Digging and dying for gold in the Guianas
0 
 |
 |
|
Excavators are used by small and medium miners to dig for gold. |
Legal and illegal small miners share rudimentary lodgings in the forests of the Guianas. |
With all the topsoil removed in the area where the seven miners died last month, Surinam investigators say they were possibly using a powered water hose to blast away the soil, leading to the collapse that killed them.
Similar techniques are also used in Guyana and French Guiana.
Gold production records are problematic in the Guianas – never accurate, as gold and diamonds extracted by illegal miners (locals as well as competing cross-border invaders from Brazil and Venezuela) is never counted or accounted for.
Surinam, a 63,251 square-mile (214,999 square-kilometer) independent Dutch-speaking (Caricom) member-state with a population of 510,000, had a “recorded production” of 101,619 kg in 2005.
Today, however, official figures indicate the small operations of Suriname's illegal miners alone produced 16.5 tons of gold in 2009.
In 2006, Surinam also produced for export 4.9 million metric tones of bauxite and 2.1 million tones of aluminum.
In Guyana – an English-speaking Caricom nation of 83,012 square miles and 738,000 people – available figures indicate that in 2006, 6,406 kg of gold was produced, along with 340,500 carats of diamonds and 1.3 million metric tones of bauxite.
In French Guiana, a vast 32,253 square-mile French colony of 210,000 persons, no up-to-date figures are immediately available, but records indicate that 2,564 kg of gold was “recorded” for 2004, along with 1,500 kg of tantalum and 3,000 cubic meters of stone, sand and gravel.
Official production records are also inaccurate because most small miners prefer to keep their findings and earnings secret for several reasons, including personal security.
Banditry is alive and well. There are often unconfirmed stories reaching the inhabited coastlands from the interior of thefts, armed robbery and murders, disappearances and other unexplained happenings or unsolved crimes.
It's not un-common for a member of a coastal family who left to mine greener pastures in the interior to either remain unheard from for years – or never return – the family left uncertain if he's alive or dead.
The human cost of illegal gold and diamond mining is being noted by the campaigners for safety standards.
But, the experts say, in these three resource-rich, economically poor, developing but financially dependent territories where many are prepared to die digging for gold, illegal mining will continue to be a serious headache that will only worsen with every rise in the price of gold everywhere else in the world.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments