- An eviction operation to remove illegal miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory has been underway since November 2024.
- While the actions so far have led to a reduction in illegal mining, Munduruku organizations and officials have raised concerns that miners will return or migrate to conservation units once security forces withdraw — as is common.
- Researchers and federal officials said the government should maintain a long-term presence in territories, as well as carry out actions to target high-level criminals and implement a recovery plan to ensure Indigenous peoples involved in mining have other options.
- A leader of the federal task force told Mongabay the National Public Security Force and Funai will remain in the region with patrol actions and the other agencies will carry out inspection and control actions to prevent the miners from trying to return.
This is part two of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory. Read part one here. Part three, four and five are coming soon.
Residents and officials worry illegal miners in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Amazon will simply return or migrate to other conservation units once the government’s operation to evict the miners ends. Currently, some plans and many suggestions are in place to prevent this from happening, sources told Mongabay, as the first stage of the eviction operation so far sees a reduction in mining activities.
After eviction operations and security forces withdraw, it is common to see illegal miners come back to the same area or nearby. In this region of Pará state, this includes the Amanã National Forest and the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area, the former already hit by a wave of illegal mining and deforestation. The national forest is a new favorite destination for miners, conservationists said, and they have destroyed 1,036 hectares (2,560 acres) of forest within two months.
According to conservation officials, this return or migration is due to a combination of factors, such as high profits, limited access to alternative livelihoods, weak law enforcement presence in remote areas and corruption. Also, they say, miners understand that eviction efforts are temporary, which means they can resume once the pressure subsides.
“The first phase of the operation has now ended, but we are afraid that non-Indigenous miners will return again,” João Kaba Munduruku, a coordinator of the Pusuro Indigenous Association, an organization that supports seven Munduruku villages of the Middle Tapajós region, told Mongabay.
Gold prices have reached record highs this month as U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs fuel heightened uncertainty and fears of inflation. Over the past five years, the price of gold has increased by more than 78% due in part to an increased demand from central banks. This is bad news for conservation in the Amazon, environmentalists said, where businesses and criminals rush to make large profits from the precious metal.
Nilton Tubino, leader of the federal task force carrying out the operation in the Munduruku territory, told Mongabay that aside from evictions, the Federal Police have carried out other actions to seize large quantities of gold, dismantle criminal networks and execute arrest and search warrants in several states. He said these actions, along with the continuation of patrol, inspection and control actions within the Indigenous territory, are aimed at preventing the return of illegal miners.
Lessons from past failures
In August 2024, the government focused its eviction efforts in another region on the Madeira River in the Amazon, where an army of dredges invaded the riverbed in search of gold. Although government agents destroyed 459 dredges, 100 of which were inside Indigenous territories, five months later, the dredges were back, a report by Greenpeace found.
Mongabay has reported similar cases in Peru’s Madre de Dios region and the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Roraima state.
“What we have seen in recent years, systematically, consistently and little by little, is that shortly after combat operations in specific areas, the invaders would return [to the Munduruku lands],” Luísa Molina, deputy coordinator of the Xingu Program at the Socioenvironmental Institute, told Mongabay. “Because of all this complexity, this network that keeps mining alive here, it is necessary that the territory be occupied with intelligence, with specific plans, with specific strategies and so on.”
Alisson Marugal, the federal prosecutor responsible for the Yanomami case, told Mongabay that the most effective measures to remove miners permanently were those that involved strategic, long-term operations that involve consistent pressure over a long period. This is so illegal miners don’t have time to recover financially from the damage caused to their infrastructure.
“With these more regular operations, a very large financial strain began to occur on these criminal organizations, and then they realized that it was not in their interest, from a financial point of view, to maintain the mining in the Yanomami territory.”
But despite the significant reduction in mining activity in the Yanomami territory, a few groups of miners are still present, Marugal said. “It is worth remembering that gold and cassiterite, which are the most abundant minerals in the [Yanomami] Indigenous land, are breaking records on the international market. It is important to have a long-term policy so that the miners do not return.”
Anticipating miners’ moves
Julia Yansura, the program director for environmental crime and illicit finance at the FACT Coalition, told Mongabay that the Brazilian government should combine on-the-ground eviction operations with financial investigations. This is “essential” to find out who is behind the illegal mining and who benefits, she said.
The arrest or displacement of low-level miners, who may be victims of human trafficking and forced labor themselves, “does not permanently disrupt illegal mining networks,” Yansura said. “This approach alone is unlikely to be effective,” as criminal groups with “deep pockets” can replace machinery the next day.
Criminals have also been found migrating from one Indigenous territory to another following federal raids. It is common for miners to relocate from Yanomami lands to Munduruku territory, researchers said.
A single businessperson can have stakes in illegal mining operations across several Indigenous territories, said Rodrigo Chagas, a researcher at the Society and Borders Postgraduate Program at the Federal University of Roraima. This ensures that even if operations are disrupted in one region, financial losses are rarely felt across all fronts simultaneously.
Miners can “even seek new opportunities in Venezuela or Guyana when faced with intensive law enforcement crackdowns,” Chagas, also a researcher at the Brazilian Public Security Forum, told Mongabay over WhatsApp messages.
This decision to go to another country depends on factors such as personal contact networks, seasonal variations (dry and rainy periods), logistical considerations and more favorable political or regulatory conditions, he said.
Ronilson Vasconcelos, a coordinator of a special advanced unit of ICMBio, the agency responsible for federal conservation units, told Mongabay that to combat this, the agency tries to anticipate this shift by reinforcing the protection of conservation units around the territories where eviction operations take place.
“When the government planned this operation in the Munduruku Indigenous land, we were very categorical in saying that we had to go more forcefully into the conservation units bordering the territory, especially the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area and the Amanã and Crepori national forests,” Vasconcelos said.
The Tapajós Environmental Protection Area, which is home to several vulnerable species, such as the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) and harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), is the most invaded conservation area in Brazil, according to a 2023 report by Mapbiomas. Deforestation and contamination caused by illegal mining are threats to area’s biodiversity, such as its large populations of jaguars (Panthera onca), river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and primates living in the Amanã and Crepori reserves.
No alternative incomes
Without a post-removal plan that guarantees food security, promotes sources of decent income and sustainable alternatives for the region, Indigenous and non-Indigenous miners with no alternative incomes will be forced to join them.
“Those people who worked in mining activities, they have no other way of surviving,” Kaba explained. “They have no other type of project to generate income.”
Molina echoed this call for a recovery plan to combat food insecurity, health issues and the spread of malaria, which has left the Munduruku unable to farm, fish or hunt. “It’s a matter of security and it’s important to have inspection bases within the territory to prevent invaders from returning.”
Tubino told Mongabay that the second phase of the operation involves the implementation of a maintenance plan, which includes protecting, monitoring and caring for the land. As part of this plan, the National Public Security Force and Funai, the Indigenous affairs agency, will remain in the region to carry out patrols, while other agencies carry out inspection and control actions to ensure miners do not return.
Banner image: Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) near the Tapajós river, next to Sawré Muybu Indigenous Land, home to the Munduruku people, Pará state, Brazil. Photo by Valdemir Cunha / Greenpeace.
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