Illegal mining proliferates in the ‘richest’ city in Brazil – 09/05/2023 – Environment

Inside a hut with a canvas roof, hidden in the middle of the woods, Webson Nunes hears a scream that he understands as an order: the young man turns the lever of an electric pulley and winds the cable until he gets his colleague out of the basement.

Along with four other garimpeiros, Nunes works in copper exploration in Canaã dos Carajás, a small town in Pará that has experienced a “boom” in recent years thanks to mining.

In this land of contrasts, a hundred mines, according to local leaders, coexist with the iron mine S11D, owned by the giant Vale, one of the largest open pit mines in the world and which in 2020 transformed the municipality into the city with the highest GDP per capita in the world. Brazil.

Copper mining is a relatively simple structure.

On the ground, a wooden lid measuring 1.40 m by 1.40 m is the door to an excavation 20 meters deep, where prospectors descend several times a day hanging from a harness attached to a steel cable, with a drill in hand.

Afterwards, the electric pulley brings them back to the surface, with a big blue plastic bucket, loaded with dozens of kilos of shiny stones.

Nunes, 28 years old, a prospector for seven years, is in charge of operating the pulley. He admits that he works “with one eye here (in the mine) and the other looking to the side”.

“Because at any moment the police could arrive,” he explains to AFP.

“If it were legal, we would work with less fear”, admits Nunes, who defines his work as any “service” that he chose for payment, superior to many others. He receives R$150 per day from the owner of the mine.

environmental damage

Each ton of copper extracted is sold, on average, for US$800 (about R$4,000 at current prices). In this mine, where five people work, production usually exceeds one ton per day.

Clandestine extraction in Canaã is mainly destined for China, according to the Federal Police (PF).

Most of the mines are for copper, although the Federal Police have also detected others for gold, with greater environmental impact, as in addition to removing the soil and deforestation in the area, toxic substances, such as mercury, are used in the exploration of the metal.

At a similar pace to the growth of benefits, with the start of activity at the S11D iron mine in 2016, the population jumped from 26,000 inhabitants to 75,000 in 12 years.

In this city, former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) defeated President Lula by 63% to 37% of the votes in the second round of the October presidential elections, contrary to the results in the state and in the country.

During his mandate, Bolsonaro had as one of his main flags the encouragement of mining, including in the legal Amazon, and tried to regularize the activity in indigenous lands.

Lula, on the contrary, assumed the presidency promising to strengthen the repression of this practice.

The Federal Police have intensified inspections since August 2022, with six operations in the region, which found extremely serious environmental damage: from large areas of vegetation deforested and transformed into huge pools of mud with toxic substances, to rivers with severe changes in the color of the water. .

When finding mines, the PF usually sets fire to structures, floods wells and seizes or disables engines.

Some garimpeiros go back to work the next day, says Genivaldo Casadei, treasurer of a local cooperative of small miners who are trying to regularize themselves.

“In the capitals, the prospector is seen as a delinquent, a thief. But they are the fathers of the family looking for their livelihood”, explains the 51-year-old man.

“If (the mining) were regularized, more jobs and revenue would be generated for the municipalities. Canaã could be the richest city on the planet”, guarantees Casadei, stating that there have been advanced talks with the National Mining Agency (ANM) to legalize the mines, stagnant after Bolsonaro’s defeat.

New opportunities

Garimpeiros criticize the fact that legal exploration is reserved for Vale, which employs 9,000 people and maintains the right of ownership over most of the subsoil in the region, although it explores only 13%.

And they claim that obtaining documentation to operate legally is practically impossible.

Crouching on a pile of shiny stones, next to a mine shaft, Valmir Souza hits fragments of extracted rock with a hammer to separate the copper dust.

“It’s hard, dangerous work, you have to be careful not to get hurt,” says this 33-year-old man with dark skin, wearing gloves, rubber boots and a white helmet.

He arrived seven months ago from Maranhão, the country’s poorest state, where he worked as a capoeira teacher, attracted by new “opportunities” and a better salary.

“We have to work in secret. Otherwise, what are we going to do?”, he resigned himself.