Small gold miners that have been working on illegal pits in the Amazon rainforest blocked an important road for grains transportation in Brazil’s Para state on Monday, protesting a crackdown by the government, police said.
According to a report at Reuters, the miners, mostly habitants of Moraes Almeida, a district in the Itaituba municipality that is at the center of an environmental crisis due to widespread fires in the forests surrounding it, blocked the BR-163 federal road.
The road is used by commodities traders to transport soybeans and corn from Mato Grosso farms to a port at the Tapajós river in Para.
According to Reuters, the miners were protesting recent raids from Brazil’s environmental defense teams that led to seizure and destruction of equipment.
