His experience is a vivid example of the risks facing Buriticupu’s 70,000 residents. As more gullies appear, there are fears that the city in Maranhão state, on the edge of the Amazon ...

The plan sought to build public awareness of gullies through education, by making it part of the school curriculum and educating farmers on how the chemicals they use affect gullies. The IGEMP also ...

Hydraulic mining — washing the gold from natural gullies and hillsides — was much more efficient than hand tools. It was lucrative and widely used, but also caused massive erosion.