Mining and the Brazilian Amazon: From El Dorado to Carajás

Author
Gildo Magalhães Santos

Journal
ICON, Volume 30, Issue 1 (2025), pp. 45–59

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11590/icon.2025.1.02

Abstract
Natural resources in the Amazon region have been internationally coveted for a long time, ranging from biological piracy related to pharmaceutical products to strategic minerals. Although media coverage usually focuses on the region’s forest and indigenous populations, these are no more than excuses hiding the powerful national and foreign economic interests at play. Beneath these concerns lie the tantamount issues of immense poverty, degraded health, and landscape neglect. Some facts are well known in the history of technology, while others have been ignored.

A panoramic chronological view over the last centuries is offered on some resources on the Amazon, focusing on the most conspicuous aspect presented today from the perspective of conflicts—mining. This paper summarises some facts that relate to the exploration of the Amazon forest and rivers and their economic transformation. The revelation of the Brazilian Amazon to the world gained momentum during the nineteenth century, with impacts extending to the twentieth century and even to the present day.

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