“We’re going to just keep mopping the ocean,” said Toya Manchineri, referring to Brazil’s administration effort to expel illegal miners from two Munduruku Indigenous territories in Pará state. As long as public bodies aren’t constantly present to inspect and surveil the areas after the operation, “the government will put the miners out and they’ll return,” the general coordinator of Indigenous organizations in the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab) told Mongabay in a phone interview.

But a lack of territorial surveillance is not the only attraction for illegal miners. According to Indigenous leaders, the absence of health and economic support from public bodies also creates fertile soil for illegal activities to flourish — by making Indigenous people dependent on illegal miners.

To entice people away from illegal mining for good, Indigenous people and NGOs are trying to support alternative income sources in the Munduruku lands, currently undergoing a sweeping state operation to clear invading gold miners. Organizations are developing cassava flour businesses, boosting free-range chicken farming as a protein alternative to poisoned fish, supporting community handicrafts and pondering a carbon credit project that is dividing leaders.

Without projects that generate income for families, said João Kaba, the president of the Pusuru Indigenous Association, “everything will continue the same way.”

Since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came to power in 2023, his administration has been working to expel invaders from the Amazon’s Indigenous lands. Federal forces have carried out raids in six territories in four Brazilian states, including the Yanomami in Roraima and Arariboia in Maranhão. In several cases, the actions responded to a Supreme Court ruling forcing federal authorities to protect these traditional communities.

Now, the federal government is showing the results of the operation in two Munduruku territories in northern Pará state. Public forces targeted Sai-Cinza and Munduruku Indigenous lands, which form a continuous area larger than Belize and are home to 11,000 Indigenous people. Located in Jacareacanga and Itaituba municipalities, known as the epicenter of illegal gold in the Brazilian Amazon, both territories have a historical presence of illegal gold miners, who are known as garimpeiros in Portuguese.

When the raid started in November 2024, authorities tracked more than 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of illegal mines and 21 clandestine airstrips. After the police offensive, the number of active mines plummeted to zero, officials said. Federal forces imposed losses amounting to 112.3 million Brazilian reais ($19.7 million) on illegal miners, including the application of fines, seizures and machinery destruction. The federal government promised to keep patrolling and monitoring the region to prevent garimpeiros from returning.

Indigenous leaders, however, are skeptical about the effectiveness of these measures, especially if there is no health and economic support from public bodies as money from mining dries up.

“The garimpeiros entice leaders in exchange for fuel and basic food baskets,” said Alessandra Korap, a Munduruku leader and the president of the Pariri Indigenous Association. “The government simply took away mining, but it didn’t bring food, family farming, health and education,” she told Mongabay in an interview during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, held in New York.

Paulo Basta, a researcher from Brazil’s leading federal health research center, Fiocruz, added that garimpeiros might buy energy generators or boat engines for Indigenous leaders or even provide assistance during health emergencies.

“When the Indigenous chief’s wife is ill, the miner may take her to the city hospital for treatment,” the physician said in a video interview. Basta has coordinated studies on mercury contamination in the Munduruku territory for more than 10 years. “Mining is benefiting some leaders to the detriment of the community, generating social conflicts.”

The long coexistence with non-Indigenous people and the proximity to city centers have also created new consumption necessities within the Munduruku population, especially for the younger ones.

“The Indigenous people hunt and fish, but they also need to buy other things because they don’t live like they used to,” Kaba told Mongabay by phone. “They now hunt with rifles, no longer with arrows. Sometimes, they also need to buy rice, soybean oil, hooks, line, a mallet and fuel to run the engine.”

Six Indigenous associations expressed the same concerns in a public letter in December 2024. They demanded a post-operation plan and investments so that the regions “abandon mining and predatory activities, strengthening socioeconomic alternatives.”

According to Nilton Tubino, leader of the federal task force carrying out the eviction operation in Munduruku lands, a small minority of the Munduruku people are involved in illegal mining. Sometimes, an Indigenous leader charges a fee to allow the garimpeiros to explore the area; in other situations, the Indigenous people serve as the workforce, he said, adding that only in rare cases do they own a small-scale gold mine.

“Mining is attractive. They take a young [Munduruku] man and pay him 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 [Brazilian] reais a month [from $700 to $1,050]. There’s no other economic activity that can pay that amount, besides the fact that these young people have access to things that the miners give them, like cell phones, guns and booze,” Tubino said.

In a statement to Mongabay, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples said “the central aim of de-intrusion [the operation] is to guarantee the continuity of the state in the territories.” According to the ministry, the Munduruku Indigenous Territory is one of 15 territories that will receive support to implement “territorial and environmental management tools to promote territorial protection, food sovereignty, sustainable income generation, institutional strengthening and the preservation of Indigenous cultures and traditions.”

Sai-Cinza Indigenous land, where the operation also took place, is not part of the federal program. MPI didn’t detail what project will be developed or when it would start. The Brazilian Indigenous affairs agency (Funai) didn’t respond to Mongabay requests for information.

The alternatives

Meanwhile, Indigenous organizations struggle to find their own solutions with the support of NGOs. The Pusuru and Pariri associations have been working to strengthen the communities’ cassava flour production so they can sell it in the city’s markets.

“It’s a project worth 45,000 reais [$8,000] to buy equipment such as an oven and a little motor to grate manioc. But there are more than 180 villages and we managed to donate it to only 20 of them,” Kaba said. “We need to look for other types of projects that generate income for families.”

Another project is to boost free-range chicken farming as an income source and a protein alternative in their diet. Fiocruz studies have shown that the mercury used by garimpeiros has contaminated the rivers and the fish consumed by the Munduruku people, who have alarming levels of the substance in their bodies. “We are playing the role of the state, drilling wells, promoting chicken farming… because we know that the fish are contaminated, and they want to ban us from eating fish,” Alessandra Korap said.

The Munduruku Wakoborũn Women’s Association is also looking for alternatives. It produced the documentary Awaydip Tip Imutaxipi(The Sick Forest), which shows the impacts of illegal mining on the territory. The group is also strengthening the Poy Association, created in 2022 to support sustainable economic alternatives. According to Wakoborũn, the group works with the collection and sale of copaiba oil, the sale of cassava flour and handicrafts made with seeds collected from the forest. Some of this bio-jewelry is sold in a store in the tourist town of Alter do Chão.

“The association is looking for a solution, such as planting projects, raising chickens and so on,” one of Wakoborũn’s coordinators, Hidelmara Kirixi, told Mongabay in a video interview. “But some relatives end up being influenced by mining because of the money. They go crazy for the money and end up killing their own lives.”

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime supports the Indigenous associations with the Tapajós project, created in 2021 to prevent traditional communities from working in the mines in modern-day slavery conditions. In partnership with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization affiliated with the Catholic Church that advocates for the rights of peasants in Brazil, the project has benefited 190 Munduruku families with the implementation of chicken farming and flour processing houses.

The initiative also provided training courses for the establishment of bioeconomy and agroforestry production associations and supported the restructuring of an Indigenous handicraft center in Praia do Índio village, near Itaituba city center.

The promises of carbon credits

Illegal gold mining is not the only activity pushing Indigenous people to join illegal organizations that destroy their lands. Illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land-grabbers are also constantly invading traditional territories in the Amazon and threatening community members who oppose their wrongdoings. This includes organized crime, which has been increasing in the region.

“The vast majority of Indigenous people who join mining or drug trafficking are young people who need support to buy the things they want. It’s very easy to get involved when you’re offered a resource that seems very easy,” said Manchineri from Coiab.

The organization has been working to avoid this kind of recruitment by strengthening local Indigenous associations and the communities’ cultural and economic identities. “You don’t have to invent the wheel. If the community works with handicrafts, for example, then let’s strengthen what the community already does,” he said.

Carbon credit companies have also approached Indigenous groups in recent years, offering money to sign long-term contracts. In exchange, they get the right to sell the carbon credits generated from that forestry area. However, what could be a sustainable income source for underserved communities has repeatedly revealed itself as a controversial business. Unfair contracts and agreements signed in a rush, without consulting whole communities, led to disputes in territories like the Kayapó and Alto Rio Guamá in Pará and the Parintintin in Amazonas.

“The governments see carbon credits as if it would solve the situation of the territories, but it doesn’t,” Manchineri said. “It’s a small resource, so there must be various other initiatives to strengthen actions in the Indigenous territories.”

In Pará, the state governor, Helder Barbalho, signed a 1 billion reais ($175 million) contract to sell carbon credits to an international coalition of the U.S., U.K. and Norwegian governments. Barbalho promised to share part of the profits with traditional communities, but Pará federal prosecutors are asking for the cancellation of the contract. They argue that Brazilian law forbids the advance sale of credits and that “this speculation may lead to harassing approaches and considerable pressure on Indigenous and traditional communities.”

The issue divides the Munduruku Indigenous leaders.

Alessandra Korap, for example, has consistently denounced the approaches of carbon credit companies. In 2024, she was among the signatories of a letter repudiating the Pará administration’s contract. “It is unacceptable for the Pará state government to make decisions without consulting traditional communities, who are the greatest protectors of the forests,” stated the document.

Other leaders, however, see carbon credits as a promising economic alternative. “More than half of the villages’ chiefs were interested in the Pará state project,” Kaba said, referring to the 180 villages of the Pusuru Association. “We live in the forest, and the satellites show the forest is well protected. But the satellites don’t see the people who are there in the forest. And they often don’t know how those people are doing, what they need, if they’re eating well, if they have any income.”

Additional reporting from Latoya Abulu.

Banner image: The proximity with non-Indigenous culture and lack of economic alternatives make some young Mundurukus turn to illegal mining. Image © Júlia Mente/Greenpeace.

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Fernanda Wenzel is an investigative reporter based in Porto Alegre, Brazil. A former Pulitzer Center fellow, she has investigated issues like land grabbing in the Amazon, beef and the gold supply chains and violations of Indigenous and Quilombolas rights. Wenzel’s stories have been published by Brazilian and international outlets like CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Folha de São Paulo and Intercept Brasil.

Karla Mendes is a staff investigative and feature reporter for Mongabay in Brazil and a member of the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. She is the first Brazilian and Latin American ever elected to the board of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ); she was also nominated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) chair. Read her stories published on Mongabay here. Find her on 𝕏, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky.

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