According to the texts published Monday by the official gazette, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s President, has issued two decrees to encourage gold prospecting with a special focus on the Amazon rainforest.
According to the text, the Programme to Support Development of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining was created by one decree. It aims to strengthen policies and encourage best practices. It declares that the Amazon will be the preferred region for the development works.
The other modifies existing laws and regulations. For example, the nation’s mining regulator must establish simplified criteria to analyze permit requests for prospecting.
These measures sparked outrage from Indigenous and environmental rights groups. They warned that they would increase the illegal destruction and pollution of the world’s largest rainforest and waterways with mercury, which was used to separate gold.
Larissa Rodrigues (portfolio manager at Choices Institute), said by telephone that “they run contrary to what the federal government should do.” “There is massive illegality in the chain that is easily quantifiable. The government should be concerned with controlling that chain and not giving additional stimulus to it. Bolsonaro has been a vocal supporter of mining the Amazon since his presidential campaign, promising to uncover the vast mineral wealth. He gained a lot of support from prospectors for his efforts. He is widely expected that he will run for reelection this October.
Non-governmental organizations have been raising alarm about the fact that the president’s comments, and the reduction in environmental oversight during his term, have encouraged illegal miners and sparked a gold rush, causing great damage to their work.
Bolsonaro is the son a prospector and has remained unmoved. Bolsonaro views prospecting as one the few options for people living in remote areas with limited opportunities.
According to a statement made by the secretary General of the presidency, prospecting “represents elevated potential for wealth and income generation for a population numbering in the hundreds of thousands,”
A Associated Press investigation revealed that illegal landing strips and unauthorised aircrafts helped prospectors mine tons of Indigenous gold. The gold ends up in the hands of brokers, some of whom are under investigation by authorities for receiving gold from illegal mining — facilitated by a widespread lack of traceability. The global supply chain includes the gold that is refined in Sao Paulo.
Rodrigues’ Choices Institute released a study last week that found 229 tons of gold with indications of illegality were sold from 2015 to 2020, or roughly half of national production — most of which originated in the Amazon. The study was based in part on more than 40,000 sales records and satellite imagery of production sites. Rodrigues said that simplifications to the mining regulator’s permit process could result in a wave or clearing of the agency’s backlog of requests, which could lead to “complete lack control.” One decree creates a multiagency committee that is charged with developing policies to encourage “artisanal mining,” which it claims will be sustainable. The majority of gold prospecting in Amazon is not artisanal. It uses generators and heavy machinery to dig trenches and drag rivers. Beto Marubo (an Indigenous leader in Brazil’s Javari Valley, which borders Peru), stated via Twitter that the decree is “another incentive for destruction of the rivers and forests, as well as the life of our communities.”
(This story is not edited by Devdiscourse staff.
