We accompanied Brazil’s environmental special forces 250 miles into the Amazon rainforest to search for illegal mines, which have been threatening the Indigenous Yanomami people.

The mines have destroyed parts of the forest, poisoned water with mercury and set off a humanitarian crisis for the Yanomamis, cutting their food supplies and spreading malaria.

The new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has made the crisis the top priority in his push to stop the destruction of the Amazon.

At the mines, the federal agents doused the machinery, which is highly expensive to transport into the rainforest, in diesel fuel.

Then they set it aflame.

At one mine, a nearby Indigenous village was so close that a group of Yanomamis emerged from the forest, carrying machetes and bows and arrows.

As we departed, it became clear from the sky that the Yanomami villages were surrounded by a string of illegal mines.