| As miners ravage Yanomami lands, combat-trained environmentalists work to root them out.  Photograph by Tommaso Protti for The New Yorker When you think of a typical environmentalist, you probably don’t imagine someone like Felipe Finger: dressed in combat fatigues, armed to the teeth, his speech peppered with military jargon. Yet, in the Brazilian Amazon, Finger is on the front lines of a pitched battle with illegal miners for the future of the rain forest. In an extraordinary story in this week’s issue, Jon Lee Anderson embeds with Finger and his unit of special-forces fighters, joining them as they struggle to protect the delicate landscape and the isolated Indigenous groups who call it home. “Wherever they go, the miners destroy everything, entire river systems,” Finger explains. “And they do it at the expense of these highly vulnerable people.” Finger’s team is equipped with satellite imaging, combat gear, assault rifles, and night-vision goggles provided by the U.S. government. But the miners have access to much of the same technology, as well as backing from organized-crime syndicates. During one operation, the team takes great risks to dismantle a mining outpost, leaving its remnants in ashes—but success is hard-won. “The day’s raid had destroyed a facility that might have employed a dozen miners,” Anderson notes. “The number of people involved in illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon is believed to be as many as half a million.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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