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Gun-toting security forces tear along the Tapajós River in Brazil's Amazon in search of illegal gold mines.

Joining them on the raid is an inspector from the Indigenous affairs agency FUNAI, two more boats with federal special forces, and our reporter Dan Collyns.

The authorities were patrolling the corner of a region the size of Belize, which belongs to the Munduruku Indigenous people and has been poisoned by illegal mining.

As Dan reports, surging gold prices have incentivised a booming illegal gold trade in the Amazon that have left toxic mercury in their wake.

This poison has entered the water and food of Indigenous people, and is linked to major issues like neurodevelopment problems and physical disabilities in children.

More than 400 air, river and land raids have been carried out in the territory since early November, according to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's executive office.

These raids have destroyed equipment like pumps and dredgers, and have cost illegal miners $16 million, it said.

"(Lula's) big commitment is that there is no more illegal mining inside Indigenous lands or conservation areas," said Nilton Tubino, who is leading the government's efforts in the Munduruku Indigenous Reserve.

"That's the big challenge," he said.

Across the Amazon rainforest, criminal activities from the cocaine trade to illegal gold mining are driving destruction of crucial rainforest and the biodiversity it contains.

Tackling these problems in Brazil, Peru and Colombia is notoriously difficult, but they could be about to become even more challenging, reports our climate and nature correspondent Andre Cabette Fabio.

Hundreds of conservation projects in the Amazon River basin have been put in limbo by U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid for 90 days.

"We are giving free rein to illegal loggers, to coca plant growers", said Francisco Hernández Cayetano, president of the Federation of Ticuna and Yagua Communities of the Lower Amazon River in Peru.

His USAID-funded project - on hold for at least two or three months - enabled the communities to respond to satellite-generated deforestation alerts through an app, helping fight cocaine production and trafficking in Latin America.

Other projects try to improve sustainable businesses in the Amazon, such as fish farming and production of folk crafts, in a bid to reduce the economic drivers of deforestation for coca leaf production.

Even if funds for such projects and jobs within the department are restored and protected by courts, much damage has already been done, said a USAID employee.

The onus now is on countries like Brazil to step up and tackle these problems without American help. The Amazon may depend on it.

See you next week,

Jack