June 27, 2023

14:06

Marcela Leiros – Amazon Agency

MANAUS – The series Aruanas, which portrays the struggle of four women at the head of a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in favor of environmental preservation, has become a highlight for addressing issues such as soil pollution, rivers and urban pollution. The production premiered its second season in May, on TV Globo.

The Brazilian fiction series has been launched in more than 150 countries. The first season aired in July 2019 on Globoplay, Grupo Globo’s streaming platform, and aired on broadcast TV between April and June 2020. The second season premiered on the platform in November 2021 and has been aired on Rede Globo on Tuesday nights since May 2023.

In the first season, the founders of the NGO Aruanas, journalist Natalie (Débora Falabella), lawyer Verônica (Taís Araújo) and environmentalist Luíza (Leandra Leal) travel to the fictional town of Cari, in the interior of Amazonas, when they receive a complaint about attacks on indigenous peoples and conflicts over the ownership of preserved lands. They discover a major environmental crime scheme connected to a mining company.

Watch an excerpt from the first season:

The character Natalie talks about mercury contamination from illegal mining (Reproduction/Globoplay)

In the second season, which is being shown on broadcast TV, Natalie is invited by the mayor to visit the city of Arapós, in the countryside of São Paulo, where she witnesses a suicide protest. From there, the Aruanas begin to draw a parallel between the “perfection” of the model city and a PEC that politicians are trying to pass in Brasília.

Yanomami drama

The story of the contamination of rivers by mercury is reminiscent of the drama experienced by many indigenous communities in Brazil, with emphasis on the Yanomami, in the largest demarcated territory in the country, which covers the states of Amazonas and Roraima. There, the presence of more than 20 thousand illegal miners has led to a humanitarian tragedy, with the contamination of rivers and food shortages.

The Yanomami are one of the 305 indigenous ethnic groups that reside in Brazil, according to the 2010 Census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Their territory covers more than nine million hectares of the Negro River Basin – or about 96,600 square kilometers.

Hunger and malnutrition are consequences of illegal mining, since the contamination of the rivers kills the fish and makes the water unfit for consumption. The health consequences are tremors, insomnia, memory loss, headaches, muscle weakness, and even death.

A report by the Federal Police indicated that indigenous people from 14 regions of the Yanomami territory showed high levels of contamination by mercury. The study collected hair samples from 43 indigenous people and identified that 76.7% of the people studied live under high exposure to the toxic heavy metal.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mercury levels in hair should not exceed one microgram per gram. However, in the case of the analyzed Yanomami, they are between 2 and 10 micrograms.

Following the Yanomami tragedy, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) intensified actions to protect the territory and provide assistance to the indigenous people. This week, the Federal Police informed that for more than 30 days they had not identified any illegal mining alerts in the Yanomami Indigenous Land.