The involvement of Indigenous people in illegal gold hunting, lured by the prospect of easy money due to record prices, has made Brazil's task of cracking down on wildcat mining in the Amazon far harder, environmental agents and police say. - REUTERS
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00:00Flying over Brazil's Para state, agents from the country's Environmental Protection Agency
00:06spot signs of an illegal mine.
00:09By the time they arrive at the camp, the miners have already fled.
00:14The agents said the hammocks and clothing left behind were evidence the miners were
00:19indigenous.
00:21The Mandaruku Territory, a reservation the size of Switzerland on the Tapajós River,
00:27has become a hotspot for illegal mining, which Brazilian law bans on indigenous land.
00:32But increasingly, Mandaruku tribe members are entering the illegal trade that is backed
00:37by organized crime.
00:40Environmental agents and police say that is making it more difficult for Brazil to crack
00:44down on wildcat mining in the Amazon.
00:47It's also sowing division within the Mandaruku tribe.
00:50While a majority believe gold mining is wrong, tribe leaders say lack of government assistance
00:55is forcing people to seek other ways to deal with poverty.
00:59Samuel Mangabal is among them.
01:06He says he recently found 60 grams of gold in the river, about 20 times his daily amount
01:12and enough to buy a boat and an engine.
01:15But his brother was furious and threatened to kill him if he continued, so he was forced
01:19to leave their village.
01:22President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to wipe out illegal mining that boomed under
01:27his far-right predecessor and has become harder to repress across the Amazon.
01:32Evicting miners has become more difficult on the Mandaruku Territory now that tribe
01:36members are looking for gold.
01:39Tribal leaders estimate 40 percent of the gold mining on the reservation is carried
01:43out by indigenous people today.
01:45Adding to the difficulty, local police officers have been taking bribes from a gold mining
01:50business to turn a blind eye, according to a document seen by Reuters.
01:56A chief for a nearby village said the way to stop illegal mining is to tap funding for
02:00sustainable development, such as by selling carbon credits.
02:04But there is skepticism about whether they would generate enough income to replace gold
02:09mining.