Brazil prospectors are hoping to strike it rich in areas giant mining companies might have missed. In the heart of Brazil's Minas Gerais state, these rural miners explore the massive craters left by these mining giants in search for the coveted gems.

In a report with Fox News Latino, Felipe Dana of the Associated Press created a collection of images about these intrepid miners and their craft as part of her work project for the 2015 World Press Photo Latin America masterclass held in Mexico City last December.

The area that Dana used for her documentary has been explored for diamonds since the time of slavery. Multinational mining giants have abused the area in search of diamonds without concern for the land or the Jequitinhonha River.

These days, the devastated piece of land is known to the locals as Areinha. The "no man's land" has become an area for rural miners to try to strike it rich by using wooden knives, metal pans and large water pumps.

The group of miners search for diamonds around the riverbed in order to spare the river from any more damage. The men and women involved continue their efforts to legalize their mining activities with local authorities.

Locals in the region say that hundreds of people are digging for diamonds in groups of ten or even less. These men and women live in wooden huts without any modern living facilities, such as electricity or running water. These people barely survive on an unstable income, but do enjoy the occasional windfall amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.

The mining process takes weeks, and the group excavates the soil down to a layer of gravel of up to 50 yards deep.

Rocks are extracted by way of small pumps powered by old truck engines. The mining groups use their hands to scrape through the rocks. Should the miners be lucky, they would be able to get their hands on the coveted Brazilian diamonds. 

While mining for diamonds might sound like such an archaic livelihood to many Brazilians, thousands of these local miners try survive and feed their families by betting on luck and their wits.

Illegal mining activities threatens Brazil's indigenous communities to the brink of collapse, a report with Insight Crime says. The Cinta-Larga indigenous group find themselves to be threatened by illegal mining activities and their efforts to confront these illegal miners seem to be in vain.

Currently, Brazil is a small contender in the competitive international diamond industry. In 2013, the country produced approximately 49,200 karats.