Eliane Clara Opoxina has served as a nurse in Brazil’s Yanomami Special Indigenous Health District (DSEI Yanomami) for a decade. Initially, her work involved administering vaccinations and treating occasional illness in communities of the vast Yanomami Indigenous Territory, located in the states of Amazonas and Roraima along Brazil’s border with Venezuela. But her duties have grown more complex. That’s partly because government monitoring of Yanomami lands languished under the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who left office on Dec. 31, 2022. Incursions by illegal miners surged. Contact with miners was believed responsible for Covid-19 outbreaks among the Yanomami in the early days of the pandemic, but the biggest problem now is malnutrition and malaria linked to mining impacts on the Yanomamis’ land and rivers. Mosquitos that breed in the abundant standing water of mine sites spread malaria, as do infected miners as they move to new locations, and mining pollution has taken a toll on fish, a vital food source. Opoxina spoke recently with EcoAméricas correspondent Jill Langlois.
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