Federal prosecutors in Amazonas state are suing the Brazilian government’s mining agency (ANM) for an alleged failure to monitor gold mining exploration in the Amazon. The lawsuit was filed in early July. A few days later, on July 21, the federal justice ordered ANM to increase oversight over wildcat mine permissions, small-scale mines known as garimpos in Brazil, following a similar lawsuit filed in 2021 by federal prosecutors in neighboring Pará state. The legal push also follows corruption probes into the agency’s top executives, who are accused of favoring mining companies in Brazil’s largest industrial mining state, Minas Gerais. ANM is responsible for authorizing and monitoring mining activities in Brazil, including wildcat mining permissions (PLGs), which aren’t subject to the same rigorous environmental requirements as large-scale mines. According to the federal prosecutors, poor monitoring and unclear rules have turned PLGs into mechanisms to launder gold taken from Indigenous lands and strictly protected conservation areas, where the activity is forbidden. The case is based on irregularities found in reports from Greenpeace and the Federal Court of Auditors. “Mining permits no longer serve the interests of small-scale miners and, in many cases, have become a front for gold laundering carried out by criminal organizations,” the federal prosecutor André Porreca stated on the Amazonas Federal Public Ministry’s website. The municipality of Itaituba, in Pará state, is known as the capital of illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon. Image by Fernando Martinho for Mongabay. ANM doesn’t require permit applicants to provide prior mineral…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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