- Government efforts to evict illegal miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon so far have led to a reduction in illegal mining, according to government officials and Munduruku organizations.
- Since the operation began in November 2024, agents have destroyed 90 camps, 15 vessels and 27 heavy machinery, in addition to handing out 24.2 million Brazilian reais ($4.2 million) in fines.
- While there has been some interruption to mining in the region, Munduruku organizations said the operation has not been completely effective, as there are still some invaders and machinery in certain areas of the territory.
- A Munduruku source told Mongabay they are worried that miners will return once security forces withdraw and also, without alternative income sources, Indigenous people involved in mining will have no option but to continue.
This is part one of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory. Part two, three, four and five are coming soon.
In Brazil’s Amazon, an operation to remove illegal miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in the state of Pará has, so far, led to a reduction in mining activities, according to government officials and Munduruku organizations. However, small groups of illegal miners still remain, raising fears among residents that mining will resume once security forces withdraw.
“The first phase of the operation has already ended but we are afraid that non-Indigenous miners will return again. But thank God, with this operation, the entry of non-Indigenous miners has greatly reduced,” João Kaba Munduruku, a coordinator of the Pusuro Indigenous Association, an organization that supports seven Munduruku villages of the Middle Tapajós region, told Mongabay.
Since the start of the Munduruku Indigenous Land Removal Operation (OD-TIMU) in November 2024, government agents have carried out 523 actions, destroying 90 camps, 15 vessels, 27 heavy machinery and 224 engines. The coordinated government effort, which involves the Brazilian Army, Federal Police, Ibama, Funai and others, caused losses of 112.3 million Brazilian reais ($1.9 million) to criminals.
Other aspects of the operation, like the scale of reduction, were not shared with Mongabay. The Federal Public Ministry in Pará implemented a procedure to monitor the eviction work but the process is confidential, sources said.
The 2.4-million-hectare (5.9-million-acre) Munduruku Indigenous Territory, home to 6,500 people, is one of the lands that has been hardest hit by illegal mining in the country. During Bolsonaro’s administration, there was a 363% increase in the area degraded by mining which brought diseases, mercury contamination, attacks and deaths to communities.
Illegal miners are made up of criminal groups, businesspeople and Indigenous people looking to increase their income, combat food security or just get rich quickly.
“The presence of these invaders has contributed greatly to the spread of diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, itchy skin and addictions brought by these new colonizers,” Haroldo Pinto do Espírito Santo, a coordinator of Brazil’s Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI), told Mongabay.
Mercury, which is widely used by the miners to separate gold from the ore, is arbitrarily dumped in the surroundings, leading to air, soil and water pollution that threatens biodiversity and human health. At the bottom of the rivers, bacteria transform mercury into methylmercury, its organic form, which is then absorbed into the food chain.
Large carnivorous fish that are caught and consumed by the Munduruku, such as the black piranha (Serrasalmus rhombeus), the peacock bass (Cichla ocellaris) and piraíba (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum), carry the highest concentrations of mercury because the methylmercury bioaccumulates and biomagnifies along the chain.
In 2020, a study conducted by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) in partnership with WWF-Brazil found that Munduruku people were affected by mercury. Approximately 57.9% of the participants had mercury levels above the maximum safety limit established by health agencies. Mercury impacts the central nervous system, causing brain damage and deformities.
Nilton Tubino, leader of the federal task force carrying out the operation, told Mongabay that Brazil’s Federal Police have also carried out other actions to seize large quantities of gold, dismantle criminal networks, and execute arrest and search warrants in several states. “The biggest challenge is logistics,” he said, “since access to many mining activity sites requires the use of helicopters to carry out repressive actions, which, in this specific case, for example, are influenced by the weather conditions.”
The operation
The operation follows a 2020 Federal Supreme Court (STF) order for the federal government to escalate actions against illegal mining in Munduruku and other Indigenous lands, such as those belonging to the Yanomami, Karipuna, Uru-eu-wau-wau and Kayapó peoples. This request was made again in 2023 because actions up until then had been ineffective.
The illegal miners are made up of several groups and their presence depends on the region, Tubino said. Reports suggest that one of those groups is the Boi na Brasa group, or BNB, which is formed by individuals of the same family.
A 2021 investigation by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office of Pará (MPF-PA) said the BNB, which had been under investigation since 2018, controlled at least three different illegal mining sites within the Munduruku land and one in the Crepori National Forest in Jacareacanga which, according to the court, caused “serious environmental damage to specifically protected areas and the promotion of the usurpation of federal property.”
However, BNB is not the only group, Luísa Molina, deputy coordinator of the Xingu Program at the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), told Mongabay over WhatsApp voice messages. “We can say without a shadow of a doubt that these are criminal organizations that operate in different states of the country and that finance the illegal operation of this machinery within the territories.”
Besides the machinery itself, these groups finance the distribution of weapons to some Indigenous people who are recruited to guard the machinery, she added. “There are networks of people who work there to keep the mining active,” such as traders and businesspeople. “There is an entire ecosystem.”
The first phase of the operation — to evict illegal miners — opened with discussions with the Munduruku peoples and the state and municipal entities, Tubino said. Then, the Amazon Protection Center (CENSIPAM) mapped the Indigenous territory using satellite images which were used by security forces to guide actions.
“Using aircraft, drones, boats and vehicles, we conducted reconnaissance, doing what we could call an X-ray of the entire territory,” Tubino said. “The eviction is carried out by the group of federal agencies that make up the security forces. Therefore, police, intelligence, equipment, weapons, military personnel and civil servants are part of the task force.”
More than 200 agents worked in the first phase, including inspection agents from the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), and Brazil’s national regulator for the ground transportation sector (ANTT).
How to stop miners from returning
On Dec. 12, at the halfway mark of the first phase, several Munduruku organizations, including the Munduruku Movement lpereg Ayü, the Munduruku Women’s Association (Wakoborun) and the Munduruku Alto Tapajós Indigenous Council (CIMAT), published a joint statement that said the operation had not yet been completely effective, as there were still areas where invaders and machinery were still present. The Kaburuá River, New Kabitutu village, Tucunaré village and Maloquinha village were some of the sites listed in the statement that were still affected by illegal mining.
Today, as the government prepares to enter the second phase, which now includes implementing a maintenance plan, Kaba told Mongabay a large concern among the local communities is that the miners will return once security forces withdraw. Additionally, without a post-removal plan that guarantees food security and promotes sources of decent income and sustainable alternatives for the region, Indigenous miners with no alternative incomes will be forced to join them.
“Those people who worked in mining activities, they have no other way of surviving,” Kaba said. “They have no other type of project to generate income.”
Molina agreed with this call for a recovery plan to combat food insecurity, health issues and the spread of malaria which has left them unable to farm, fish or hunt. “It’s a matter of security and it’s important to have inspection bases within the territory to prevent invaders from returning.”
After eviction operations, it is common to see illegal miners return to the same area or nearby. This is due to a combination of factors, such as high profits, limited access to alternative livelihoods, weak law enforcement presence in remote areas, corruption and the understanding that eviction efforts are temporary, which means miners can resume once the pressure subsides.
“Law enforcement often focus their efforts on the immediate mining site, destroying yellow machinery and arresting or displacing miners,” Julia Yansura, the program director for environmental crime and illicit finance at the FACT Coalition, told Mongabay. “This approach alone is unlikely to be effective,” as criminal groups with “deep pockets” can replace machinery the next day.
The arrest or displacement of low-level miners, who may themselves be victims of human trafficking and forced labor, “does not permanently disrupt illegal mining networks,” she added.
In Aug. 2024, the government focused its efforts on the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon, where an army of dredges invaded the riverbed in search of gold. Although government agents destroyed 459 dredges, 100 of which were inside Indigenous territories, five months later, the dredges were back, a report by Greenpeace found. Mongabay has reported similar cases in Peru’s Madre de Dios region and the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Roraima state.
Instead of arresting or simply evicting of the low-level miners, Yansura said, the Brazilian government should combine on-the-ground eviction operations with financial investigations. This is “essential” to find out who is behind the illegal mining and who benefits.
“What we have seen in recent years, systematically, consistently and little by little, is that shortly after combat operations in specific areas, the invaders would return [to the Munduruku lands],” Molina said. “Because of all this complexity, this network that keeps mining alive here, it is necessary that the territory be occupied with intelligence, with specific plans, with specific strategies and so on.”
Kaba said the operation to remove the illegal miners has also caused some damage.
“Some of the residues from the machines that were burnt were left here, as well as equipment and oil. The remains of leftover machinery were thrown into the streams and rivers,” he explained. “These also harm the Indigenous population, and the residue that was not removed will remain permanently in the territory.”
Tubino told Mongabay that the second phase of the operation involves the implementation of a maintenance plan, which involves protecting, monitoring and caring for the land. As part of this plan, the National Public Security Force and Funai, will remain in the region to carry out patrol actions, while other agencies carry out inspection and control actions to ensure miners do not return.
Banner image: Two Munduruku boys walk along a river in the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Land. Photo by Anderson Barbosa / Greenpeace.
Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
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