Covid-19 reaches isolated indigenous peoples at Vale do Javari; illegal gold diggers drive contamination

Indigenous organizations, such as the Javari Valley Indigenous Peoples Union (Univaja), the Javari Valley Kanamari Association and the Indigenous Peoples Network (APIB), released a statement warning about the arrival of Covid-19 at the Jarinal Village, in the far east of Javari Valley Indigenous Land (TI), Amazonas State, in the Amazon Region. The region concentrates many isolated indigenous groups that are now threatened by the virus.

With the first positive cases confirmed by the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai) among residents at Javari Valley Indigenous Land, the organizations are denouncing the federal government’s disobedience of a Supreme Court order which determined the set up of sanitary barriers to stop Covid-19 spread inside indigenous territories. The Court order came after a lawsuit filed by APIB and political parties to protect the Javari Valley. The deadline for implementing the barriers were ] September 30th, but the government never installed the blockades. The invasion by illegal gold diggers of indigenous lands is also a driver of the virus spread; organizations have been demanding control measures against them for months.

A study called “Is deforestation spreading COVID-19 to the indigenous peoples?”, by Brazilian economist Humberto Laudares, affiliated with Genebra University, in Switzerland, points to the correlation between deforestation, illegal gold mining and the contamination of indigenous people with Covid-19. According to the results of the research, conducted in over 5,000 municipalities in Brazil, deforestation and gold mining related to at least 22% of the confirmed Covid-19 cases among indigenous until August 31th. Every new 100 square kilometers of deforestation translates into 2,5 to 5,5 new coronavirus infections among indigenous populations.