The Yanomami, indigenous peoples living in the Amazon rainforest in Brasil, are protesting a draft mining law that may force them to expose their protected indigenous lands to international mining companies. Find out their concerns and their ways of making their objections heard.

A draft mining law is causing the outrage of the Yanomami people in Brasil. The Yanomami, one of the most numerous and best-known indigenous people living in the Amazon rainforest, believe that the adoption of the law would expose their protected indigenous lands to international mining companies.

Mining will ruin our heartland

In Brasil, mining in indigenous lands is currently prohibited. However, if a draft law on mining passes legislation, it would allow mining in indigenous territories, and the Yanomami’s lands would be among those most affected. A legislative proposal, introduced by Senator Romero Juca of Roraima, has been amended by the House of Representatives and approved by the Senate. Once it receives approvals from the Commission of the Environment and Minorities and the Commission of Constitutional Justice, it would then be brought back to Congress.

“I am very worried about the mining law,” said Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, the first of the Yanomami people to recognise the threat of mining and who has dedicated his life in fighting  for  the  protection  of  the  Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants. “It will destroy our heartland…mining will bring us disease...and pollution.”

A strongly worded letter was sent to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva early this month by a group of Metyktire Kayapó, indigenous peoples living on the Menkregnoti reservation in the Amazon basin. “We do not like the mining law which the Lula government wants to approve,” it said. “Mining will ruin indigenous lands and the Kayapó will be very angry if mining invades our lands.”

According to the non-profit organisation Instituto Socioambiental in its 2006 publication “Mining in Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon,” the Lula government has created fifteen million hectares of environmental conservation areas in Amazonia. However, a large proportion of these areas are not protected against mining. In fact, 88 Amazon region Conservation Areas are already being surveyed or explored by mining companies.

Violence against the Yanomami

The Yanomami first suffered from the threats of gold mining, deforestation, and disease in the mid-1970s. With the construction of the Northern Circumferential Highway by the Brasilian government, 20 percent of the existing Yanomami population died of new diseases brought into their territory from which they had no immunity. These include malaria, tuberculosis, and smallpox.

They also died of violence from armed Brasilian gold miners who beat them up or shot them, and destroyed their villages.

In response to the invasion of their territory and the violence inflicted upon them, Yanomami land was finally demarcated as the ‘Yanomami Park’ in 1992. However, the Indians still do not have proper ownership rights over their land, despite the Brasilian government’s having signed an international law guaranteeing it.

Aside from the danger posed by the impending mining law, the Yanomamis also face other threats, including colonists practicing agriculture within the reserve, illegal miners operating in the area, and sexual abuses done on Yanomami women by army recruits in the three military bases inside the reserve.

Spread the message

With their survival threatened, the Yanomami have made attempts to fight back, some through violent means that resulted in a few deaths. They have also tried to make their plight known to the international community, writing letters, attending international conferences such as the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and by granting interviews.

“You who live far away, please spread our message—there is another fight going on for our Yanomami land,” Davi Kopenawa Yanomami appealed in a recent interview with Survival, an international organisation supporting tribal peoples worldwide.

“Our land is recognised—the whole world knows this and the name Yanomami,” he added. “But now the Lula government is ruining our land once again, even though it’s demarcated. The miners are being encouraged to invade and this is a crime.”

Sources:
“Conflict and human rights in the Amazon: The Yanomami” from Stephanie Bier, posted on August 23, 2007,  <http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/yanomami.htm>.
“Indians speak out against mining on their land” from Survival, posted on August 23, 2007
<http://www.survival-international.org/news/2490>.
“ISA releases Mining in Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon and calls for mining licences granted in federal environmental conservation areas to be revoked” from Instituto Socioambiental, posted on April 20, 2006, <http://www.socioambiental.org/e/nsa/nsa/detalhe?id=2245>.
“The Yanomami of Brazil: Human rights update” from American Anthropological Association, posted on December 2001, <http://www.aaanet.org/committees/cfhr/rptyano10.htm>.
“Yanomami” from Survival, <http://www.survival-international.org/tribes/yanomami>.