Brazilian security forces have razed Vila Cururu, a large illegal gold-mining settlement in the Sararé Indigenous territory (a Singapore-sized area of savanna and woodland near the Bolivian border), as part of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's campaign to expel illegal miners from protected lands. The territory, home to roughly 200 members of the Nambiquara people, has lost about 17.3 square miles of forest since a gold rush began five years ago, with rivers poisoned by mercury and wildlife driven off by constant blasting. Officials say surging global gold prices, partly driven by uncertainty around US trade policy, have accelerated the crisis by drawing miners displaced from other crackdown zones, while reports of armed organised crime groups operating the mines have added a violent dimension to what Indigenous leaders call "total devastation".