Miners, Indigenous Groups Clash in Brazil's Amazon

October 8, 2019
Over gold-flecked earth



The Wajãpi indigenous community live in a remote area in northern Brazil. Photo: AFP


The struggle over gold buried deep beneath Brazil’s Amazon rainforest – much of it on territory set aside as national forest or indigenous land – has escalated under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro and torn at the social fabric of the region’s indigenous groups.

By Monica Raymunt (dpa)

HAVANA TIMES – In the sun-scorched Brazilian city of Itaituba, in a part of the Amazon filled with legal and illegal mines, there are two streets where young men go after weeks away in the gold pits.

Running uphill from the shores of the Tapajos river, Travessa Treze de Maio and Travessa Joao Pessoa are 2.5-kilometre stretches of asphalt caked with red dirt and lined with mechanic workshops, hotels, clothing stores and restaurants.

It’s here that more than a dozen small storefronts with names like Ouro e Joias, Gold Minas and D’Gold advertise the most important service a miner in this part of the world needs: A place to sell his gold.

Man’s lust for gold and other precious minerals buried beneath the rainforest has played a key role in Amazon degradation over the past 30 years.

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https://havanatimes.org/features/miners-indigenous-groups-clash-in-brazils-amazon/