on satellite imaging, found that mines on Yanomami land had risen from four in 2015 to 1,556 by the end of 2021.

Another report, released in January this year, by Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship (MDHC) alleged that Bolsonaro’s administration “disregarded numerous alerts made about the Yanomami’s deteriorating situation.,” CNN said.

What has been the impact of illegal mining in Yanomami territory?

The spread of illegal mines and the arrival of thousands of miners has caused a spike in reported cases of diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. In a 2022 study published in BioMed Central’s Malaria Journal, researchers wrote that between 2016 and 2020, the number of malaria cases rose by 1,090 per cent in Indigenous areas and 75,576 per cent in mining areas.

Moreover, at least 570 Yanomami children have died from preventable causes since 2018, Brazil’s health ministry told CNN. One of the main reasons for these deaths has been malnutrition. Historically, the indigenous people of Yanomami have relied on the forest, birds and animals to feed themselves. But illegal gold mining has destroyed vast patches of the forest, leading to a scarcity of food.

Another problem is mercury poisoning. Miners in the region “search for gold by mixing liquid mercury into excavated sediment of the Amazon’s rivers”, which has polluted Yanomami areas traditionally used for hunting, fishing and gathering, DW reported. This has also contributed to the increase in cases of malnutrition among children.

How is the Lula government dealing with the situation?

In his inaugural speech on January 1, Lula said his government would have zero tolerance for mining on indigenous reservation land protected by Brazil’s Constitution. He added, “Indigenous peoples … are not obstacles to development — they are guardians of our rivers and forests and a fundamental part of our greatness as a nation.”

Days after this speech, he declared a medical emergency for the Yanomamis and evacuated hundreds of those who were unwell in the region. Lula also accused Bolsonaro of perpetrating “genocide” against the Yanomamis people and said the court could take action against him.

In February, the president announced the operation to evict the illegal miners present in the territory with the help of government authorities, including the Brazilian environmental agency Ibama, the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples and the National Guard. As mentioned before, so far, around 80 per cent of the miners have been pushed out, according to the authorities. Also, more than 300 mining camps have been dismantled, and 20 planes and one helicopter were destroyed by the forces.

Experts believe that although Lula’s efforts have drastically curtailed the invasion of miners, the recovery of Yanomamis’ forest and its people has only begun. Speaking to an Amazon-based news platform Sumaúma, Joenia Wapichana, the first Indigenous head of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, said she is confident the operation against miners will be a turning point and that those responsible for the suffering of the Yanomami will be punished. “We are in a new era,” she added.