Frightened by the repercussions of images of hundreds of illegal ferries concentrated in a stretch of the Madeira River, an important tributary of the Amazon River, the miners began to disperse in the last few hours to escape the inspection announced by the federal government.
According to reports obtained by sheet, there are no longer the large ferry lines in the municipality of Autazes, 110 km from Manaus in a straight line, recorded earlier this week. On Friday morning (26), around 30 were already in front of the neighboring city of Nova Olinda do Norte, a neighboring municipality, also bathed by the Madeira River.
The mining of ferries is illegal, but it has existed for decades on the Madeira River and mainly employs riverside dwellers in the region. The concentration on Autazes was due to the emergence of a “gossip”, when a large amount of gold is found, causing a rush to the place. This type of concentration is recurrent in the region.
This Thursday (25), Vice President Hamilton Mourão announced that the Federal Police and the Navy would act against gold mining. Ibama would also participate in the operation.
Illegal mining and mining in the Amazon has gained new momentum since 2019, spurred on by President Jair Bolsonaro’s (non-party) promises to legalize and by the rise in the price of gold.
In the Yanomami Indigenous Land (TI) in Roraima, the increase in the presence of miners has accentuated the serious health crisis. In Pará, the use of excavators (PCs) has destroyed dozens of riverbanks and streams, in addition to generating conflicts and violence. In both cases, enforcement has been ineffective in curbing the rise of this crime.
On the Madeira River, there have already been some attempts at regularization in Amazonas, which are hampered by the lack of coordination between the state and federal governments and by the limited structure of environmental agencies to license and inspect.
In 2017, miners, angry at the destruction of rafts that operated inside conservation units, set fire to the offices and cars of Ibama and ICMBio in Humaitá, in the south of Amazonas and also on the banks of the Madeira.
In January, the government of Rondônia regulated mining on the Madeira River, through an environmental license in several stages. But in practice few rafts and dredgers (with more structure and destructive power) operate in the river on a regular basis.
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