A complex network of actors has emerged around the critical minerals of the Amazon. Some operate along contested river corridors, trading with guerrilla groups and corrupt security forces. Others, under a façade of legality, move massive quantities of material through large port cities connected to international trade routes. Together, these operations endanger the environment and the sovereignty of entire nations.
Posted inlong form / Amazon Underworld
Chorrobocón’s Gamble: Betting on Critical Minerals
In Colombia’s jungles, where the deep green of the Amazon collides with poverty and exclusion, a hidden and dangerous business flourishes. In the remote corners of Guainía, Indigenous communities such as the Puinave find themselves trapped in illegal mining, an activity that allows them to survive but threatens to destroy the land they inhabit. With the decline of gold, strategic minerals have risen as a promise for the future. However, this new mineral rush, which promises to be less polluting than gold mining, carries enormous environmental and social risks.
Posted inlong form / Amazon Underworld
The Price of Progress: The Dark Side of Critical Minerals in the Amazon
Based on extensive fieldwork and an investigation of supply chains, tracing minerals from extraction to international buyers, we reveal how the global race for the inputs of the energy transition is intensifying violent disputes along the Colombia–Venezuela border, where armed groups control the territory, commit systematic abuses, and destroy one of the planet’s most important carbon sinks.
Posted inlong form / Amazon Underworld
In Venezuela, Colombian guerrillas recruit Indigenous youth
Along border with Venezuela, Colombian guerrillas lure unemployed Indigenous youths into drug trade, extortion rackets and armed conflict.
Posted inlong form / Amazon Underworld
Colombian drug runners turn to shamans for protection
Before embarking on a perilous trek through the jungle, drug couriers in Colombia turn to shamans for protection.
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The poorest narcos in the drug-trafficking chain
The poorest narcos in the trafficking chain risk even their own children to deliver drugs to criminal organizations.
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Dredges: Gold mining spurs crime & corruption on Brazil-Colombia border
Miners dredging millions of dollars in gold from Brazil’s Puruê River devastate the environment and attract armed groups.
Posted inlong form / Amazon Underworld
Illegal gold miners remove equipment and escape crackdown in Amazonas
Satellite images show that the interruption of gold mining immediately changed the color of the river. Operators of dredges, which can cost up to US$1.4 million, said they planned to return to the area after the government anti-mining operation ended.