• 2021 was a record year for illegal mines in Brazil.
• Miners threaten the existence of indigenous communities and commit a series of abuses.
• Representatives of 200 tribes took to the streets in Brasilia to protest against Bolsonaro's policies.

Illegal mines threaten the existence of indigenous communities in Brazil. Gold mines in particular have reached a record level of expansion compared to last year: +46 per cent, equivalent to an area of 3,272 hectares.

It is not only the lands inhabited by indigenous communities that are at risk, but also the survival of their inhabitants: as revealed by the report produced by the Hutukara Yanomami association (Hay), miners have fired on indigenous communities and sexually abused several young women.

2021, a record year for illegal mines in Brazil

The Yanomami reserve extends over 9.7 million hectares in northern Brazil and is home to around 29,000 inhabitants, including the Yanomami, the Ye'kwana and six other groups of uncontacted peoples, who have never had any contact with the outside world.

The illegal gold mines in this territory are run by "garimpo" (as the miners are called), whose numbers have grown in the wake of the rise in the price of gold: 2021 is a record year since Hay began tracking the expansion of illegal mines in 2018.

Over the past year, miners have proved to be better equipped than in the past: they often go around armed and, using clandestine landing strips, have set up a supply network serving fully-fledged villages complete with broadband internet, bars, brothels and shops. The garimpo have the backing of local business elites and organised crime, involved in gold smuggling.

Sexual abuse of indigenous women by miners

The garimpo's abuses against indigenous communities include poisoning rivers with mercury used to separate gold from sediment — responsible for a rise in neurological defects among newborns — and sexual abuse. The most exposed are the Yanomami, one of the most iconic groups in the Amazon, who have recounted a harrowing series of abuses: miners offer them drugs, alcohol and food in exchange for sexual favours. Where this is not enough, force is used: several women, including very young girls, have reported being raped.

Young Yanomami have repeatedly attempted to block the passage of supplies destined for the miners along the Uraricoera river, but this has only provoked armed clashes and reprisals from the garimpo, who, for example, opened fire on the village of Palimiu to intimidate the community.

Uncontacted groups forced to flee

Meanwhile, satellite images show that uncontacted groups have begun moving their homes further away from the forests being mined, in order to escape the advance of the mines and the miners.

The same miners are accused in the report of having spread coronavirus and malaria among the most vulnerable populations, abandoned by medical staff due to cuts to Brazil's healthcare system decided by the government led by far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil's laws threaten indigenous communities

The shocking report drawn up by Hay comes at the very moment when Bolsonaro is attempting, once again, to reduce the rights of indigenous peoples: the government is seeking to legalise all mining activities on indigenous lands in the Amazon.

For this reason, thousands of indigenous representatives from 200 different tribes organised a massive demonstration in the capital Brasilia, to protest once again against a devastating bill. A few months ago, Bolsonaro — accused of genocide and crimes against humanity — backed the recognition of the marco temporal, namely the proposal promoted by the agribusiness sector under which indigenous peoples who cannot prove that on 5 October 1988 — the day the Brazilian constitution was promulgated — they were physically living on their lands, no longer have any rights over them. The Supremo tribunal federal must rule on this matter, but the ruling has yet to come.

Meanwhile, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has promised indigenous peoples that he will halt illegal extraction on their reserves should he become president at the next presidential elections scheduled for October 2022. The risk is that it will be too late to intervene.