ENVIRONMENT-GUYANA: Influx of Gold Miners Worries Scientists

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, Jun 26 2001 (IPS) - Isseneru used to be a quiet village in western Guyana’s Mazaruni District. Today, it is at the centre of growing concern about environmental and health problems stemming from gold mining.

Most of the few hundred people who live in the village are indigenous Amerindians who eke out a living mostly from subsistence farming. In recent years, however, small-time gold miners from the coastland and prospectors from neighbouring Brazil, working legally and illegally, have moved into the area in response to a ” gold shout”, or promising find.

The miners have arrived not only with food, camping and work equipment, but also large quantities of mercury, which they use to extract gold from the tons of ore they rummage through each day.

That’s where the problem lies, say environmentalists: A recent survey shows higher than usual concentrations of mercury in the bodies of the villagers.

“We are concerned about it, “, says David Singh, head of technical services at Guyana’s Institute of Applied Science and Technology. “The human contamination is definitely associated with gold mining.”

Singh was one of several scientists and mining industry players who spent three days last week looking at the gold and diamond mining industries in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, countries in the mineral-wealthy Guiana Shield.

Concerned that the small-scale sector of the industry is growing faster than can be managed and regulated, the scientists recommend that mining laws in all three countries should be made as similar as possible to limit itinerant miners’ bad habits – including the indiscriminate use of mercury, which often is the fastest and cheapest – but also the most dangerous – way to extract gold.

The scientists also say a massive public awareness campaign is needed to alert the public to the poisonous consequences of using mercury. Experts say the chemical causes damage to human and animal nervous systems, has been linked to personality changes, comas and even deaths, and is considered a global pollutant since it builds up in the food chain and can be carried long distances by wind, rain, streams and oceans.

Patrick Williams, who runs the Guyana office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), says authorities believe they must act now because an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 mostly poor wildcat Brazilian miners have swelled the ranks of small-scale, or ‘artisanal’, miners in the three countries.

“Their numbers are growing everywhere,” says one official. “It started when gold prices surged about 10 years ago. One thing we know is that gold is an important economic contributor and we have to manage it better and involve all the stakeholders.”

Tony Shields, executive secretary of the Gold and Diamond Miners Association, accepts that there is a health problem in the area but says that some of the indigenous people have themselves turned to digging for gold and as such would have come into contact with mercury.

“Mercury has always been used in the industry, but it depends on if you abuse it, ” says Shields.

Nevertheless, he acknowledges that some of the Brazilians working at Isseneru might have helped to contaminate rivers and creeks when applying mercury to recover gold from ore.

Residents depend on these waterways for domestic consumption. The only other source is rain.

Brazilian miners are known to use as much as three times more mercury per ounce of gold than their counterparts in Guyana and Suriname. This is one reason why scientists are paying increased attention to the sector, given the fact that the Brazilian brigade, known widely as ‘Garimpeiros’, is growing in numbers each day.

Glenn Gemmerts, deputy director of mining at the Geology and Mines Commission in Suriname, estimates that up to 40,000 Brazilians – almost one-fourth of the national population -live and work in the former Dutch colony. Guyanese officials think there could be as many as 20,000 Brazilians here.

The Suriname government charges each miner a registration fee equivalent to about 200 dollars per year and requires them to sell their gold to authorised agencies.

Williams says that wherever there are miners, especially those with mechanical dredging equipment, there is a marked increase in the number of malaria infections and deaths because of large stagnant pools left by machines- ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

He adds that the time has come for industry players to contact the Brazilian government to get its cooperation in managing the industry.

The price of gold peaked at around 400 dollars per ounce in the 1990s and has since slipped to around 272 dollars per ounce. But the Brazilians who arrived in the late 1990s weren’t just chasing prospects – they were fleeing the Venezuelan military.

Venezuela expelled the miners about four years ago, citing similar health and environmental concerns. The Brazilians apparently thought Guyana and its neighbours would prove less hostile because of their relatively lax laws and relatively small and poorly equipped armed forces.