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The act of mining Brazilian Gold in the Amazon, beginning in the 1690’s, has profoundly transformed the economy of Brazil and other surrounding countries. In the late 17th century amid a search for indigenous peoples to use in the slave trade, Portugeuese colonists began to recognize the abundance of gold in the Amazon and catalyzed what would become the longest gold rush in history. Consequently, this flooded the area with prospectors from around the globe. Because of an already profitable agricultural operation taking place in the east, many Brazilians have been funneled into the jungle as part of several agricultural reform programs. Though the methods and practices have changed in the consequent centuries, the fact remains that the Amazon can yield tremendous quantities of gold for those who are willing to venture into the jungle. The work is often dangerous and detrimental to the surrounding ecosystems. Because artisanal mining is prohibited under federal mandates, the methods employed are often crude and unregulated resulting in polluted water and massive deforestation.

Brazil’s modern illicit gold mining industry

World production graph synonymous with growing global demand for gold.

The necessity of the Amazon is indisputable, however, abuses of it and its natural resources persist in ways that are detrimental to the rain forest, the surrounding local communities, and the planet. Brazil’s illicit gold mining industry began to fully blossom in the 1950s consequently making the Amazon a focal point for the Brazilian Government. Up until this point, the traditional means of accessing the Amazon were via waterways, however, while this may have been somewhat sufficient for exploratory purposes, if the government were to extract resources in abundance then it would need a more fluid means of getting in and out. The solution to said dilemma was to build a network of roads and highways penetrating the forest, thus allowing not only mass-settlement in the region but also the opportunity to extract resources quickly and effectively. This was also seen as a way to prevent further migration in the south of Brazil, because highly successful agricultural operations were already underway and the government wanted to avoid any conflict between farmers in the region.

Management of the rain forest's resources began to take shape with Brazil’s Agrarian Reform Program. The program, established in the 1970s, has since trans-located approximately 1.2 million settlers, mostly into Amazonian hinterlands. Available records indicate that between 1995 and 2011, 1,235,130 families had been trans-located into 8865 settlement projects, those of which account for roughly 10.3% of Brazil’s territory. Though only 13% of those families have been relocated to Amazonia, this program has still been heavily taxing on the Amazon. This is due, in large part, to the lackluster enforcement of environmental regulations by the government. Though Brazil’s Ministry of Agrarian Development presides over the land allocations and regulations that stipulate the rules landowners must adhere to, they fail in ensuring cooperation. For example, in an assessment from 1985-2001, of 4340 agrarian settlement projects, only 43% retained the mandated environmental buffer established by the ministry. Also, Brazil Amazonia reported the highest rates of illegal timber extraction. This results in a situation in which the Brazilian Environmental Agency (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis—IBAMA) repeatedly fines the federal agrarian agency (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária—INCRA). Thus, there ensues a case in which government agencies that preside in overlapping jurisdictions fail to clearly define multilateral policy objectives, which ultimately produces inefficiencies.

When this rural-rural migration took place, the land that the migrants were allotted was often infertile. Once they found that the land they were allowed to farm on was not yielding consistently, they saw the need to make use of the entirety of their allotment thus leading to the deforestation of the required riparian buffers. However, even after having made use of the entire plot, they did not realize any substantial production. It is this series of events that has led many to resort to illegal mining.

Gold mining is explicitly illegal in the Amazon according to official federal mandates, however, it persists due to the lack of government oversight described earlier. One maneuver that gold prospectors have been employing is to pay local village leaders to “‘guide’” them through the local forests. Because the government does a poor job of patrolling the forest, the local chiefs are the informal gatekeepers and can essentially control who has permission to mine. This dynamic is a newer emergence, however. After the initial Amazonian development boom took place in the 1970’s, many of the indigenous Amazonian tribes took action against the exploitation of the forest. These efforts largely took place in the 80’s and achieved marked success. Among the victories that local people enjoyed was a greater emphasis on the conservation of the forest itself and the limitation of mining. Many developers took little issue with the limitation of mining practices because at the time, the price of gold did not render it worth the hassle. Fast forward to today and the price has skyrocketed, thus making the risk worth the potential reward. Not only does mining in general contribute to deforestation, but the crude methods used in ‘wildcat mining’, specifically, poison the ground and surrounding water supplies.

However, while the market for gold in the Amazon is technically an illicit act, those who mine in the Amazon are simply meeting a real global demand. The global demand for gold rose in 2019 to 2,351 tonnes following increases from both, China and India respectively. Additionally, gold accumulation by official sectors rose 75% in 2018.

Negative by-products of illicit gold mining

There are often harmful, societal by-products that mining has brought to communities near various operations. Among among such byproducts are: prostitution, drugs, alcohol abuse, and violence. For example, in 2017 the New York Times reported that 10 members of an ‘uncontacted’ Amazonian tribe had been murdered by gold miners near the Columbia border. Another negative aspect of mining is that it renders the land essentially useless for further use. Most of the mining that takes place in the Amazon is done via the aforementioned process known as ‘wildcat mining’, in which miners essentially try their luck in different locations without sophisticated surveying technology. This results in a gritty operation through the use of hazardous technology such as explosive fertilizer and mercury, which ensures the capture of even the smallest pieces of gold. This poisons and degrades the surrounding soil and can pollute water sources up to one hundred miles away. Regarding the economy of illicit gold mining in particular, another issue is that the lack of regulation inhibits the government from being able to capture any rent from mining activities.

The Amazon provides a number of ecosystem services. It is widely known that it is the world’s largest carbon sink, however, if it were to reach approximately 20-25% deforestation, this could be the tipping point at which it would no longer be a buffer against atmospheric carbon dioxide build-up. Currently, the Brazilian government estimates the current level of deforestation to sit at 19.3%. Also, the Amazon is responsible for about 16% of all oxygen produced on land alongside regulating weather patterns and mitigating climate change.