About 30,000 Yanomami live in Brazil's largest indigenous region, which extends over an area of more than 90,000 square kilometers in the northern Amazon rainforest.
Three weeks after assuming the presidency, Lula declared a public health emergency due to the effects of illegal mining there and sent in armed forces, doctors, nurses, and food. However, more than 300 Yanomami died of various causes in 2023, according to the Ministry of Health.
Lula also established an inter-ministerial task force to combat illegal mining, and in 2023, the country's environmental agency Ibama destroyed a record 33 aircraft found in or near Yanomami territory. Agents also destroyed or captured mining and fuel barges, Starlink internet modules, and camp sites.
Government officials say that since the operation began, illegal mining areas within Yanomami territory have decreased by 85 percent and health has improved.
But after initial success, prosecutors, law enforcement and federal environmental agency staff say illegal miners are making a comeback.
“We think miners are exploiting as much as they can because they think they will eventually have to leave,” said Geir Schmidt, head of environmental protection at Ibama.
Miners have adapted to avoid detection by working at night, setting up camps under the forest canopy and choosing old mining pits rather than clearing forests to open new ones, Schmidt said.
Government agencies need to take stronger action, said Humberto Freire, director of the federal police's newly created Amazon and environment unit.
“We need, for example, the air force to effectively control the airspace over Yanomami land. We need the navy to control the flow of people on the rivers. We need the army to do a good job as well,” Freire said.
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Lula said the armed forces will play a key role in providing logistical support and security to public sector workers and federal agents who say they fear for their lives.
It is not the military's responsibility to engage in direct combat with illegal miners, according to political scientist João Roberto Martins Filho. However, the big question is why the army, which has three permanent bases within Yanomami territory, did not sound the alarm under Lula's predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
“There was almost a massacre of the unprotected population. Why did the military allow this to happen instead of reporting it to the federal government or communicating with the press? In a way, they were accomplices,” said Martins Filho, a professor at the Federal University of São Carlos.
The military said that illegal mining and the health crisis in Yanomami territory are “complex issues related to the legal jurisdiction of various government agencies,” and that it is “always ready to fulfill its strategic missions,” including providing support to federal agencies.
Illegal planes are necessary to transport prospectors and equipment to remote reserves, as shown in a 2022 Associated Press investigation in Roraima state, where most mining operations affecting the Yanomami take place.
Performers hold a banner with a picture of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous activist Bruno Pereira during a Salguero Samba School performance. Phillips and Pereira were killed during a trip through Vale do Javari in Amazonas state. credit: AP
After a presidential decree in January 2023 ordered the air force to close the airspace over Yanomami territory, the situation improved significantly, authorities and indigenous people said.
The Brazilian Air Force said it was patrolling the so-called air defense identification zone over the territory. It claims this measure has led to a 90 percent reduction in illegal flights.
But in a joint statement last month, associations representing federal environmental and indigenous workers accused the armed forces of “failing to fulfill its mission of supporting and facilitating the work of other agencies” in the fight against illegal mining. The association claimed that the army denied using aircraft to transport personnel and equipment and did not cooperate in destroying mining machinery and airstrips.
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Junior Hikurari, head of the Condisi-Y local health board, said government health teams have been targeted by armed miners and are unable or unwilling to reach certain communities.
“This state of emergency cannot solve the problem. We need something permanent for all communities,” Hikurari said.
AP
