Uncontrolled Illegal Mining and Garimpo in the Brazilian Amazon.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39537611.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-54220-2 and PMC identifier 11560919.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
Mining has played an important role in the economies of South American countries. Although industrial mining prevails in most countries, the expansion of garimpo activity has increased substantially. Recently, Brazil exhibited two moments of garimpo dominance over industrial mining: 1989-1997 and 2019-2022. While industrial mining sites occupied ~ 360 km<sup>2</sup> in 1985 but increased to 1800 km<sup>2</sup> in 2022, a 5-fold increase, garimpo mining area increased by ~ 1200%, from ~ 218 km<sup>2</sup> in 1985 to ~ 2627 km<sup>2</sup> in 2022. More than 91% of this activity is concentrated in the Amazon. Where almost 40% of the sites are five years old or younger, this proportion increases to 62% within Indigenous lands (ILs). Regarding the legal aspect, at least 77% of the 2022 extraction sites showed explicit signs of illegality. Particular attention must be given to the Kayapo, Munduruku, and Yanomami ILs. Together, they concentrate over 90% of the garimpo across ILs.