Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Source in Yemeni Ministry of Defense to SABA: Yemeni "missiles will not cease targeting the criminal Zionist entity until the aggression is halted and the siege on our people in Gaza is lifted"
Source in Yemeni Ministry of Defense to SABA: Our missiles are designed to fragment if intercepted, hitting more targets
Source in Yemeni Ministry of Defense calls on investors, companies operating in the Israeli entity to leave immediately: SABA
Iranian foreign minister: The Omani Foreign Minister made a short visit to Tehran and delivered the US proposal to us, which we will respond to in a manner that guarantees the interests of our people
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: The points stipulate a willingness to hand over the administration of Gaza to the Community Support Committee and the occupation's withdrawal to the pre-March 2 borders
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: The clauses also stipulate a demand for a five-year truce
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: The clauses agreed upon by the factions include sending aid into Gaza in accordance with the humanitarian protocol agreed upon on January 17
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: We agreed to release 10 captives in separate batches in exchange for a number of our prisoners to be agreed upon through mediators
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: The [Palestinian] factions agreed on points that stipulated obtaining American guarantees for a complete cessation of the war and the full entry of aid
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: We agreed to release 10 captives in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners to be agreed upon through mediators

‘Road to Chaos’: Brazil goldminers' way through the Amazon reserve

  • By Al Mayadeen English
  • Source: Agencies
  • 12 Dec 2022 13:12
  • 1 Shares
5 Min Read

Aerial photographs from a reconnaissance mission show an attempt to smuggle excavators into Brazil's largest Indigenous territory.

  • x
  • The ‘Road to Chaos’ runs through the Yanomami territory in the Amazon. Source: Valentina Ricardo / Greenpeace
    The ‘Road to Chaos’ runs through the Yanomami territory in the Amazon. (Greenpeace)

A reconnaissance mission released aerial images that show an attempt to smuggle excavators into Brazil's largest Indigenous territory.
 
The surveillance plane rolled off the runway and banked west, heading for the epicenter of one of Brazil's most dramatic environmental and humanitarian crises.

A secret 120km (75-mile) road carved out of the jungles of Brazil's largest Indigenous territory in recent months by illegal mining mafias in an audacious attempt to smuggle excavators into those ostensibly protected lands.

“I call it the Road to Chaos,” said Danicley de Aguiar, the Greenpeace environmentalist leading the reconnaissance mission over the immense Indigenous sanctuary near the Brazilian border with Venezuela.

Such heavy machinery had never been discovered in the Yanomami territory, according to Aguiar, Portugal-sized swath of mountains, rivers, and forests in the far north of Brazil's Amazon.

“We believe there are at least four excavators in there – and that takes mining in Yanomami territory to the next level, to a colossal level of destruction,” the senior forest campaigner said, as his team prepared to take to the skies to confirm the road’s existence.

Read next: Bolsonaro may have had a hand in indigenous leader, journalist murders

An hour into the flight, the plane's cabin was filled with excited chatter as the first glimpses of the secret artery appeared. “We found it, people!” the navigator celebrated, while the pilot performed a series of stomach-churning maneuvers over the canopy to get a clearer view of the dirt track.

“That’s the Road to Chaos,” Aguiar announced through the plane’s internal communication system.

“And this is the chaos,” he added, pointing to a gaping hole in the rainforest where three yellow excavators had clawed a goldmine out of the banks of Catrimani River.

A fourth digger could be seen wrecking a territory home to about 27,000 Yanomami and Ye'kwana peoples, including several communities that have no contact with the outside world, in a nearby clearing. Worryingly, one of those isolated villages is only 10 miles from the illegal road, according to Aguiar.

Read next: Brazilian Amazon deforestation, up 60% increase under Bolsonaro, drops

Sônia Guajajara, a prominent Indigenous leader on the plane, suspected the criminals had used the recent presidential election in Brazil to sneak their equipment deep into Yanomami territory. “Everyone was focused on other things, and they took advantage,” Guajajara said.

Related News

Jair Bolsonaro faces coup trial in Brazil’s supreme court

Brazil's Bolsonaro says rushed trial aims to block his reelection bid

The arrival of excavators, which journalists from The Guardian and Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo witnessed for the first time, is the latest chapter in a half-century assault by powerful and politically connected mining gangs.

Huge fortunes were made and frequently lost. But it was a disaster for the Yanomami. Lives and traditions were turned upside down. Epidemics of influenza and measles decimated villages. According to the rights organization Survival International, roughly 20% of the tribe died in just seven years.

Following a worldwide outcry, tens of thousands of miners were evicted in the early 1990s as part of a security operation known as Selva Livre. Under international pressure, Fernando Collor de Mello, Brazil's then-President, established a 9.6 million-hectare reserve.

“We have to guarantee the Yanomami a space so they don’t lose their cultural identity or their habitat,” Mello said.

Read next: Fears around UK journalist, indigenous expert missing in Amazon

Those efforts were initially successful, but by the next decade, wildcat prospectors known as garimpeiros had returned due to soaring gold prices, lax enforcement, and grinding poverty, which provided mining bosses with an endless supply of exploitable workers.

The assault intensified after Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist who wants Indigenous lands opened up to commercial development, was elected President in 2018, with an estimated 25,000 wildcat miners on Yanomami land.

“It was a government of blood,” said Júnior Hekurari Yanomami, a Yanomami leader who blamed Bolsonaro for emboldening the invaders with his anti-Indigenous rhetoric and for crippling Brazil’s environmental and Indigenous protection agencies.

Illegal gold mining increased to an all-time high on #Brazil's largest Indigenous reservation last year, according to a new report that included disturbing accounts of miners abusing women and girls, including extorting sex.#Indigenous pic.twitter.com/JgFUT2mpo5

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) April 14, 2022

Yanomami also expects a large-scale federal intervention when the new government takes office in January but warns that defeating the garimpeiros will be difficult.

“These miners don’t just carry spades and axes … They have rifles and submachine guns … They are armed and all of [their] bases have heavily armed security guards with the same kind of weapons that the army, the federal police and the military police use,” he said.

Inaction would mean extinction for a people who lived in the rainforest for thousands of years.

“If nothing is done we’ll lose this Indigenous land,” Alisson Marugal, a federal prosecutor tasked with protecting Yanomami lands said. “For the Yanomami, the outlook is grim.”

Read next: 'Blue River' turns brown, Illegal gold mining in Amazon raises concern

  • Jair Bolsonaro
  • Brazil
  • Amazon
  • Yanomami

Most Read

US judges quietly consider private security amid Trump tensions

US judges quietly consider private security amid Trump pressures

  • US & Canada
  • 25 May 2025
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive to a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington (AP)

Rift widens: Trump, Netanyahu clash in heated phone call over Iran

  • Politics
  • 26 May 2025
An Israeli army vehicle moves in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern occupied Palestine, Thursday, May 29, 2025 (AP)

Hamas rejects Witkoff ceasefire plan, says alters terms

  • Politics
  • 29 May 2025
Spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announces a new operation against Ben Gurion Airport on May 29, 2025 (Yemeni Military Media)

Yemen announces successful hypersonic missile strike on Ben Gurion

  • Politics
  • 30 May 2025

Coverage

All
War on Gaza

Read Next

All
Doctors weigh a Palestinian baby at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic in Muwasi, near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (AP)
Health

US-Israeli Gaza aid plan is catastrophic, inhumane: MSF

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Latakia governorate on May 30, 2025 (Social media)
Politics

Israeli airstrikes hit military targets across western Syria

An Iranian security official in protective clothing walks through part of the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the Iranian city of Isfahan, March 30, 2005. (AP)
Politics

US, E3 to push IAEA to declare Iran in breach of nuclear commitments

A Syrian soldier closes the gate of a military base on the outskirts of Harasta, near Damascus, Syria, Saturday, May 3, 2025 (AP)
Politics

Syrians expel Israeli patrol in Quneitra amid rising tensions

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS