Yanomami: rivers improve after anti-mining operation – 06/28/2023 – Environment

The rivers in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have changed color after almost five months of the federal government’s operation against illegal mining in the region.

Satellite images from the Federal Police and the Armed Forces show how the waters of rivers like the Uraricoera are darker compared to the clay-brown predominant in the images from the beginning of the year.

The lighter coloration is caused precisely by the mining activity, which drills into the bottom of the rivers and leaves the water muddy.

In addition, the illegal extraction of ore also contaminates the water with mercury, which is used to facilitate the separation of gold from the earth.

General Costa Neves, commander of the Amazon Military Command, says that the strangulation of mining is an achievement for the indigenous land to return to normality. “Our intelligence will produce data that will help the agencies to plan their activities and their missions, to guarantee the preservation of the environment”, he says.

Ibama (Institute for the Environment and Natural and Renewable Resources) stated that it will start, from the second half of the year, field studies to measure the levels of mercury in water and actions to recover fauna and flora.

“Starting in the second half of the year, we are going to take steps to also diagnose how to implement mitigation measures to promote environmental recovery”, says Diego Bueno, substitute superintendent for Ibama in Roraima.

“It is known that craters 20, 30 meters deep and up to 3 hectares in size [como as de garimpo] are difficult to recover, but nature, if we let it act, over time, it tends to recover”, he adds.

For Bueno, it is important to create programs to try to prevent animals, plants and even human beings from becoming contaminated with the mercury already dumped in rivers in the territory.

“Mercury has already been spilled, it already exists in the water. Even if mining stops, it could still be contaminated over time”, he points out.

Mercury, an extremely toxic metal, is an inexhaustible source of problems for living beings. Volatile, the element can contaminate aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems — and removing it from any location is an arduous task.

Present in the weakened Yanomami territory due to mining, which, in addition to spreading diseases, makes it impossible to use soil and rivers for agriculture and fishing, mercury spreads through the bloodstream of human beings, causing organ failure and complications in the central nervous system .

The operation in the Yanomami Indigenous Land began in early February, after President Lula (PT) visited the region and the Ministry of Health declared a health emergency.

Illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land almost tripled in 2022 compared to 2020 —when monitoring by the Federal Police in the region began.

According to the PF, mining occupied 14 km² of the territory in 2020, rising to 23.7 km² in 2021 and 41.8 km² in 2022 — a growth of 76% in one year and 198% since the beginning of monitoring.

Repression actions are headed, above all, by the Federal Police and Ibama, with the help of the PRF (Federal Highway Police) and the National Force.

This month, the Lula government published a decree authorizing the Armed Forces to also act in activities to combat illicit activity.

Until then, the military provided humanitarian aid, with the distribution of basic food baskets and inputs (such as medicines and fuel), logistics (troop transport and planning) and intelligence (for example, with an aircraft capable of photographing the mines).

The intention now is, together with other agencies that work in the area, to occupy the Yanomami territory with new bases and with teams spending days in the forest.

People involved in the actions state, on condition of anonymity, that the prospectors’ performance profile has adapted, with night work, camping in the forest and even equipment being buried during the day to make inspection difficult.

According to these people, the prospectors have holed up in spots that are up to five kilometers deep in the forest and are also in the regions closest to the border with Venezuela.

According to the balance sheet of the Armed Forces, there are 1,200 soldiers — including the Navy, Air Force and Army — in action in the territory. Almost 24,000 basic food baskets have already been delivered and more than 1,000 have been launched by aircraft.

According to the security forces, less than 10% of the gold mining that existed in the Yanomami Indigenous Land remains.

More than 40 tons of cassiterite, around 1,700 kilos of gold and almost 9,000 liters of fuel have already been seized.

A Sheet traveled at the invitation of the Armed Forces.