YANOMAMI

Brazilian government has promised to speed up the expulsion of illegal miners in the country’s largest indigenous territory, Yanomami.
Yanomami region stretches across Roraima and Amazonas states in the northwest corner of Brazil’s Amazon.
It has been a subject of interest for illegal gold miners for decades.
20 per cent of the Yanomami community died due to violence, the spread of diseases and damage to the environment.
The Yanomami are a group of 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
The Yanomami do not recognize themselves as a united group, but rather as individuals associated with their politically autonomous villages.

Yanomaman languages comprise four main varieties:

Impact of illegal mining in Yanomami territory

The number of malaria cases rose by 1,090 per cent in Indigenous areas and 75,576 per cent in mining areas.
Historically, the indigenous people of Yanomami have relied on the forest, birds and animals to feed themselves.
But illegal gold mining has destroyed vast patches of the forest, leading to a scarcity of food.
Miners in the region search for gold by mixing liquid mercury into excavated sediment of the Amazon’s rivers, which has polluted Yanomami areas traditionally used for hunting, fishing and gathering.
This has also contributed to the increase in cases of malnutrition among children.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB

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