Before they even enter a gold mine, travellers are surprised by the logistical ability of the countries in the Amazon region to transport everything that is needed for the miners, from food through to petrol. Extracting about two hundred and fifty tonnes (and probably more) gold per year as chips, fine grains or nuggets, transporting the precious metal and its ingredients, fuel and mercury all represents a highly profitable business whether using dugout canoes, quads or small stunt planes. Attempts to protect the Amazon require the involvement of the region’s countries to implement campaigns, to ban  illegal mining and the use of mercury, but are faced with the complete hypocrisy of these countries’ representatives irrespective of whether it is Brazil, France, Surinam or Venezuela.

Why criticise the business when these same country representatives are using every available means to extend it, by a laissez-faire attitude, by turning a blind eye or even by their active involvement. Not only is the situation in the Amazon rain forest not improving but it is worsening to the point where you have to wonder if even the countries are profiting from its destruction. Part of the problem stems from how the gold is pulled from the ore. Across Brazil, thousands of garimpieros, itinerant gold miners, remove ore by washing a rock face with a high-pressure stream of water. The ore is then broken down in a hammer crusher, and the gold-bearing ore is sluiced with mercury in a process known as amalgamation. The amalgam is filtered manually and then retorted to release the mercury from the gold. The mercury vapor that results is distilled and reused, although a small fraction remains bound to the gold, to be released by the gold dealers during processing. The Brazilian Gold Rush began in 1980 when gold was discovered in Serra Palada in Palá state. Most of the incoming population (at least 250,000) worked for a low wage in very crowded, highly competitive gold mines with very lax environmental practices. Up to 9000 tons of mercury, used in the mining process, has been washed into the region’s rivers, along with huge quantities of sediment. The miners have also polluted the rivers with oil, litter and human sewage. All around the vicinity of the mines, vegetation, animals and settlements have been destroyed.

The profits to be made from providing transport are often as great as those to be made from mining. The town of Maripasoula in French Guyana controls an area the size of Belgium and gains a large part of its revenues from the gold. However, in Brazil, the transporters do not care as they send their goods to the other side of the river Oyapock, on the Guyana side, and wait for their commissions. The same occurs with Surinam, where the gold money ends up in bank vaults or on casino tables. Why bother saying that the gold helps the local population when everyone from Caracas to Cayenne, from Rio to Paramaribo, knows perfectly well that it provides no local benefit and is removed to foreign countries?  The gold leaves whilst the mercury penetrates into the Amazon basin. The alchemy is damaging for the forest and is affecting the human population particularly those who eat mercury contaminated fish.

Includes exerts from the book J’Aurai de l’Or by Olivier Weber. See video clip  curse for gold

Tags: Environment, Gold

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 11:08 am and is filed under Environment, France, Gold, Mining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.