All that rainforest lost, all that mercury leaching into the water systems, poisoning Indigenous peoples and wildlife. Just for some gold! The price of that gold is far too high… We can’t afford it!

Barbara Crane Navarro

Yanomami mother and baby, Amazonas, Venezuela – photo: Barbara Crane Navarro

« You don’t understand why we want to protect our forest? Ask me, I will answer you! Our ancestors were created with it in the beginning of time. Since then, our people have eaten its game and its fruit. We want our children to grow up here laughing. In the past, many of our people perished from your epidemics. Today I refuse to let their children and grandchildren die from the gold smoke! Chase the gold miners out of our home! They are harmful beings whose thought is dark. They are metal eaters covered in deadly xawara epidemic smoke. »

• Yanomami spokesperson and shaman Davi Kopenawa

A forest river in indigenous territorybefore the invasion of gold miners

30% of what is now recognized as ancestral Indigenous lands are in danger of being «legally»opened to gold mining and other…

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