More than 1.5 million trees were felled by illegal mining in Munduruku Indigenous Land

Gabriel Abreu – From CENARIUM MAGAZINE

MANAUS – The Deforestation Alert System in Indigenous Lands with Isolated People Records (Sirad) disclosed last Friday, 2, by the Socio-environmental Institute (ISA), that illegal mining caused the deforestation of more than 1.5 million trees felled between 2020 and 2022, in the Munduruku Indigenous Land (TI), located in the southwest region of the State of Pará, in the municipality of Jacareacanga, on the right bank of the Tapajós River.

The Cabitutu River region, the second most populated of the TI, where there is a record of an isolated indigenous people, is one of the areas most under pressure from mining, second only to the location close to the Tapajós River.

ISA’s monitoring indicates that the territory of the Munduruku people is among the most pressured and invaded by illegal mining activity in the Amazon. The Sirad-I monitoring has already identified, from January to date, approximately 440 hectares of deforestation caused by this illegal activity within the Munduruku TI.

October was the month with the greatest increase in the deforested area – 136 hectares. In this period the expansion of old mines and the presence of new ones was identified. Between September and October, another 156 hectares were deforested in the TI. The Sirad-I began monitoring this TI in July 2020 and since then 2,652 hectares of deforestation related to mining have already been registered. This is equivalent to more than 1.5 million trees felled in this period.

Monitoring

According to Greenpeace Brazil, the drastic reduction in the budget of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), to carry out inspection and control activities, and the explicit willingness of the Bolsonaro Government to open indigenous territories to mining are other factors that not only facilitate the criminal actions of invaders, but even encourage them.

In support of the Munduruku people, Greenpeace Brazil is monitoring the advance of mining activity in the region. It is a matter of guaranteeing and defending the very survival of an ancient people who were here before the problematic process of colonization of America.

Through monitoring overflights and the analyses carried out, we have been able to demonstrate the devastating scale of the activity carried out illegally within Munduruku territory. Illegal mining in these areas relies on aircraft, helicopters, hydraulic backhoes and dredges (large floating rafts) that suck up earth from the river bottom, which indicates an orchestrated action of criminal groups with high purchasing power.

Mercury

In November last year, the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa) confirmed, in a study carried out in partnership with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the high levels of exposure of the population of Tapajós to mercury caused by the invasion of illegal miners in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory.

The work was conducted in the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Land, traditionally occupied by the Munduruku people, still in the identification and delimitation phase by Funai, located in the municipalities of Itaituba and Trairão. Pará has one of the largest gold reserves in Brazil and, in the Tapajós basin region, where there is a large confluence of indigenous lands and gold mines, there are records of mining activity since the 1950s.

“We did this work at the request of the Pariri Indigenous Association, which represents the Munduruku people of the mid Tapajós. Our intention was to produce scientific evidence and prove that the problem exists, is present in the Amazon, and is not restricted to traditional territories and indigenous populations. We want to show that the problem is broader than it seems and that all citizens living in the Amazon may be affected”, explained researcher Paulo Basta.

See the full study: