Brazilian environmental agents cut through the rainforest with machetes on Thursday in search of criminals in the first anti-deforestation raids under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to end surging destruction inherited from his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
i have no doubt that mining may also be a driver of deforestation, but i havent been able to find any data anywhere to indicate that its impact on deforestation has outstripped cattle ranching (the best info i can see puts it at 23% of deforestation in indigenous territories in 2020)
brazil is the worlds largest beef and soy exporter. if not for the global growth in monstrously inefficient animal agriculture (among its many other faults), this land would not need to be deforested in order to feed anyone and the biggest driver of deforestation (both historical and recent) would have been removed. animal agriculture is the worlds largest driver of tropical deforestation and its not even close, and per capita meat consumption trends substantially highest in wealthy western countries