As of 2022, Brazil’s Munduruku Indigenous Reserve is the second worst-affected territory occupied by illegal miners in the country. In 2021, the illegal mining there grew by 363 percent within only two years, seizing hundreds and hundreds of lands. The situation with the Munduruku people is only one possible focal point to evaluate the scale
Illegal miners expanded their footprint in Indigenous territories in Brazil by nearly 500% between 2010 and 2020, according to a recent report from the research collective MapBiomas. It also shows that illegal miners boosted their presence in conservation units by 301% during the same period. “These are outrageous statistics,” said geologist Cesar Diniz, technical coordinator […]
Illegal mining in protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon saw as much as a fivefold increase since 2010, a gold rush driven largely by surging prices in international markets. Over the past year, 25.4 tons of the precious metal worth an estimated $1.2 billion has been exported from Brazil to Switzerland, making it the second-largest […]
Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and criminal violence – it is accelerating deforestation in the world’s largest tropical forest. The latest spike in wildcat mining is driven by international demand. The […]