The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest intact forest. It is home to more than 24 million people in Brazil alone, including hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Peoples belonging to 180 different groups (Brazil and the Amazon Forest). Among other tribes, Yanomami are one of those largest isolated indigenous tribes. They belong to semi-nomadic communities and depend on soil regeneration and biodiversity. Their population is estimated to be approximately thirty-two thousand people, the majority of whom live in Brazil (Plummer, 2014). During the 1980s, the Yanomami suffered immensely when up to 40,000 Brazilian gold-miners invaded their land. The miners shot them, destroyed many villages, and exposed them to diseases to which they had no immunity. Twenty percent of the Yanomami died in just seven years (Survival International, The Yanomami).
Although after a long international campaign, Yanomami land in Brazil was finally demarcated as the ‘Yanomami Park’ in 1992 and the miners expelled, however the gold-miners never stopped entering to the area and causing troubles with Yanomami tribes. The gold miners’ devastating actions caught vast national and international attention and anger. As a result, the Brazilian court found five miners guilty of genocide back in 1993. Alongside illegal mining has caused significant environmental threats including but not only: pollution of rivers, resulting in a lack of food, clean water, and fertile land (Plummer 2014:484).
Brazil recognizes four protected land statuses: federal and state conservation units (“SNUC”), indigenous lands, legal reserves and permanent preservation areas, and “‘other public forests’ protected by law” (Plummer 2014:499). The SNUC is further divided into two groups: units of integral protection and sustainable use units (ibid). By law, there is no “consumption, collection, damage, or destruction of natural resources (ibid). Mining and other exploitation of indigenous land is technically only permitted with the authorization of the National Congress, after hearing from the communities involved. Article 231 of the Constitution of Brazil states that “lands traditionally occupied by Indians are those on which they live on a permanent basis, those used for their productive activities, those indispensable to the preservation of the environmental resources necessary for their well-being and for their physical and cultural reproduction,” and it gives Indians “exclusive usufruct of the riches of the soil, the rivers and the lakes” on this traditional land (Plummer 2014:482).
The reserves are one of the most effective ways to protect the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a huge carbon store that helps slow down global warming. Without these indigenous areas, biodiversity loss would be much greater (Daily, Indigenous reserves and the future of the Amazon 2018). However, in the recent years, the importance of the reserves have been underestimated by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. His initiated bill to the Congress promises to open Brazil’s indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism. This bill is against the Constitutional right of the indigenous people who have granted permanent possession and exclusive use of the demarcated indigenous territory. According to Bolsonaro’s rationale, the indigenous territories are too big in relation to the number of people who live there and that the indigenous communities are being exploited and manipulated by non-governmental organizations and environmentalists.
Bolsonaro’s anti-indigenous policies have encouraged an estimated 20,000 illegal goldminers (garimpeiros) to have entered Yanomami Park (BBC 2021, Brazil Amazon: illegal miners fire on indigenous groups) carrying automatic weapons, and even started shooting indiscriminately. During Covid-19 pandemic illegal miners intensified their activities. The indigenous tribes residing in the territory are calling for the help and have organized demonstrations several times protesting Bolsonaro’s anti-indigenous policies. The realities on the field are much worse, the tribes are experiencing constant fear, uncertainty and threat. Their right for self-determination is under attack. The conflict is predicted to intensify as confrontations take place from time to time. Illegal miners are technically better equipped than the local Yanomami communities (BBC 2019). Their physical superiority is also supported by the President’s policies that do exclude positive developments. Bolsonaro claims that indigenous people want mining and industrial agribusiness on their lands and that he, as the president is obliged to respect their wishes. According to Bolsonaro “Indians should not continue to be poor living above rich land. In Roraima, there are trillions of reais [Brazilian currency] under their land, [in the form of mineral wealth],”(Mongabay 2019, Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act).
The side effects of illegal mining needs to be seriously addressed at the international level. Brazil voted in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognizes various human and indigenous rights in its Constitution. Multilateral organizations should raise voices and develop unified advocacy for the indigenous communities whose rights are violated each and every day, the illegal actions also violates the Yanomami right to life because their lives, culture, and religion are inextricably linked to the Amazon and its natural resources. Moreover, the complexity of the problem imposes risks on the environment and climate. The right to a healthy environment is found in various international treaties and the Brazilian Constitution, which states that all people have a right to “an ecologically balanced environment, which is . . . essential to a healthy quality of life, and both the Government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations” (Plummer, 2014).These actions are also against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that also links human rights to environmental conditions. Article 29, for example, states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories or resources. States shall establish and implement assistance programmes for indigenous peoples for such conservation and protection, without discrimination (Plummer, 2014:493). It is therefore, urgent to bring illegal mining in the agenda of international domain and to develop straightforward approaches.
References
Brazil and the Amazon Forest, accessed 28 June 2021<https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/issues/brazil-and-the-amazon-forest>.
BBC 2021, Brazil Amazon: illegal miners fire on indigenous groups, accessed 28 June 2021 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57069504.
BBC 2019, Brazil’s indigenous women protest against Bolsonaro policies, accessed 28 June 2021 <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49329680>.
Daily, Indigenous reserves and the future of the Amazon (2018), accessed 28 June 2021 https://daily.jstor.org/indigenous-reserves-and-the-future-of-the-amazon.
Mongabay (2019), Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act, accessed 28 June 2021 <https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/yanomami-amazon-reserve-invaded-by-20000-miners-bolsonaro-fails-to-act/>.
Plummer, J. (2014). The Yanomami: Illegal mining, law, and indigenous rights in the Brazilian Amazon. Geo. Int’l Envtl. L. Rev., 27, 479.
Survival International, The Yanomami. Accessed 28 June 2021 <https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/yanomami>.
By Nino Zotikishvili: The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
