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Dark smoke billowed from giant styrofoam skulls set ablaze and chants for land rights pierced the skies of Brasilia on April 7, 2026, as thousands of Indigenous people marched in protest against mining and logging.
They denounced the large-scale project to mine gold on the banks of River Xingu, a major tributory of the Amazon, along which they live. For over a decade, Canadian company Belo Sun has been developing Volta Grande mega-mine, the country's largest open pit gold mine, over 1,735 square kilometres of the river basin, an area roughly twice the size of New York City, according to AmazonWatch.
More that 7,000 people assembled carrying signs and banners reading “Belo Sun Out” and “Life Is Worth More Than Gold.”
Among the multiple invasive infrastructure being built on the ecologically sensitive area of Para state, the mining rejects dam right adjacent to Xingu has been deemed most dangerous. The dam will hold the toxic slurry of chemical reagents and waste from the mining process. Experts warn that a rupture from this dam will destroy the river, harming vast stretches of the Amazon and all the inhabitants of its basin.
They also voiced concerns regarding the lack of Indigenous participation in the licencing process. It violates Brazillian law and excludes some 57 communities threatened by the mine, they pointed out. “We are here in Brasília to denounce these violations and demand a response from the authorities that matches the seriousness of this project. Our message is clear: We want a definitive end to Belo Sun in our territory,” said Sol Juruna, one of the leaders of the movement, on the second day of the 2026 Free Land Camp (ATL), Brazil’s largest Indigenous mobilisation.
“Belo Sun is betting on a policy that renders us invisible. With the support of the Pará state government, they downplayed impacts on paper to deny rights to peoples who will be concretely affected on the ground. There is no real consultation when entire communities are excluded from the process and treated as if they were not part of the Volta Grande. That is why we will continue to resist,” said Ngrenhkarati Xikrin, a Xikrin leader from the Médio Xingu.
The protestors urged President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to safeguard their rights and Amazon’s ecosystems as he had publicly promised.
This comes amid police violence against protesting tribal people in Odisha's Rayagada district against a state-backed Vedanta bauxite mining project in Sijimali hills. There were reports of residents of Kantamal village being attacked in their sleep and asked to vacate their land that has been allocated for the project.
Following media reports on the violence, several civil society organisations in Odisha launched a joint protest in Bhubaneshwar in solidarity with the affected villagers. On April 8, 2026, they gathered chanting slogans such as 'Vedanta Go Back', 'Police the police' and 'Save Sijimali'.