Brazilian amazon indigenous peoples threatened by mining bill

The Brazilian Amazon has the highest concentration of indigenous peoples in the world. Recently, the Brazilian government sent a bill to Congress to regulate commercial mining in indigenous lands. This work analyzes the risks of the proposed mining bill to Amazonian indigenous peoples and their lands. To evaluate the possible impact of the new mining bill, we consider all mining license requests registered in Brazil’s National Mining Agency that overlap indigenous lands as potential mining areas in the future. The existing mining requests cover 176 000 km2 of indigenous lands, a factor 3000 more than the area of current illegal mining. Considering only these existing requests, about 15% of the total area of ILs in the region could be directly affected by mining if the bill is approved. Ethnic groups like Yudjá, Kayapó, Apalaí, Wayana, and Katuena may have between 47% and 87% of their lands impacted. Gold mining, which has previously shown to cause mercury contamination, death of indigenous people due to diseases, and biodiversity degradation, accounts for 64% of the requested areas. We conclude that the proposed bill is a significant threat to Amazonian indigenous peoples, further exposing indigenous peoples to rural violence, contamination by toxic pollutants, and contagious diseases. The obligation of the government is to enforce existing laws and regulations that put indigenous rights and livelihoods above economic consideration and not to reduce such protections.


Introduction
The Indigenous Lands (ILs) in the Brazilian Amazon are home to the highest concentration of indigenous peoples in the world, housing close to 355 thousand people divided into more than 150 ethnic groups. Currently, 383 ILs in the Brazilian Legal Amazon 5 region cover more than 1,160,000 km 2 , representing 22% of this biome and 98% of the total area of ILs in Brazil. They are territories established by federal jurisdiction to guarantee the land rights of indigenous peoples, their social organization, and the maintenance of their cultural values (Le Tourneau 2015). Besides, these lands are crucial to preserving tropical forests and the ecosystem services they provide (Garnett et al 2018, Walker et al 2014. In recent years, Brazil's political and economic crisis has resulted in the suppression and weakening of territorial and environmental monitoring institutions (Abessa et al 2019, Pereira et al 2019. The work of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the federal agency responsible for executing policy and guaranteeing indigenous rights, has been severely hampered by cuts in budgets and staff. Indigenous lands are increasingly under threat from illegal actions (Begotti and Peres 2019). As the Brazilian government reduced protections in these areas, loggers, farmers, squatters, and gold miners have extensively established illegal occupation in several ILs in the Amazon. Their action has intensified conflicts, environmental degradation, and is placing indigenous peoples in a vulnerable situation (CIMI 2019). One issue of particular concern is the increasing pressure by the private sector to open ILs for legal mineral exploration (Villen-Perez et al 2018, Ferreira et al 2014, Begotti and Peres 2020, Coelho et al 2017. Intense lobbying action by the mining sector over the Brazilian government is threatening indigenous territories, especially in the Amazon (Agência Câmara de Notícias 2020a, Angelo 2020).
Mining is an activity that causes intense socioenvironmental impacts (Hilson 2002, Horowitz et al 2018. The mining infrastructure (digs, roads, railways, tailings dams, and waste piles) causes significant environmental damage (Horowitz et al 2018). Besides, mineral exploration contaminates waterways, soil, and wildlife through toxic waste and heavy metals released into the environment, threatening the health of and food availability to indigenous peoples (Vega et al 2018, CIMI 2019, Horowitz et al 2018. In addition, studies show that mining increases deforestation in the Amazon region (Alvarez-Berríos and Aide 2015, Sonter et al 2017, Asner andTupayachi 2017). In mining concession areas, deforestation is three times larger than the average rate of nearby regions and the impacts of mining on deforestation extend up to 70 km beyond the limits of mining concessions (Sonter et al 2017).
The intended opening of ILs to mining has the potential to increase the vulnerability of indigenous peoples. Recently, attacks and acts of violence against indigenous peoples have increased; particularly those arising in the context of large-scale projects involving extractive industries (United Nations 2018). According to a recent report published by Global Witness (2020), mining was the sector linked to the most murders of environmental activists and human rights defenders, with 50 killed in 2019. Brazil has the third highest number of murders of environmental defenders. In 2019, of the 24 defenders killed in the country, 10 were indigenous. Like the cases of the murders of the indigenous leadership Emyra Wajãpi, of the Wajãpi ethnic group, in July last year, and of the two Yanomami indigenous youths, in June this year, murdered by illegal gold miners present in their lands (Oiveira 2020, Phillips 2019).
Brazil's 1988 Constitution includes a provision that mining rights in indigenous lands could be granted if regulated by law. Until recently, the political consensus in Brazil considered that the social risks of allowing mining in ILs outweighed possible economic benefits; thus, no law regulating such activities has been approved by the Brazilian Congress. However, Brazil's current government has since come out on the side of the mining sector; it is pressuring the Brazilian Congress to pass a law favoring the mining sector's interests (Agência Câmara de Notícias 2020a, Angelo 2020).
In February 2020, Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro sent a bill to Congress (Projeto de Lei -PL 191/2020) that regulates the opening of indigenous lands for economic exploration (Brazilian Executive Power 2020). The proposed legislation sets conditions for private activities in these areas with a particular focus on commercial mining. The bill does not cover social, cultural, or health matters. It sets conditions for mining of mineral resources in ILs and financial compensation to indigenous peoples. According to the bill, indigenous populations would be consulted before the start of activities; however, they would have no veto power to extensive mining. Should this legislation be approved, mining would become a significant socio-environmental threat to indigenous peoples and their territories in the future (Villen-Perez et al 2018, Horowitz et al 2018, Villén-Pérez et al 2020. The mining bill contradicts the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations (UN), which Brazil has signed (Assembly 2007). Under this Declaration, indigenous peoples have the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, which allows them to agree or reject a project that affects their livelihoods. Such rights are also enshrined in the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No.169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO 1989), which was ratified by Brazil in 2004. Despite these violations of international treaties to which Brazil is a part of and the rejection of the vast majority of the indigenous peoples to open their lands for mining, there is intense pressure for the bill to be approved by the Brazilian Congress. Given this imminent threat, this work evaluates the risks to the Amazonian indigenous peoples of the proposed mining expansion in their territories and compares it with current illegal mining in these areas.

Indigenous lands
The polygon data set with limits for all ILs in Brazil was obtained from the FUNAI website (FUNAI 2019). This layer also contains information about the ethnic groups living in each IL.
In this study, we considered all ILs entirely within the Legal Amazon with any legal status. The legal status refers to the recognition status of the indigenous peoples' rights to land by the State. The recognition process of indigenous territories comprises several steps and generally takes several years. Currently, in the Legal Amazon, 325 ILs are Regularized while the rest is in one of the following recognition stages, listed from the earliest step: In Study (6), Delimited (11), Declared (31), Forwarded with Indigenous Reserve (7), and Homologated (3) (FUNAI 2019). A detailed description of the stages of the indigenous lands recognition process is presented in table A1 in the appendix.

Illegal mining and deforestation in ILs
Data on current mining areas in the Legal Amazon were obtained from the Real-time Deforestation Detection System (DETER) from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) (INPE 2020b). These data refer to evidence warnings of forest cover change between August 2016 to April 2020. Deforested areas are mapped when satellites detect the withdrawal of native forests, then these areas are classified into the following classes: selective cut (geometrical and disordered), degradation (burning scar and degradation), clear-cut deforestation, deforestation with vegetation, and mining (Diniz et al 2015). The DETER system operates with a spatial resolution of around 60 m. This resolution allows monitoring with a minimum area of 3 ha mapping. In the present study, we considered only the deforested areas classified as mining in the years fully available (2017,2018,2019) to explore the number and area of mining polygons inside ILs. Since mining is prohibited within ILs, all mining polygons are considered to be illegal mining areas. Data on increments of deforestation in the same region and time frame were obtained from Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Program (PRODES) also from INPE (INPE 2020a). The mapping scale of the deforested data from PRODES and DETER, as well as the boundaries of indigenous lands from FUNAI, is 1:250 000.

Potential mining exploitation areas
The mining activity in Brazil is regulated by a process of licensing mediated by Brazil's National Mining Agency (ANM) (ANM 2020). This process encompasses several phases, from mineral research authorization until the final step that configures the approval of licensing to exploitation. A mining request consists of an administrative process applied to ANM, in which an area, geographically delimited by a polygon defined by the applicant, is requested for mineral exploration.
The georeferenced mining requests were obtained from the ANM database on February 17, 2020 (ANM 2020). The polygon data file, publicly available from the ANM, contains all mining processes, approved or under consideration, with their respective information, such as the applicant's name, the mineral to be exploited, and the licensing-process phase it is in. We separated the mining requests processes by this 'phase' attribute, only selecting the polygons in one of the following phases: research requirement, research authorization, availability, mining requirement, gold digger mining requirement, licensing requirement, extraction registration requirement, and right to request mining. Our final selection thus contains all pending mining licensing applications that have not yet been approved.
Although mining is currently forbidden in indigenous lands, there is a large number of applications for mineral exploration licenses in ILs registered in ANM, pending a change in the law. The first mining requests overlapping indigenous lands date back to 1971 (figure A1 in the appendix). It is noteworthy that many of these indigenous lands had not yet been regularized when part of these requests was made. However, even after the regularization of these areas as indigenous lands, requests for mineral exploration remain on the ANM registry and can be approved if the legislation permits.
For comparison of the requested minerals, information on current mineral exports and tax collection were obtained in the Mineral Sector Report-First Quarter 2020, of the Brazilian Mining Institute (Brazilian Mining Institute 2020).

Estimating indigenous lands and ethnic groups at risk by the potential mining exploitation
To evaluate the possible impact of the new mining bill, we included mining requests that have an overlap of 5% or more with an IL. We consider this minimal overlap between the mining areas and ILs to avoid inconsistencies in georeferencing of the IL and mining requests layers. The two layers, ILs and mining requests were clipped with the boundary of the Legal Amazon region, obtained from the Ministry of the Environment database (Ministry of the Environment 2020). For each IL in the Legal Amazon, the area covered by mining requests is presented in table 1 and table S1 in the Supplementary Material (SM) (https://stacks.iop.org/ERL/15/1040a3/mmedia).
In addition, we evaluated the risk of each ethnic group to be affected by mining. In the Legal Amazon region, 155 ethnic groups are divided over 383 ILs. Different ethnic groups can inhabit a single IL and a single ethnic group can be present in more than one IL. First, we calculated the total territory occupied by each ethnic group considering the sum of the area of ILs inhabited by each group. Thereafter, we calculated the respective area of each group territory covered by mining requests (table S2 in SM). In the same way, we also computed the relative contribution of each mineral to be exploited to the total mining requests in the territories of the ethnic groups. For visualization purposes, we only list the 9 minerals with the largest relative area separately while all others are grouped into the 'other' category. To avoid overestimation due to overlapping mining requests, we converted the potential mining polygon data to raster, using the ArcGIS 'polygon-to-raster' tool. In this conversion, the choice of features overlapping the same cell was based on the smallest feature identification (FID) number (i.e. the identification code for all georeferenced mining requests). Since FIDs are given out in order, the lowest FID number refers to the first request of mining in that area. The mining requests registered with ANM can be considered as a kind of 'waiting list' and, once the law is authorized, the list will dictate the priority of the mining companies' requests. Therefore, our approach obtains the mining request most likely to be granted. Next, we applied the 'tabulate area' function in Arc-GIS using the raster with the values of the minerals and the vector data of the ILs. Thus, the resulting table provided the area of each mineral in each IL, without overlap (table S2 in SM). All analyzes and maps were conducted using R (R Core Team 2014) and ArcGIS 10.4 (ESRI 2016).

Current illegal mining in indigenous lands
Currently, mining inside ILs is prohibited. Yet, the encroachment of illegal mining in indigenous territories has been increasing in the last three years (CIMI 2019, INPE 2020b. This activity has been encouraged by the current rise in the value of gold (World Gold Council 2020), the favorable signs from the government, and reduced surveillance of the ILs. According to our analysis of data from the Real-time Defor  The Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Program (PRODES) detected that yearly deforestation increased by 458% between 2017 and 2019 in these ILs, from 30.3 km 2 in the first year to 169.1 km 2 in the latter, totaling 255.6 km 2 in this period ( figure 2(B)). Part of these deforested areas represent the direct and short-term impacts of mineral exploration. For example, in Apyterewa IL, deforestation is mainly related to land-use change for agricultural activities by illegal non-indigenous squatters, while, in Kayapó and Munduruku ILs, a large part of deforestation is associated with illegal mining activity. Besides the direct effect of deforestation, the indirect effects of mining have the potential to cause several long-lasting environmental impacts (Horowitz et al 2018), such as forest fragmentation and degradation in relatively undisturbed regions with negative impacts on biodiversity (Siqueira-Gay et al 2020). The total areas detected by DETER and PRODES for the three years are detailed in tables A2 and A3 in the appendix.

Indigenous lands potentially affected by mining bill
Given that mining in ILs is prohibited, currently only mining requests outside of ILs are approved (figure 3(A)). To evaluate the possible impact of the new mining bill, we consider all mining license requests (registered in ANM) that overlap ILs as potential mining areas in the future. Until February 2020, no less than 2760 mining requests overlap ILs in the Brazilian Amazon, covering a total area of ≈ 176.9 thousand km 2 ( figure 3(B)). Mining requests in ILs represent 6.7% of the total of 41,413 existing requests for the entire Legal Amazon and 17% of the total requested area ( figure 3(B)). Considering only these existing requests, about 15% of the total area of ILs in the region could be directly affected by mining if the bill is approved. When compared the total illegal mining area in ILs verified between 2017 and 2019, the proposed new law has the potential to increase the mining area within ILs by 305,728%. In total, 66 ILs have more than 1% of their total area overlaid with requested mining areas. Herein, 16 ILs have more than 80% of their area covered by potential mining areas, 7 ILs have between 60% and 80%, 7 ILs have between 40 and 60%, 12 ILs have between 20 and 40%, and 24 ILs have between 1 and 20%. The Pará (PA) and Roraima (RR) states have the largest area at risk (figure 3(C)). Most indigenous lands where illegal mining was detected by DETER (figure 1) have mining requests inside their limits. Among them, the most affected are Apyterewa IL with 54.5% of its area requested to mining, Baú with 92.4%, Kayapó 33.4%, Munduruku 31.4%, Sawré Muybu (Pimental) 56.8%, and Yanomami 34.4%. The main minerals requested for exploration in these ILs, in terms of relative area and

Ethnic groups at risk
Our results indicate that the Yudjá ethnic group is the potentially most affected by mining, with around 87% of territory overlapped by requested mining  In total, the mining requests cover 75 different minerals. Around 64% of the total mining area requested within ILs is for gold exploitation, followed by copper (3.7%), columbite (3%), wolframite (2.4%), and cassiterite (2.2%) (figure 4; table S2 in SM). Iron ore, which dominated around 66% of Brazil's mineral exports and 77% of tax collection in the first quarter of 2020, according to the Brazilian Mining Institute (2020), accounted for only 0.76% of the requested mining areas in ILs. In contrast, gold represented 14% of exports and only 6% of total tax collection in the same period.
Up to now, in particular the Munduruku and Kayapó peoples have suffered intensely from illegal mining in their territories (CIMI 2019). Among 551 illegal mining areas detected in indigenous territories between 2017 and 2019, 497 occurred only in the Munduruku and Kayapó ILs in Pará. In the Munduruku IL, there was a 239% increase in the illegal mining area in this period, totaling 20 km 2 (figure 2(A)), spread over 211 different mining areas (INPE 2020b). While in the Kayapó IL, the increase of illegal mining was 161%, totaling an area of 30.5 km 2 distributed over 286 mining areas. Together, Kayapó (35.9 km 2 ) and Munduruku ILs (29.2 km 2 ) accounted for 25% of total deforestation in ILs occupied by mining activity in this period ( figure 2(B)). Due to the invasions of their territories, without alternatives and in the absence of government protection, the Kayapó and Munduruku peoples are organizing themselves to monitor and expel the illegal miners from their lands. They created groups responsible for patrolling their territories, destroying bridges, and removing machinery used by the invaders, risking their own lives (Camargos 2019).
For the legal mining that may be allowed under the new bill, the Yanomami people are facing 448 mining license requests, the largest number among all ILs. For these people, the strong pressure on their territory through the invasions by gold miners and the negative impacts on the population is an old reality. In the 80 and 90 s, high mortality rates among the Yanomami people were registered due to the transmission of diseases by illegal miners (Le Tourneau 2015, Hilson 2002. Also, recent research has found that some Yanomami groups are contaminated by mercury, a toxic chemical residue from illegal gold mining in their territory (Vega et al 2018). According to DETER, 13 new deforested areas to illegal mining were detected in 2019 and 4 until April 2020. This may be an underestimation, because illegal mining in this IL takes place mainly through ferries and dredges floating in rivers, making detection by remote monitoring systems difficult. As reported in recent months, there are records that around 20,000 gold miners are working illegally in Yanomami IL, increasing the tension of the conflict, the impacts of mining, and the risk of spreading diseases to the indigenous population , ISA 2020.

The road ahead
In countries where mining in indigenous territories has been legalized, such as the United States, Australia, and Canada, several negative impacts have affected indigenous peoples (Horowitz et al 2018, Milanez 2020, such as the demographic changes caused by the migration of foreign workers (Hilson 2002), the increased exposure of indigenous peoples to diseases (Hilson 2002, Le Tourneau 2015, a displacement from their territories, the establishment of new frontiers for urban development, and the fact that indigenous people are co-opted to work in mining, resulting in a break in the social dynamics of these peoples (Hilson 2002, Horowitz et al 2018, Milanez 2020. To try to avoid similar problems from what is happening in Brazil, indigenous organizations are articulating themselves to resist. One month after the federal government proposed the mining bill, indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami filed a complaint against government violations of the rights of indigenous peoples at the United Nations Human Rights Council (Chade 2020). The complaint aimed to alert the international community about the vulnerable situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil and about the recent threat of the proposed mining bill. Likewise, some indigenous leaders have already met with the president of the National Congress requesting that the mining bill not be voted on (Agência Câmara de Notícias 2020b).
However it is not enough, institutions such as FUNAI and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) must be strengthened and their actions must be strongly supported by the government. Joint inspection operations, punishment, and expulsion of those responsible for illegal mining in indigenous lands must be carried out in an exemplary manner, showing that such activity cannot be admitted in these areas. Complementary, we believe that organized actions by civil society are also important, adopting the values of a market-based society (Nepstad et al 2006). For this, it is important to put pressure on large mining companies and other companies that are part of the mineral production chain to join this initiative. The international public opinion combined with civil society is crucial helping to pressure the Brazilian government to avoid legal mining in indigenous lands. The combination of public actions based on a command and control strategy and private supply chain arrangements proved to be highly effective in reducing deforestation rates in the Amazon from 2004 to 2012.

Conclusion
Preserving the indigenous lands of the Brazilian Amazon is essential to safeguard the rights of close to 355 thousand indigenous people and their 155 ethnic groups. Their livelihoods and culture have their rights guaranteed in the Brazilian Constitution and various international treaties that Brazil has signed. Still, requested mining areas cover around 176 000 km 2 of indigenous lands. If turned into law, the mining bill proposed by the current Brazilian government is likely to cause major social and environmental degradation in these areas. There is a high risk of land conflicts involving indigenous territories, further exposing indigenous peoples to rural violence, contamination by toxic pollutants, and contagious diseases. Furthermore, substantial environmental impacts in these territories can be expected, such as extensive deforestation, loss of local biodiversity, and contamination of rivers and soil. Financial compensation cannot compensate for the loss of welfare, livelihoods, and the violation of rights of indigenous peoples. Brazil has sound strong environmental legislation. The obligation of the government is to enforce existing laws and regulations that put indigenous rights and livelihoods above economic consideration and not to reduce such protections. Appendix A. Tables: A1, A2, and A3, and figure A1

Stage Description
In study Conducting anthropological, historical, land, cartographic and environmental studies, which support the identification and delimitation of indigenous land.

Delimited
Lands that had their studies approved by the Funai Presidency, with their conclusion published in the Official Gazette of the Union and the State, and that are in the administrative contradictory phase or under analysis by the Ministry of Justice, for a decision on the issuing of a Declaratory Ordinance traditional indigenous possession.

Declarated
Lands that obtained the expedition of the Declaratory Ordinance by the Minister of Justice and are authorized to be physically demarcated, with the materialization of the landmarks and georeferencing.

Homologated
Lands that have their materialized and georeferenced limits, whose administrative demarcation was approved by Presidential decree.

Regularized
Land that, after the homologation decree, was registered in a Notary's Office in the name of the Union and in the Federal Heritage Secretariat.

Forwarded with Indigenous Reserve
The Indigenous Reserve constitutes a differentiated category of Indigenous Land, mainly due to the way it is acquired by the State and intended for the indigenous population. In this way, this category is out of the stages of the recognition process cited above. The Indigenous Reserves are areas that are in the administrative process of acquisition by the Union (direct purchase, expropriation or donation) intended for the possession and occupation of indigenous peoples; where they can live and obtain means of subsistence, with the right to enjoy and use natural resources, guaranteeing the conditions for their physical and cultural reproduction.