Will Brazil Destroy the Amazon to Save the Climate?

By Robert Muggah and Mac Margolis

Published in the Foreign Policy

Whether it was gold, diamonds, or iron, the history of Brazil has been shaped for centuries by the hunt for minerals. Colonial fortune hunters and their legions of pick-and-pan-wielding slaves dredged up 800 to 850 tons of gold in the 18th century alone, filling the coffers of the Portuguese crown. In the early 1800s, gold financed the war chest of the Brazilian independence movement.

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