www.projectcobra.org | Opinion
Gold Mining Makes Mega Money
An opinion by Wouter J. Veening and Géraud de Ville
As one of the oldest geological formations on earth, the Guiana Shield is also the continuation of West Africa’s Gold Coast. Hence, it is a highly mineralised region with large deposits
of gold, diamonds, bauxite and uranium. Today, formal and informal gold exploitation are
important contributors to the local economy. However, in the absence of effective regulatory
measures, the bounty may turn into a nightmare, in particular for Amerindian communities,
the environment and security.
OPINION
1/2013
I
n the early days of the colonisation
of South America it was thought that
the land of El Dorado, the Gilded One,
was around the mythical Lake Parima,
which Europeans believed, was situated
in the heart of the Guianas. Despite their
efforts, colonisers did not find gold in
the quantities they had hoped for and,
instead, developed an industry based on
sugar plantations on the fertile coasts of
the Guiana Shield.
World Factbook 2012). In French Guiana
in 2009, the gold industry was among
the leading industries together with the
aerospace, fishing and forestry industries
(IBP 2013).
Minerals such as gold are relatively easy
to extract and have high intrinsic value
or can be exchanged quickly for cash
money. With the abolition of slavery
in the 19th century, former plantation
slaves converted to artisanal gold
mining, originally as a means for survival
(Dalgety, 2010). In parallel to artisanal
mining, major concessions were granted
to foreign companies to exploit the most
productive areas at an industrial scale.
From then, gold progressively became
a central element in the economic
landscape of the Guiana Shield.
More recently, artisanal gold mining
has increased even further. As a highly
volatile commodity valued on world
markets, gold prices have soared
following the 2008 global financial crisis,
driving many peoples to start mining in
the hope of becoming rich, or simply of
escaping poverty.
In Guyana, gold and bauxite production
accounted for 56% of total exports in
2011 (Bureau of Western Hemisphere
Affairs 2012). In Suriname, the mining
industry accounts for about 85% of the
country’s exports and is mainly based
on alumina, gold and oil (CIA - The
This is also true for neighboring countries.
The garimpeiro statue - i.e. gold miner in
portuguese - featured on the central
square of Boa Vista, the capital of the
Brazilian state of Roraima, illustrates the
importance of gold in the region.
Furthermore, the recent completion and
improvement of the pavement of the
road from Manaus via Boa Vista, Lethem,
Iwokrama and Georgetown in Guyana,
to Paramaribo, Suriname (Figure 1), is
facilitating the migration of illegal miners
across countries and to regions where
controls are weak or non-existent.
Therefore, the explosion of the gold
mining sector, combined with the
improvement of infrastructure and
weak border controls in the Guiana
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Shield is creating a series of challenges for regional
governments and has dramatic impacts on
Amerindian populations and the region’s ecology.
In this Opinion, we list some of the most important
challenges. They are political, legal, social, sanitary
and environmental.
Corruption
Driven by the promise of immediate cash returns
and rising international gold prices - from U$ 272 per
ounce in 2000 to maybe over U$ 2000 in 2013 - mining
interests exert strong influence on governments and
the risk of corruption of officials, especially in countries
with weak governments, is strong. The corruption,
combined with a high poverty rate in the region help
explain the difficulties to reform the sector and ensure
a better transparency in the allocation of licences.
This not only applies to the licensing process, but also
to declaring extraction results and the (non) paying
of taxes and royalties. Recently it was discovered that
in Suriname, no traces of taxes or royalties paid can be
found back in the government books.
In Guyana, it has been shown that up to 80% of
potential gold revenue was leaving the country
untaxed (Chêne, 2010). In 2012, Guyana ranked 133
out of 183 countries and territories on Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (2012).
Indigenous Peoples Land Rights
In a system based on private law and property,
land rights are crucial for indigenous peoples. The
dependence on local natural resources deriving from
their traditional lifestyle makes indigenous peoples
vulnerable to other economic activities - such as
mining - affecting their land and frequently leads
to conflicts. Apart from Suriname, most countries in
the region recognise the land rights of indigenous
peoples. However, these rights are usually limited to
the surface of their territories and what grows on it,
with the exclusion of water and mineral resources.
The subsurface belongs to the state, which then can
auction off licenses to companies or individuals to
extract the minerals from the territory.
In the summer of 2012 Maj. General (rtd) Joseph
Singh, former commander of the Guyanese Army
and then Chairman of the Guyana Geology and
Mines Commission decided to step down from the
Commission as the mining sector in Guyana refused
2
Figure 1 - Communication infrastructure of Northern South America
(Singh, 2012)
to cooperate with him because of his endeavours to
reconcile mining with land rights and the protection
of the environment.
More recently, on 17 January 2013, the Guyanese
High Court ruled in favour of a miner with a mining
concession on titled indigenous lands. This decision,
with dramatic consequences for Amerindians all over
Guyana illustrates the frequent tensions around land
rights that oppose Amerindians to miners in that part
of the world.
Child labour, drug trafficking & prostitution
The mining industry, at all scales, is also accused to be
responsible of increased child labour, drug trafficking
and prostitution (Colchester & Rose, 2010). Due to its
lack of plan to combat child labour, more than 44,000
children under the age of 14 are currently employed
in Guyana across all sectors, according to the U.S.
Department of Labour (Associated Press, 2012). The
same department has reported cases of Amerindian
children prostitution around mining camps.
“There is limited evidence that children are victims
of both internal and international trafficking.
Amerindian girls may be particularly vulnerable, as
they are often trafficked to work in prostitution or
domestic service“ (Stabroek News, 2012)
The Guyanese press also mentions the link between
the mining sector and drug trafficking:
“Over time, an increasing number of persons have
been nabbed with illegal drugs in the mining
communities. We have also witnessed an increase
in violent crimes in these communities, many of
which seem to be linked to the illegal drugs business”
(Editorial, 2012)
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see for instance Ramraj (1996) - and effects on river
morphology and ecology (Ramessar & Cabey, 2007).
The chemicals used in isolating the gold from the
ore – such as mercury and cyanide - have potentially
tremendous impacts on the environment and the
people whose livelihood depends on it, in particular
Amerindian populations. Cyanide is highly toxic but
relative short-lived, whereas mercury, also highly
toxic, stays in the environment forever.
In 1995, the dike around the cyanide pond at the
Omai goldmine, Guyana, operated by the Canadian
Cambior broke due to its inferior construction,
releasing millions of litres of cyanide-contaminated
water into the Omai and the Essequibo rivers. Efforts
by NGOs to have the responsible company Cambior
tried in Quebec failed, as the Quebec court ruled that
the Guyana jurisdiction was legally “more convenient”.
After various procedures the High Court of Guyana
dismissed the case and even ordered the plaintiffs to
pay the legal costs of the defendant, Cambior… So
much for the political and legal power of gold!
The Minamata Convention
The gold mining of land, forests, and rivers is very visual, especially
in Venezuela as can be seen by comparing pictures of the relatively
intact Caura River (above) and the seriously impacted Caroni River
(below), both tributaries of the Orinoco in the Guayana Region of the
country (Butler 2006)
Malaria
To cope with the problem of mercury, the international
community has recently signed the Minamata
Convention (UNEP News Center 2013). The global,
legally binding treaty aims to prevent emissions and
releases of mercury by banning several products by
2020.
The sanitary problems associated with the ecological
changes brought by the mining sector, especially
malaria, have been under increased scrutiny recently.
Illegal gold mines, in particular, seem to pose a sanitary
threat and this is affecting the whole Guiana Shield
(Sriskantharajah, 2012). Recognising the problem, the
American Society on Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
(ASTMH) organised a Symposium on the subject
during its annual meeting, in November 2012 (Magill
& Lescano, 2012).
The convention was agreed by 147 countries on 19
January 2013 in Geneva. All Guiana Shield countries,
with the exception of Suriname, were involved in the
last negotiation round to reach agreement on the
convention.
Mercury and Cyanide
Presented as an important realisation under the
leadership of UNEP, some commentators point to the
shortcomings of the final text, notably with regards to
artisanal and small scale mining.
The environmental impacts of gold mining are
particularly resonant when compared with other
major mineral commodities (Hammond, 2007). Gold
is excavated at a wide range of operational scales and
uses both physical and chemical refining methods.
The environmental impacts include deforestation,
pollution due to the use of mercury and cyanide –
As UNEP Executive director Achim Steiner said:
“Everyone stands to benefit (….), in particular the
workers and families of small-scale miners, the
peoples of the Arctic and this generation of mothers
and babies and generations to come”
“While national action plans will foster reduced use
of mercury in [artisanal and small scale gold mining
(ASGM)], the treaty fails to include a provision to
require an eventual end to this polluting practice.
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With the current text, it seems that mercury use in
ASGM may go on indefinitely” (Gutierrez in Bhardwaj
2013)
geos/gy.html [Accessed January 20, 2013]
•
•
High gold prices on the international market
combined with infrastructure development and an
endemic poverty mean that the pressure of mining
on the ecology and Amerindian communities of the
Guiana Shield will likely increase and intensify.
International conventions are useful tools for phasing
out dangerous substances, such as mercury, on a
global scale and prevent it from being disseminated
in the environment. Despite this, the Minamata
Convention is largely helpless in solving the many
problems provoked by gold mining in the Guiana
Shield.
Strengthening the capacity of the local and
Amerindian communities to manage their lands and
to resist these outside forces, and – very importantly
– to liaise with international support organisations,
is therefore central if the region is to move towards
a sustainable development path while respecting
human rights.
Ultimately, legal recourse to the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights may offer avenues for Amerindian
Peoples. The Court’s 2007 landmark decision on the
Saramaka people vs. Suriname case, is a jurisprudence
that can be considered in cases of concrete violations
of land and land use rights •
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Project COBRA is supported by a three year grant from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme