Brazil police shoot dead 4 illegal gold miners on Yanomami reservation

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BRASILIA, May 1 (Reuters) - Brazilian police and environmental protection agents were ambushed by illegal gold miners on the Yanomami Indigenous reservation in the Amazon on Monday and four miners were shot dead in the exchange of gunfire, a government statement said.

The Environment Ministry said their team was attacked when they moved in to dismantle a wildcat mining camp run by an organized crime gang.

Brazil police shoot dead 4 illegal gold miners on Yanomami reservation

 

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'Anyone who buys a gold ring is part of the crime'​

Story by The Associated Press • Yesterday 7:00 PM

BOA VISTA, Brazil — Until two months ago, Cartier’s website showed Yanomami children playing in a green field.

The French luxury jewelry brand said it was working to promote the culture of the Indigenous people and protect the rainforest where they live, in a vast territory straddling Brazil and Venezuela. But the project that the site described protecting the Amazon never took place. And Cartier published the photo without the approval of Yanomami leadership, violating the beliefs of a people who had been living in almost total isolation until they were contacted by outsiders in the 1970s.

Some of the Yanomami and their defenders praise Cartier’s promotion of Yanomami causes. However, advertising by one of the world’s biggest jewelers with images of an Indigenous people devastated by illegal gold mining has some complaining of greenwashing, a corporation promoting its own image by supporting a cause.

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'Anyone who buys a gold ring is part of the crime'