{"id":6876,"date":"2018-12-10T19:42:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazoniasocioambiental.org\/radar\/illegal-mining-in-amazon-rainforest-has-become-an-epidemic\/"},"modified":"2018-12-10T20:23:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:23:52","slug":"illegal-mining-in-amazon-rainforest-has-become-an-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/radar\/illegal-mining-in-amazon-rainforest-has-become-an-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal mining in Amazon rainforest has become an ‘epidemic’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dom Phillips\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/strong><\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Campaigners release map showing scale of pollution and damage to environment caused by small-scale miners<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An epidemic of illegal artisanal mining across the Amazon rainforest has been revealed in\u00a0an unprecedented new map<\/a>, pinpointing 2,312 sites in 245 areas across six Amazon countries.<\/p>\n

Called\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0in Brazil, artisanal mining for gold and other minerals in Amazon\u00a0forests<\/a>\u00a0and rivers has been a problem for decades and is usually illegal. It is also highly polluting: clearings are cut into forests, mining ponds carved into the earth, and mercury used in extraction is dumped in rivers, poisoning fish stocks and water supplies. But its spread has never been shown before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a big impact seeing it all together,\u201d said Alicia Rolla, adjunct coordinator at the Amazon Socio-environmental, Geo-referenced Information Project, or RAISG, which produced the map. \u201cThis illegal activity causes as many social as environment problems and we hope there can be coordinated actions from the countries impacted to prohibit it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its publication comes weeks before Brazil\u2019s far-right president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, takes office on 1 January. Last year Bolsonaro said he\u00a0practised\u00a0<\/a>artisanal gold mining during his holidays in the 1980s and he has won\u00a0support<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0garimpeiros (<\/em>artisanal miners) with promises to help them work with \u201cdignity and security\u201d. He also wants to legalise mining on protected indigenous reserves where it is currently banned.<\/p>\n

The map was produced by a network of non-government, environmental groups in six Amazon countries \u2013 FAN in Bolivia, Gaia in Colombia, IBC in Peru, Ecoci\u00eancia in Ecuador, Provita and Wataniba in Venezuela, and Imazon and the Instituto Socioambiental in\u00a0Brazil<\/a>. It also includes information where available on what was being mined and when, citing sources that vary from government registers to satellite imagery.<\/p>\n

In 37 cases, the groups say illegal artisanal mining took place in protected indigenous reserves, 18 of which were in Brazil. Another 78 reserves showed\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0taking place along their limits and borders \u2013 64 of them in Peru \u2013 and 55 nature reserves also had illegal mining.<\/p>\n

An accompanying \u201cstory map<\/a>\u201d in English has maps, videos and interviews, detailing cases, such as the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in Puerto Luz in Peru, where indigenous people said they had been forced into artisanal mining because the devastation it wrought in their region left no other options to survive.<\/p>\n

The mercury used in gold extraction is affecting indigenous and local populations who live or work near mine sites, it said. In Venezuela \u2013 which has the highest number of mining sites \u2013 and Colombia, illegal mining often happens in areas where irregular armed groups operate.<\/p>\n

Nilo D\u2019Avila, campaigns director at Greenpeace Brasil, said the map confirmed his own research showing\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0is increasing in the Amazon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0epidemic in Brazil,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are talking about impact on biodiversity and forests, we are talking about the use of mercury, we are talking about stealing riches from indigenous people and from Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos Young, a professor of economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a specialist in environmental economics connected to illegal deforestation and the trade in drugs and arms, said\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0camps can bring in alcohol and prostitution, causing negative impacts on forest communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is also a map of crime, of the drug trade, of prostitution. There are diverse nuances of this crime, of this illegality, that demands integrated governance,\u201d he said. The map also shows how prevalent\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0is in border regions, he noted, adding that Bolsonaro\u2019s plans to neuter environmental agencies will encourage it more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I want to guarantee national sovereignty I need more inspections and control and not the contrary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The map also shows how close many illegal sites are to legal mining concessions. That came as no surprise to Laura Sauls, a PhD candidate at the geography school at Clark University in Massachusetts, and one of a group of international scientists behind another\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0that showed how legal mining and associated infrastructure works increasingly threaten forest cover and community rights by enabling \u201cpopulation movements and agricultural expansion further into the forest\u201d. In some cases, she said,\u00a0garimpo<\/em>\u00a0comes too. \u201cI would expect there to be illegal mining in areas where there is a large mine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

See more:\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/dec\/10\/illegal-mining-in-brazils-rainforests-has-become-an-epidemic?CMP=share_btn_link<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An epidemic of illegal artisanal mining across the Amazon rainforest has been revealed in\u00a0an unprecedented new map, pinpointing 2,312 sites in 245 areas across six Amazon countries.<\/p>\n

Called\u00a0garimpo\u00a0in Brazil, artisanal mining for gold and other minerals in Amazon\u00a0forests\u00a0and rivers has been a problem for decades and is usually illegal. It is also highly polluting: clearings are cut into forests, mining ponds carved into the earth, and mercury used in extraction is dumped in rivers, poisoning fish stocks and water supplies. But its spread has never been shown before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a big impact seeing it all together,\u201d said Alicia Rolla, adjunct coordinator at the Amazon Socio-environmental, Geo-referenced Information Project, or RAISG, which produced the map. \u201cThis illegal activity causes as many social as environment problems and we hope there can be coordinated actions from the countries impacted to prohibit it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radar","category-1","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6913,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions\/6913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}