Gold Miners overrun Amazon indigenous lands as COVID-19 surges

By Stabroek News On In Guyana Review |
The Waiapi tribe’s way of life is under threat as the Amazon Rainforest burns and the government attempts to take over indigenous lands (CNN photo)
The Waiapi tribe’s way of life is under threat as the Amazon Rainforest burns and the government attempts to take over indigenous lands (CNN photo)

By Jenny Gonzales

Even as coastal communities in the hemisphere seek to sustain their pushback efforts against COVID-19, reports emanating from non-governmental organizations including the Socio-environmental Institute (ISA) and Greenpeace Brazil point to an aggressive ‘invasion’ of indigenous reserves and conservation units in the Amazon rainforest by well-financed miners, unmindful of either the impact of their gold recovery pursuits on the continued destruction of the rainforest or, more recently, that threat of the spread of the coronavirus among the indigenous Indians inhabiting the world’s largest expanse of rainforest.