Activists believe as many as 20,000 garimpeiro prospectors are operating within the Yanomami reserve in northern Brazil using speedboats and light aircraft to penetrate the vast expanse of jungle near the border with Venezuela. Yanomami leaders denounced the visit as an unwanted attempt to promote illegal mining in their ancestral land. An illegal gold mine in the Uraricoera river region of the Yanomami reserve. They are just huge.”An area of rainforest destroyed by goldminers in the Apiaú region of the Yanomami reserve. “I grew up amid the invasion of 40,000 wildcat miners, who killed almost 20% of my people … we suffered so much.

Source: The Guardian May 27, 2021 12:15 UTC