These efforts to formalize the activity are evident in Lourenço, a district of the municipality of Calçoene in the north of Amapá, which lives practically from the mine. Gold mining is in the final stages of legalization, coordinated by the National Department of Mineral Production (DNPM), an agency that issues the mining permit. To achieve this, workers organized themselves into cooperatives, as required by the constitution. However, the legal definition of mining almost no longer applies to the reality of gold mined in the Amazon, where, according to the researcher of the Institute of Socio-Ecological Studies (ISA), Rodrigo Magalhães, prospectors are increasingly professional, aggressive and industrial. The heating process occurs when illegally mined gold enters the domestic and international market as legal. According to the National Mining Agency (ANM), the two situations in which mining is considered illegal mainly apply to areas larger than 50 hectares or indigenous lands. “Companies that claim to have permits – and don`t really have those mining permits – want to take away prospectors to take out the gold. This is the great struggle in the Serra Pelada. It`s the fight for gold, the fight for gold.

The prospectors are the scouts, they are the pioneers. They find out, and then the big mining companies get the permits and take the places. I trust President Figueiredo`s word. He noted that the mountain stays with prospectors as long as prospectors can dig. And I will do everything so that they can dig for many years, because it`s work for 80,000 Brazilians, food for almost a million Brazilians and the size of Brazil. Mining is a field where mining, usually gold, is carried out in small quantities and with a low environmental impact by an individual, cooperative or association. The definition is the Prospector`s Law of 2008 (Law No. 11.685), which also stipulates that mining does not depend on environmental impact studies due to these characteristics, which must be approved in the country.

Therefore, in this case, the inspection of gold from prospectors should be easy to perform, but this is not due to the practice of “heating” the illegal gold produced at the time of the first sale (see topic below). The mining permit can be applied for by Brazilians, individuals or sole proprietorships and prospector cooperatives. Claudio Scliar, former secretary of geology at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, says that although the monitoring structure is far from ideal, with a shortage of personnel and equipment, the joint action of the bodies has had an effect on suppressing illegal mining. He mentions the case of gold smuggling, which still exists but does not even like what happened at other times. In the 1990s, the House of Representatives even asked the government for an explanation of gold smuggling to Uruguay. At that time, we had an unusual situation: one of our neighbouring countries to the south exported a large amount of unmined gold supporting that quantity – probably this metal came from secret prospectors here. Today, fortunately, situations of this kind have not occurred again. The federal police have done important work and the DNPM has modernized,” he said. :: Mining victims: Mercury kills environmentalists who have worked in the Amazon :: As these are manual and low-volume activities, it is not mandatory to request the submission of environmental impact studies for mining.

“The gold mined by the mining company has several possible legal natures: it can be a commodity, a financial asset or an object of exchange. Gold extracted from mining is necessarily a financial asset,” Magellan describes. “With the positive rhetoric of the federal government and local parliamentarians, mining activity on Indigenous lands has increased, which can lead to conflict. Mining only brings destruction, disease and other forms of violence to communities,” he concludes. A text signed in 2008 by former presidents Lula and Sarkozy provides stricter rules for the search for and extraction of gold on the border between Amapá and French Guiana. Amapaense officials say the move will lead to the weakening of the local economy and the expulsion of Brazilians working in the mines in France. You must first have the research permit and make sure that the area is legal with ANM and that you or your company have permission to search for it. Did you know that Brazil is the country with the largest border with France? This Brazilian gateway to the European Union stretches for 730 kilometres, in the far north of the country, in the middle of the Amazon: on one side, the state of Amapá; on the other hand, the overseas department of French Guiana. The Oiapoque River forms the natural border for most of the border and is a route for clandestine gold mining, especially for Brazilians who invade French territory.

To curb these illegal activities, former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Nicolas Sarkozy signed a bilateral agreement in 2008 based on the expansion of environmental protection in the region. Illegal mining in Brazil takes place mainly in the northern region of the country, in border areas and often in indigenous territories and environmental protection. The sustainable exploitation of the immense mineral resources, which have already been mapped underground, without repeating the damage of the past and eliminating illegal mining, is one of Brazil`s current challenges. Congress and the Federal Government have already submitted proposals in this regard. The central idea is to use the country`s mining potential legally to create jobs and income for prospectors and other workers in the area. However, mining is only one of many forms of mining that require less investment than developing a mine or mining, due to the way the ore is extracted from nature, to learn more about mining, read our content to the end! It should be recalled that several measures already adopted in Congress are also aimed at ensuring the legality and sustainability of mining. The national environmental policy (Law 6.938/81), adopted by parliamentarians in 1981, already obliges Ibama to control the use of mercury in Brazil, particularly in mines. More recently, in 2010, Parliament approved the National Solid Waste Policy (Law 12.305/10), which establishes the shared responsibility of the importer, manufacturer, distributor and user for the management and proper disposal of metallic mercury. “Gold from mines is first bought by DVTMs and then enters the financial system or the international market or jewellery,” says Luiz Jardim Wanderley, a researcher at the Federal University of Fluminense (UFF). Mining companies that are now based in Brazil are focused on selling the foreign market. However, the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR) believes that some mining companies may be behind illegal mining activities. “In our view, the government is pushing its lines forward and now has the pillars of Amazon mining as a priority to promote illegal mining on indigenous lands.

And this advice (Comape) will be to echo Boslonararo`s speeches regarding mining,” said Roberto Liebgott, coordinator of Cimi Sul. The fraud in the system was discovered by the Federal Prosecutor`s Office (MPF) and the Federal Police (FP), who identified several companies that were buying gold without papers and falsifying the legality with false papers. In the case of gold, the weather is extremely conducive to this legal mining. After a crisis since 2008, the metal has revalued on the international market. Mining is full of contradictions: it contributed to the territorial expansion of the colony of Brazil, but at the cost of the destruction of several indigenous communities; contributes to Brazil`s balance of trade while harming the environment; and has the potential to enrich prospectors and make them sick, to name a few of these paradoxes. Proponents of the activity often claim that gold prospectors, although recognized by the federal constitution, are “ecologically satanized, socially violated, and taxed.” The text signed by Lula and Sarkozy stipulates that each country undertakes to submit to prior authorization the activities of exploration and extraction of gold, as well as the purchase and sale of the metal and the activities of companies selling prospectors` screens and mercury. In the fight against illegal mining, law enforcement will be able to confiscate, confiscate or even destroy the materials found.