“Research shows illegal mining in Brazil on the rise”, 31 August 2021

...A scientific report released...by the organization MapBiomas showed that 65% of mining activities carried out in the Brazilian Amazon basin were not legal. MapBiomas also reported illegal mining in Brazil had grown 495% between 2010 and 2020.

Garimpo is the technical word in Portuguese for artisanal mining and the labourers who performed it are known as garimpeiros. The activity has increased fivefold in indigenous lands and 301%in conservation areas, according to MapBiomas...

The MapBiomas report also underscored that more than 72% of the extraction areas nationwide were in Amazonian lands and of all of the mining in the largest jungle on the planet, 67.6 % was illegal. Garimpo is said to be one of the main causes of deforestation. Another adverse consequence of this practice is the contamination of river basins with chemicals...

In environmental reserves, the area occupied by garimpo grew by 301% between 2010 and 2020, while in that decade the advance of illegal mining in indigenous territories was 495%, mainly affecting the lands of the Kayapó, Munduruku and Yanomami ethnic groups, all of them in the Amazon region...

In addition to being concentrated in the Amazon, illegal mining has had a strong expansion in the last decade, with its “maximum record” in just five years (2017 to 2020)...

These data on illegal mining are a new example of the acceleration of environmental deterioration in Brazil since the arrival to power of President Jair Bolsonaro...