Crackdown on illegal goldmines brings hope

Armed agents are destroying illicit camps in response to the rampant deforestation permitted under Bolsonaro

- Jonathan Watts

Like mechanised Valkyries, nine helicopters filled with armed men and women in camouflage uniforms swoop over dense forests and remote rivers - but this is not a scene from Apocalypse Now; it is a Brazilian government mission to forestall catastrophe in the Amazon rainforest.

The aircraft from the country's two main environmental agencies, Ibama and ICMBio, fly for hours above the Tapajós basin, then break formation when they approach their targets: illegal gold-mining camps contaminating the waters and earth of the forest.

As the helicopters descend in a cloud of dust, the prospectors flee, abandoning their excavators, dredges and high-pressure pumps. The environmental agents leap out and secure a perimeter, then set fire to every piece of equipment and drop of fuel. Plumes of thick, black smoke billow up into the sky, a signal that illegal mining will no longer be permitted in conservation parks, Indigenous territories and other areas under the protection of the state. The agents then fly off to refuel and move on to the next target.

For the past four days, this has been the routine of Hugo Loss, an Ibama agent who says he and his team have neutralised 43 dredges, 33 excavators and 30 pump engines in Operation Xapiri, one of the biggest federal actions against illegal mining in more than a decade.

For Loss, it's about not just protecting the environment. The goldmines enrich criminals, he explains, which gives them economic and political power to promote a vision of society in which a wealthy minority benefits at the expense of a poor majority and a wrecked habitat.