Study maps mining conflicts<\/a>
\n<\/div>\nThe research identified that members of criminal organizations sell drugs for consumption by local populations, and operate as armed security for these miners. \u201cAirplanes, pilots, and illegal landing strips created for small-scale mining activities are being commandeered by the narcos. This connection gave rise to a recently coined phenomenon, known as narcomining,\u201d says sociologist Rodrigo Pereira Chagas, of the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR). \u201cSmall-scale mining has intensified in the region over the last five years. The articulation between this activity and drug trafficking has led to a higher incidence of violent situations and environmental threats,\u201d says Chagas, one of the study\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n
According to him, the rate of intentional violent deaths (MVI) per 100,000 inhabitants of Brazil in 2022 was 23.3 victims, while in Legal Amazonia it was 33.8.<\/p>\n
According to the FBSP survey, small-scale mining in Roraima is concentrated in Indigenous lands, where mining is prohibited, whereas in Par\u00e1, legal extraction is carried out, but only in some areas. Financial Compensation for Mineral Exploration (CFEM) is an excise levied on profits from mineral exploration.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the state of Par\u00e1 levied the most CFEM funds in all of Legal Amazonia: almost R$3 billion, according to the National Mining Agency (ANM). A considerable part of this income is due to legal iron ore mining activities in the state. Roraima State did not receive any CFEM input that year. \u201cAccording to local authorities and actors, such as public safety operatives and environmental enforcement agents, the high amount of CFEM levied in Par\u00e1 may also suggest that the state has become a safe haven for small-scale miners to regularize some of the gold extracted illegally from other territories,\u201d he suggests.<\/p>\n
Geologist Maria Jos\u00e9 Maluf de Mesquita, of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), believes there to be alternatives to this type of activity, with less predatory practices. Mesquita coordinates the project \u201cCRAFTing responsible tin: A path to ethical and sustainable mining practices in the Brazilian Amazon,\u201d run in partnership with entities such as the Santa Cruz Small-Scale Miners\u2019 Cooperative and the Rond\u00f4nia Metallurgy Cooperative. He has been studying the work of small-scale mining cooperatives for more than a decade, and believes that these organizations have been collaborating in the development of less environmentally harmful mineral extraction practices. \u201cSmall-scale miners are prohibited from discharging mercury into rivers if they wish to join the cooperatives,\u201d he concludes.<\/p>\n
The story above was published with the title “The narcomining phenomenon<\/strong>” in issue 343 of September\/2024.<\/p>\nScientific article
\n<\/strong>PEREIRA-CHAGAS, R. Narcogarimpo: As afinidades eletivas entre frentes de garimpo ilegal e expans\u00e3o do tr\u00e1fico de drogas na Amaz\u00f4nia brasileira<\/a>. Urvio.<\/strong> Online. No. 38, pp. 32\u201348. 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Study suggests that Par\u00e1 is being used to legalize gold mined illegally in other states","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":545862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[200],"coauthors":[1600],"class_list":["post-545861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545861"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550735,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545861\/revisions\/550735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545861"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=545861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}