Insustentabilidade da exploração de ouro no Rio Uraricuera, Terra Indígena Yanomami

Abstract

The Amazon region has been devastated in several aspects, be them nature itself or different cultures living in there. Mining activity in Brazilian indigenous lands - mainly gold mining in Uraricoera River, Yanomami Indigenous Land, Roraima State, Brazil - has social, environmental and economic dynamics that are the object of interdisciplinary analysis. The current study followed the bibliographic and documentary examination approach, mainly the examination of legal proceedings underway in the Federal Court of Roraima State. Testimonies by 519 prospectors given from 2010 to 2017 were qualitative and quantitative analyzed. The author and the advisor professor also adopted the participatory observation technique to help better understanding the herein assessed phenomenon. Data and actors’ perception were analyzed and compared to the scientific literature in order to explain the mining dynamics by pointing out how the extraction process takes place, gold destination as a commodity, individuals involved in it, losses, economic alternatives to illegal mining and to its unsustainable operational process. The analysis was based on the testimony of Yanomami individuals and on severe damages caused by this illegal activity to indigenous people and to their forest-land due to ineffective State inspection. Mining generates economic externalities; in addition, there are divergences between protection and accountability addressed in the Brazilian Legislation and the herein investigated illegal phenomenon, which violates indigenous and scientific voices and the ethical imperative. This violation contributes to losses and can lead to the end of the Yanomami world/people due to the unsustainability of illegal mining in their land, which is highlighted by the Yanomami people, mainly by Shaman Davi Kopenawa. Thus, indigenous knowledge meets the scientific and philosophical literature, mainly when it comes to damages caused by mercury and State neglect. Mining establishes new paralegal power relationships. Punctual actions taken by the State have been insufficient to stop this profitable activity that nowadays destroys the Amazon and its peoples and that is leading the Yanomami world to its end.