Narco-miners challenge government in Yanomami territory
In a single week, at least 14 people were murdered inside the indigenous territory, including a member of Brazil’s largest criminal organization – First Capital Command (PCC). In retaliation, the faction has sent out a message telling its members to target police and federal agents.
The ruined lives of the doctors who saved the Yanomami
When they figured out that taking care of Indigenous health means taking care of the health of the forest, by impeding illegal mining, Deise Alves and Cláudio Esteves became the targets of political scheming, with bureaucracy serving as a weapon
How the Brazilian state punished doctors who revolutionized indigenous health: the Urihi story
Deise Alves and Cláudio Esteves created a healthcare model that saved the Yanomami in the 1990s and early 2000s. But because they denounced illegal miners, their reputations have been destroyed and they are being asked to pay millions of reais to the government
Study: Government must do more to prevent extinction of uncontacted peoples
New research reveals half of illegal gold mines are in areas with isolated indigenous peoples, highlighting the need for Lula's third administration to strengthen the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and Funai (the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples)
Nature is climate: We forget that at our peril
The disaster in São Paulo reminds us that we must reinforce the Amazon rainforest and other natural pillars that ‘hold up the sky'
Exclusive: Bolsonaro government knew gold miners were destroying Yanomami as early as 2020
A document sent to the Ministry of Health reported violence, illness, drugs and alcohol in the village of Kayanaú. The government failed to respond.
Pro-mining mayor defies government and reality
The Amazonian municipality of Itaituba is a centre of illegal gold prospecting, which puts it firmly in the sights of the federal government's crackdown on polluting activity inside indigenous territory. The pro-mining mayor Valmir Climaco response has been to deny the existence of indigenous lands, despite hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary.
A plea to Lula: Staunch blood gold
The new president should revoke dubiously-enacted legal clauses that facilitate the purchase of gold criminally extracted from indigenous lands. These flawed legislation contributes to a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe
“Our lives are over”: The Yanomami villages devastated by mining
Residents of three regions invaded by criminal gold prospectors reveal how their communities have been destroyed by contamination, violence and prostitution. Their accounts highlight the disruption caused by the state's failure of care.
The struggle to retake Yanomami territory from criminal control
After four years of malign negligence by the Bolsonaro government, the territory is experiencing a continual removal of dead, or extremely sick, Indigenous people, and a still uncertain plan to expel thousands of illegal, heavily armed, miners
