Brazilian Gold

The beginning

During the early 1700s in the geographic location that is present-day Brazil, Portuguese colonists known as bandieritas roamed the countryside. They were looking for native Indians to capture for the slave trade, which extended from South America all the way up to Europe. During their search of the countryside, they found something that changed the history of the continent, led to the borders of present-day Brazil, and potentially led to the extension of slavery. The bandieritias found gold in an area the size of London in present-day Brazil called Minas Gerais.

Gold rushes were nothing new to the world. Unlike others in history though, the Brazilian gold rush lasted the longest. In contrast to the United States where the gold rush helped the country establish an infrastructure, the Brazilian gold rush saw mass migration but with no rising infrastructure. Much like other gold rushes around the world at that time, the natural resources took the brunt of the mining process. What sets the Brazilian gold rush apart is that the price of losing natural resources has never surpassed the price of gold.

Between 1693 and 1720 some 400,000 Portuguese and 500,000 slaves had relocated to southeastern Brazil to mine gold. Such was the growth that, by 1725, half Brazil’s entire population was residing in Minas Gerais.^[1] The excitement of the thought of instant wealth brought many people to the mines. The gold rush also provided a new avenue for slavery to thrive as thousands upon thousands were forced to do the work while the slave owners prospered.

The initial gold rush lasted up until the late 1800s. Many villagers, known as garimpieros, still try to make a living off the industry.

Present-day miners and culture

Brazilian miners, garimpieros, came from all walks of life and corners of the country out to the Amazon rainforest to mine for gold. These men, much like the 49ers in California, ventured out on their own and mined the jungle without interference from the government or any other entity. Makeshift towns and enterprising people followed these men into the jungle. “In all Garimpos there is a considerable floating population of non-garimpieros supplying goods and services; cooks, male and female prostitutes, mechanics, mule drivers, gold buyers, police troopers, traders, pilots, doctors, dentists, entertainers, photographers, and others”.^[2] The culture that surrounds these camps is on one hand a brotherhood where every miner looks out for one another, however on the other hand it seems that it is survival of the fittest. “Life inside Garimpos is wild and anarchic. It sees other garimpieros as competitors rather than comrades. Gold is seen as fundamentally corrupting. It ignites greed and amorality in people who seem, and may even once have been, honest and likable”.^[3] These makeshift pop-up towns seemed to resemble that of the Wild West in America, where the law was scarce, and a sense of Darwinism was established.

Natural resources hang in the balance

While the fleeting wealth brought all the Garampieros, they brought the destruction of the ecosystem. From the beginning up until the present-day, miners are still looking for their wealth. The difference is that today’s technology vastly accelerates the mining process in the jungle, effecting double or triple the amount of land before. The recent popularity surge in gold mining is due to the unstable global economy over the past two decades. The price of gold has nearly tripled in that time. “Researchers from the University of Puerto Rico have shown that between 2001 and 2013, around 1680 km2 of tropical forest was lost in South America as a result of gold mining, which increased from around 377 km2 to 1303km2 since the global economic crisis in 2007”.^[4]

Gold mining in the Amazon rainforest has destroyed whole state-sized chunks of rainforest. However the destruction is not simply kept to where the mining is taking place. Mercury is used to purify gold in the Amazon. Unfortunately this toxic element has been reported downstream and poisoning the fish that fishermen catch and sell in the markets. This technique of separation, called amalgamation, is done without protective equipment and without any regulations to discard of the mercury safely. Therefore, a massive amount of mercury has been flowing down the Amazon River since it first made its way into the hands of the miners. According to the University of Idaho, it is believed that gold mining contributes approximately 80% (168 tons annually) of mercury contamination.^[5] Mercury has devastating effects on wildlife and ultimately to the people who ingest this deadly poison. It can harm the fetus of a pregnant mothers, which results in abnormal growth/malformation of the baby’s central nervous system. The two main sources of mercury contamination is the fish that these communities consume and how close to mining the individual is, more importantly the exposure to amalgamation.

Gold mining resurgence

Many experts have speculated that ever since the global economy took a crash over 2 decades ago, gold’s worth has been on the rise ever since. “The price of gold, which stood at $271 an ounce on September 10, 2001, hit $1,023 in March 2008, and it may surpass that threshold again. Gold's recent surge, sparked in part by the terrorist attack on 9/11, has been amplified by the slide of the U.S. dollar and jitters over a looming global recession”.^[6] This jump in gold prices was especially drastic in 2005 when the price continued to climb every year at a rate of nearly 200 dollars per year, which previously took over 160 years to achieve. This spike in price is an ominous warning to the global economy. However, this would explain why deforestation rates during the same period has reached an all-time high. Gold mining over the past five years in the Amazon however has taken a hit due to the unpopularity of gold.

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