Exploitation in the Amazon

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Exploitation in the Amazon
Air Date: April 7, 2020
Host: David Remnick
Featured Reporter: Jon Lee Anderson

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Overview

This episode delves into the mounting exploitation of the Amazon rainforest, focusing on the incursion of illegal gold miners into Indigenous land, particularly among the Kayapo people. Through on-the-ground reporting, personal profiles, and historical context, Jon Lee Anderson exposes the threats faced by the Amazon’s Indigenous communities—exacerbated by President Jair Bolsonaro’s pro-mining policies—and reflects on environmental, cultural, and human impacts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bolsonaro’s Environmental and Social Policies (00:10–01:25)

• Bolsonaro’s government deprioritizes environmental protection, favoring economic growth at the expense of the Amazon and its Indigenous inhabitants.
• David Remnick points out a pattern: “He’s long been known to spurn the advice of experts and scientists…Protecting the Amazon rainforest is just a hindrance to Brazil’s economy.” (00:23)
• A new bill proposed by Bolsonaro seeks to legalize commercial mining on protected Indigenous lands.

2. The Kayapo: Culture and Change (02:10–07:47)

• Anderson introduces the Kayapo, an Amazonian tribe of around 9,000 people inhabiting an area the size of Ohio.
• He profiles leaders and community members, including Chief Muro—founder of the village Tourejam—praised for his vision in balancing tradition and integrating essential education and healthcare.
• Anderson and his companions are greeted in Tourejam with a traditional mourning ritual, signaling the continued influence of Kayapo customs.
• Chief Muro’s recorded words frame the Indigenous perspective:

  “White people are destroying our environment. Even the government is destroying me.” (05:23, Chief Muro) “White people have to respect Indians. Indians respect white people, but they don’t respect us.” (05:49, Chief Muro)

3. Life in the Amazon, Before and After Mining (06:24–09:47)

• Traditional lifestyles are described: multigenerational living, communal living in hammocks, evening gatherings in men’s houses.
• The arrival of miners brings negative changes: malaria outbreaks, increased violence, disruption in traditional ways.
• Belen, a university-educated Kayapo, comments gently on changes:

  “There’s more malaria now… Yes, it’s very dangerous. There’s many murderers here.” (08:56, Belen via Anderson)

4. Historical Roots of Exploitation (09:35–13:08)

• The Amazon’s vulnerability is tied to decades of state-sanctioned encroachment, dating back to the military dictatorship and infrastructure projects like the Trans-Amazonian Highway (BR163).
• John Lee Anderson: “Wherever roads go, people go.” (09:53)
• Constitutional rights for Indigenous people were formally established in 1988; there were genuine improvements during Lula’s presidency.
• This protection unravels under Bolsonaro, who actively promotes mining and settlement in Indigenous areas:

  “If I could, one day, I would confine [environmentalists] to the Amazon, since they like the environment so much.” (12:54, Bolsonaro as referenced)

5. Illegal Gold Mining’s Toll (14:04–20:35)

• Gold mining surges as gold’s price rivals cocaine’s: “Thousands of gold miners have flocked into the indigenous territories looking for gold.” (14:04)
• The Kayapo’s internal dynamics are tested. Some chiefs allow miners in exchange for money; internal division facilitates exploitation.
• The environmental effects are devastating: traditional forests are replaced by “a sea of mud and mercury and machinery,” with social consequences (17:24–18:17).
• Personal tragedies emerge. Anderson interviews a miner, Jorge Silva:

  “All of us know that we’re screwing the forest. It’s not like we don’t know…but we don’t have any other way to make money or a living.” (18:48, Jorge Silva via Anderson)

6. Loss of Control and Vulnerability (19:24–20:35)

• The Kayapo are supposed to receive 10% of mining proceeds; in practice, they have no oversight and are often cheated.
• Miners now operate airstrips within the territory, easily smuggling out gold and further weakening Indigenous control:

  “…the Kayapo had lost control because it meant that these miners could take the gold out of Kayapo land and fly it right out.” (20:22)

7. Broader Reflections and Global Accountability (20:35–22:44)

• Anderson laments the destruction wrought “for wedding bands, really… millions of acres of primeval forest get destroyed for wedding bands, is that right?” (20:43)
• There’s widespread criminality: “It’s groups of criminals now funding massive operations and moving into areas where there are vulnerable people to take the gold from them… They are terrified of the men, and they don’t know what to do about it. And the president of their country is backing up the thugs.” (21:10)
• Indigenous people act as “the last defense for some of the world’s last wilderness areas”—but are also, through forced complicit relationships, sometimes “handmaidens to their own destruction.” (21:39, Interviewer/Reporter)
• Anderson ends introspectively, highlighting shared culpability:

  “You know, here I am speaking with such passion about gold, and yet I’m wearing some… We need to be more conscious about the ways in which we consume this planet and know about how it’s come to be on us.” (22:16, Anderson)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chief Muro (via recording, 05:23):
  “White people are destroying our environment. Even the government is destroying me.”
• Jorge Silva (18:48):
  “All of us know that we’re screwing the forest. It’s not like we don’t know…but we don’t have any other way to make money or a living.”
• John Lee Anderson (20:43):
  “Millions of acres of primeval forest get destroyed for wedding bands, is that right?”
• Interviewer/Reporter (21:39):
  “The indigenous people are the last defense for some of the world’s last wilderness areas…they are also the handmaidens to their own destruction. And it’s always been that way. And that’s what people like Bolsonaro understand.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:10 – David Remnick introduces Bolsonaro’s policies in the context of COVID-19 and the Amazon.
• 05:23–06:24 – Chief Muro’s powerful message about respect and environmental stewardship.
• 09:35–13:08 – Historical outline: dictatorship, opening the Amazon, Lula and Bolsonaro’s legacies.
• 14:04–15:33 – The gold rush and its seduction, rites of passage, internal Kayapo politics.
• 17:24–18:17 – Division in Kayapo leadership enables mining; the environmental toll.
• 18:48 – Miner’s candid admission of complicity and desperation.
• 20:22–20:35 – Evidence of lost Indigenous control: secret airstrips, smuggling gold.
• 21:39–22:16 – Indigenous people as custodians and their tragic complicity.
• 22:16–22:44 – Reporter’s final self-reflection on complicity in gold consumption.

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Tone and Language

The episode blends empathetic, immersive storytelling with clear-eyed critique, moving between mournful community voices, journalistic objectivity, and reflective analysis. The inclusion of Indigenous perspectives, historical detail, and personal narrative conveys the urgency and complexities of Amazonian exploitation.

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If you want to read more, John Lee Anderson’s article “Blood Gold in the Brazilian Rainforest” is referenced as a deeper dive into the subject.

Transcript

[Announcer]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. This past week, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, ignored the advice of his own health minister's call for social distancing in light of COVID 19. Bolsonaro went for a walk in the Capitol declaring will all die one day. He's faced backlash for this reckless attitude. And there have been calls for resignation from members of Brazil's left. Most Brazilian state governors are flat out ignoring Bolsonaro's advice. Now, Bolsonaro's approach isn't all that surprising. He's long been known to spurn the advice of experts and scientists. He's perhaps most well known for his disregard for environmental concerns favoring economic growth first and foremost. For Bolsonaro, protecting the Amazon rainforest is just a hindrance to Brazil's economy. Several weeks ago, he introduced a bill to allow commercial mining on protected indigenous lands. John Lee Anderson has reported from every country in Latin America. And not long ago he returned to Brazil to look at how the influx of gold miners is affecting one indigenous community there. Here's John Lee Anderson.

[John Lee Anderson]

I've been to Brazil a number of times over the years and to the Amazon as well. The jungle really begins in southeastern Parastate. It's below the mouth of the Amazon, which when it meets the Atlantic Ocean is about 200 miles wide. The mountains in the distances are still jungle. It's just a green carpet that goes on forever. And once you're down there in these, you know, vast trees that have their. It's an entire ecosystem. The water is looked from the sky, it's so clear, it's so clean.

[David Remnick]

Hundreds of indigenous groups live in the Amazon and one is a group known as The Callepo, about 9,000 people living in an area the size of Ohio.

[John Lee Anderson]

It turned out that I have two friends in Brazil, both of whom have had long standing relationship with the Caiapo. One is an American who's lived in Brazil for many years. He speaks various languages, including indigenous languages. Glenn shepherd, he's an ethnobotanist, wonderful guy. He knows the Caiapo extremely well, has for over 25 years. And the other is Felipe Milanese, who's a teacher of humanities in Bahia. And he agreed to come with me. They spoke to me about the late chief who had set up this village called Tourezam. Tourejam is the Kayapo village that was set up around 2011 by Chief Muro a young chief of the Kayapo. Who moved there to start a new community.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

When Felipe and I arrived in Tourejam, one older woman immediately came to Felipe. And she and other women around her erupted into this keening, wailing, crying. And this is, I understood later, a traditional greeting. It's a morning greeting. She knew that Felipe had known Modeau. And therefore they would lament together this beloved person that they had once known.

[John Lee Anderson]

Who was no longer with them.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

It went on for about 10 minutes.

[John Lee Anderson]

Both Glenn and Felipe spoke to me about Muro as a man of vision, as someone who wanted the best for his people, as someone who recognized and valued the traditions of the Caiapo and didn't want to lose them. He also wanted his people to be educated. And he had strategically positioned his village at the edge of the great territory. In order that they have access to schooling and also health clinics.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Back in 2013, not long before Moreau died, Glenn shepherd, the ethnobotanist, went to Tourexam and recorded this small interview with Moreau.

[Chief Muro (voice recording)]

White people are destroying our environment. Even the government is destroying me.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

He was about to head off on a journey to the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, to meet with then President Dilma Rousseff. And to present her with a letter.

[John Lee Anderson]

On behalf of the Kayapo people.

[Chief Muro (voice recording)]

So we're going to Brasilia to ask them to stop. White people have to respect Indians. Indians respect white people, but they don't respect us. That's why we're going to Brasilia to talk with the government, to ask them to stop all this. If they destroy our environment, it will make life very hard for us, for our children, for our grandchildren.

[John Lee Anderson]

The Kayapo, you know, are hunter gatherers. They live within nature and have a specific relationship with each of the animals. Several generations live together in a single room. That's how they live in hammocks. They sleep in the big house at night. And then in the evenings, they sit out in front, looking out into the big dirt circle. And there's a men's house, open sided in the middle of the dirt circle, where the men get together and talk. And they have sort of talking nights.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Amongst the Kaiapo, the kinship relations are rather complex. But while I was in Tourejam, I met one of the late Chief Muro's younger relatives, a man called Belen.

[John Lee Anderson]

He grew up in Altogorochide. He's the best educated and the first university educated Kayapo of his community. And over the days, he became the person that I spoke with the most.

[David Remnick]

His Father taught Daryl Posey about medicinal plants.

[John Lee Anderson]

Balenga is in his early 40s. He is a stocky man, medium height. Has a nice face. A big round face. Very strong. The Kaiapo men are strong. They have hard black hair. And he was always painted. He wore this extraordinary red and yellow paint. And he had the black geometric designs on his chest and torso. Fantastic looking person. Few illnesses and few white people.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Was the life better then or no?

[John Lee Anderson]

Beleng never really criticizes. He speaks in a gentle way. He doesn't opine. So how is it since the gold miners are here? Is it better or is it worse? And he would say, well, there's more malaria now. Do you feel fear because there's all of these strangers in your forest? Yes, it's very dangerous. There's many murderers here.

[Narrator/Commentator]

A shadow of things to come Brazil.

[John Lee Anderson]

Was under dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. And there was a lot of brutality.

[Narrator/Commentator]

It was Gulart's leftist leanings and the fear that he would turn Brazil into a Castro state. That led to an army revolt and his downfall.

[John Lee Anderson]

And it began the great immigration into the Amazon via this great dirty road that they built to westernize Brazil. Wherever roads go, people go.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

The Brazilian military understood that.

[John Lee Anderson]

And when they seized power in the 60s, it was their obsession to populate the interior of Brazil.

[Narrator/Commentator]

It is also the beginning of of the most controversial road in Brazil, the BR163. The Brazilian dictatorship built this road in the 1970s. Their intention was to populate the rainforest and exploit its resources under the slogan land without people for people without land. Ignoring the tens of thousands of indigenous Indians who were there already. But the road was never finished.

[John Lee Anderson]

In the 70s, there were dozens of massacres of indigenous people in conjunction with the Trans Amazonian Highway. The first people who come might be just people who want to just survive. They might want to clear an acre of land to grow some yucca and some beans. But soon you have the guys who are looking for the valuable hardwood. Some of these hardwood trees can net you $100,000. And with money people come hard men. And then you have the ranchers who realize, I can have a million acre cattle ranch and wait, that Indian tribe is there. The state tells me, as long as there are Indians on it, we have to leave them. But if there's no Indians on it, it's mine. In 1985, the dictatorship was over. The country returned to democracy, such as it exists. They had a constitution in 1988 which consecrated for the first time the rights of indigenous people. I would say that under Lula, he made a great effort to uphold the constitution and the constitutional rights of those people who had been traditionally marginalized in Brazil. And they were incorporated into the economic and social life in the country in a way that they weren't before.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

But then there was a downturn in the country's economy amid rising discontent. And in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected.

[Bolsonaro (voice or referenced)]

They're some of Brazil's most remote and untouched regions. But now President Bolsonaro wants to tap into the riches of protected indigenous reservations. His proposed bill delivers on a campaign promised to open up the land to mining, energy and other projects. This is a big step forward. It depends on Congress, but we will face pressure from environmentalists, those people from the environment. If I could, one day, I would confine them to the Amazon, since they like the environment so much.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

This is the man that the Brazilians have chosen as their president.

[John Lee Anderson]

He wants the Indians land. You know, he wants them off. And he's been pushing since day one to take over the indigenous reserves to get rid of them and to push a mining bill that he has finally presented to Congress to allow commercial mining on indigenous land.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. We're listening to John Lee Anderson's reporting from the rainforest of Brazil about the push from the government there to allow mining on indigenous land, in particular gold mining, which has become extremely lucrative as the price of gold has gone up and up.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Thousands of gold miners have flocked into the indigenous territories looking for gold. Today, the price of gold is roughly comparable to that of cocaine. And I wanted to find out how this gold boom was affecting the indigenous.

[John Lee Anderson]

People in the Amazon.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Every few years, the Kayap have a coming of age ceremony. They call it the naming ceremony for the young boys who become adolescents. As part of that ceremony, they're given feather headdresses made from the feathers of macaws and. And from parrots. And Belen was the designated feather hunter for his group within the Caiapo.

[John Lee Anderson]

And he ran across some white men prospectors in the jungle quite far from Thurijam. He knew that they were doing gold mining illegally on that part of the territory.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

He told Moreau that he'd met these.

[John Lee Anderson]

Prospectors and that they clearly were interested in building this road through the jungle so that they could prospect right through. And Moreau sent word back saying, no, we don't want that.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Moreau hoped that he could get the best of the outside world. You know, schools for the children Health clinics for the people to improve their health and their education. But with that contact has also come a desire amongst the young men, inevitably, for things like motorbikes or clothing or funky haircuts, and sadly, also alcoholism, prostitution. I mean, just outside the reserve, there's a brothel and a bar. And the changing diet and lifestyle that they're acquiring and which seems to be, you know, really affecting them in a negative way. When those prospectors spoke to Belen, they were really speaking not only for their own interests, but with the backing of another Caiapo chief who had already allowed them to do prospecting in his territory. Belen himself was related to both chiefs, and so was seen as a kind of go between. Now, the Kayapo, in the last few decades, they haven't openly fought with one another. There's still kind of mutual respect. You know, one chief will see if another community, usually through their chief, is willing to go along with an idea. And they either go along with it or they don't. Moreau opposed it. And so for a number of years, it was stopped. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, Muro died. And it was not long at all.

[John Lee Anderson]

Before the road was built.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

From what I understand, the deal was made by his own brother, Juan Piranha, as they call him. Piranha being the fish, the carnivorous fish, but he was also called, I was told, Juan cachaza. Cachasa is the Brazilian liquor made from sugar cane. He liked to drink. He took some money, and in return, they went ahead with the road and they built it. And the gold prospectors just poured in and overwhelmed Turijam. And now the area around Turm is like a fringe of trees, but just beyond it, it's a sea of mud and mercury and machinery and, you know, devastation.

[John Lee Anderson]

I met one man, Jorge Silva, as a hired gun, basically, you know, as the hose man in his gold mining pit. And he had a look in his eye, and he wanted me to know that he was no dummy. And he had studied physics but had never been able to teach it. So he'd done all kinds of different jobs. He'd taught soccer in a high school. He'd done this, he'd done that. And he said to me, all of us know that we're screwing the forest. It's not like we don't know, he said, but we don't have any other way to make money or make a living. And it was a very tragic thing to hear him say that. And again, I feel that that's an indictment of the state, of the government, of that country that of any country that allows its people, abandons its people to such an extent that the only way they can make a living is to destroy their own land. That's very sad. And I think he was a voice of a kind of larger tragedy.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Through long standing agreements, the cuyapo are supposed to receive 10% of the proceeds of what the gold miners extract from the land. But as far as I could ascertain, they don't seem to really have the ability to know what the prospectors actually get out of the land. They more or less take them at their word. And if they once had a system to ensure that they got their 10% royalties, they seemed to no longer have that ability. In the overflight I did with Felipe of Tourexam and the forest beyond. And when we were astonished and horrified to see the extent of the destruction, we also saw airstrips that are on Kayapo territory that are clearly being operated by prospectors and prospecting groups themselves, which clearly told us that the Kayapo had lost control because it meant that these miners could take the gold out of Kayapo land and fly it right out.

[John Lee Anderson]

When you think about all this land and all these lives are being destroyed for gold, it's pretty devastating. What is gold? What good does it do? It's for wedding bands, really. Millions of acres of primeval forest get destroyed for wedding bands, Is that right? And apparently every little smartphone we use has some filament of gold, and if you add it all up, it's actually a significant portion of the gold that's being bought. It's groups of criminals now funding massive operations and moving into areas where there are vulnerable people to take the gold from them. They're not getting even their 10%. They are terrified of the men, and they don't know what to do about it. And the president of their country is backing up the thugs. That's what's going on.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

The indigenous people are the last defense for some of the world's last wilderness areas. Its habitats, its ecosystems, the animals that live within it, the medicinal plants that we have yet to even know exist. The indigenous people turn out to be the final custodians. And in some tragic cases, they are also the handmaidens to their own destruction. And it's always been that way. And that's what people like Bolsonaro understand.

[John Lee Anderson]

You know, here I am speaking with such passion about gold, and yet I'm wearing some. And I think we all are. You know, there's, there's. We need to be more conscious about the ways in which we consume this planet and know about how it's come to be on us.

[David Remnick]

John Lee Anderson. You can find his article Blood Gold in the Brazilian [e-mail] David I'm David Remnick and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening.

[Announcer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby Kalalea, David Krasnow, Go ofan Mputubwele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Allison McAdam, Morgan Flannery, Meng Fei Chen, and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.