Deep in the Amazon, local officials resist gold miners — and inspire thesis

Reaching the small locality, nestled deep within the Amazon jungle, entailed several hours of travel by riverboat.

“When we finally arrived, we were quickly welcomed by the mayor,” recalled Eduardo Vasconcelos ’25, who reached the remote town as a volunteer distributing medical supplies during the pandemic. “He guided us to the community school and the public health center, which were all locally operated. I was utterly captivated. I thought, ‘Wow! This is the most intriguing experiment in self-governance I’ve ever witnessed.’”

The experience stayed with the double major in economics and government, rekindling old interests and eventually influencing his senior thesis. Vasconcelos aimed to explore what prevents elected representatives, like the one he encountered, from associating with illegal gold miners. Brazil’s federal government has prohibited these illicit operations, which employ methods that inundate the ecosystem with toxins. However, the miners have proven adept at gaining the cooperation of some of the rainforest’s isolated local authorities.

“People often perceive policymaking in the Amazon as something dictated by national governments,” stated Frances Hagopian, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government and one of three faculty guiding the thesis. “There are those who prioritize environmental protection and those who lean more toward resource development in the Amazon. What Eduardo did that was unique was to delve beneath the level of national governance.”

Vasconcelos, raised in a family of public servants in Brazil’s federal capital of Brasília, developed an interest in governance from a young age. By the age of 14, he was already working with teenage trauma victims. A surge of violent threats against the country’s educational institutions later motivated him to co-establish Jovens Líderes pela Paz (Young Peacebuilders), a nonprofit that trains Brazilian students in conflict resolution and enhances mental health support.

Vasconcelos also addressed educational matters as a government volunteer while still in high school. During his final year, a federal scholarship allowed his inaugural visit to Cambridge for the Harvard Model United Nations program. “I instantly fell in love with the institution,” he recollected.

During that period, then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was actively cutting public funding for universities while attacking particular humanities and social science fields. “That truly inspired me to pursue this path,” said Vasconcelos, whose application was backed by the Jorge Paulo Lemann Fund. “It would enable me to study what I love.”

“When discussing the protection of the rainforest, we don’t always consider how we can enhance support for local authorities.”

Eduardo Vasconcelos

As a freshman, he embarked on his first expedition to the rainforest with the nonprofit G10 Favelas, which facilitated the delivery of medical supplies to small communities in Brazil during the pandemic. Motivated by the effective democracy he witnessed in a distant Amazonian location, Vasconcelos subsequently secured places on two Harvard-organized immersions focused on the region’s economy, ecology, and culture.

“I feel that the Amazon is what unites every Brazilian,” Vasconcelos expressed, noting that Brazilian Chief Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, helped him focus his research on the rainforest. “I see a chance to rediscover our identity through the Amazon’s preservation and its future.”

Vasconcelos discovered that illegal gold mining, escalating since the early 2000s, leads not only to deforestation and rising CO₂ levels. The miners’ dependence on mercury and cyanide, utilized to extract gold from river sediment, poisons both water and air. Widespread mercury pollution, with its severe impacts on the human nervous system, has been detected in parts of the rainforest where unlawful mining is prevalent.

“He became very curious about why some local governments appear to tolerate this and others do not,” noted Hagopian. “And it turned out that the explanation was not as straightforward as, some municipalities have the gold and others do not.”

Vasconcelos initiated his research project by cataloging the influence of illicit mining interests over local administrations. He concentrated on 50 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Pará, which hosts over half of all illegal gold mining in the Amazon, identifying some degree of influence in 13. Advising the thesis with Hagopian were Government Professor
“`Steven Levitsky, an authority on Latin America and a native of Rio de Janeiro, along with Marcia Castro, a professor in demography at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In pursuit of a deeper insight, Vasconcelos subsequently focused on examining multiple political factors in each municipality. “Most political analysts and economists who investigate illicit economic practices presume that these thrive where governmental authority is frail,” Hagopian noted. “What’s fascinating about Eduardo’s findings is that it’s not the most feeble local administrations that host a significant amount of this activity. Rather, it’s local governments with some degree of capability.”

“They possess sufficient trained bureaucrats to legally permit mining on territory designated for environmental conservation or Indigenous communities,” she further explained. “They have adequate resources to develop new infrastructure.”

Conversely, one-party dominance surfaced as the most indicative factor. “The particular outcome indicates that when there is greater variety among parties, we observe a reduced likelihood of gold miners running for office or financing campaigns,” Vasconcelos elucidated, pointing to Brazil’s varied political environment with over 30 parties.

In a different section, the Kirkland House resident and former World Bank intern delved into the societal ramifications of this particular type of corruption. He discovered that deforestation rates doubled in the Amazon’s affected municipalities, while these areas experienced diminished investment in education and healthcare.

“We also witness homicide rates akin to those of war — the highest national figures,” Vasconcelos remarked. “Our findings illustrate that this is not a sustainable economic endeavor. It does not enhance the quality of life for the local populace.”

In conclusion, he asserted that local governance represents the primary shield against an immensely detrimental industry.

“When we discuss preserving the rainforest, we often overlook how we can better assist local governments,” stated Vasconcelos, a Schwartzman Scholar who plans to relocate to Beijing this summer for a one-year, fully funded master’s program in global affairs at Tsinghua University. “I would like to see more research examining this intersection.”