Gold Prospectors In Northern Brazil Are Destroying Amazon Rivers
Gold Prospectors In Northern Brazil Are Destroying Amazon Rivers
Activity has been the economic backbone in the Tapajós basin for sixty years, but the use of backhoes are worsening silting and deforestation
Fabiano Maisonnave
RIO TAPAJÓS (PA)
Luis Pinheiro, 69, has been looking for gold for the last 50 years in the Tapajós river basin. He is one cog in the machine that has been maintaining for decades the town of Itaituba, population 101,000, in western Pará.
Used to spend months without setting foot in the town, he goes directly to the point: "Everybody in Brazil in a gold prospector."
Gold mining has been part of the region's economy since the 1950s, but the activity suffered a revolution lately, with the introduction of hydraulic backhoes, machines with a destruction power several times larger than previous methods.
"After illegal logging, gold prospecting is the biggest cause of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. It's a environmental, social and moral destruction. It's organized crime taking possession of Brazilian riches," says Luciano Evaristo, director of environmental protection at Ibama, Brazil's environmental government agency.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2018/09/gold-prospectors-in-nothern-brazil-are-destroying-amazon-rivers.shtml
Environment and energy:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127119881
