Small-scale gold mining in the Amazon : the cases of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Suriname

Abstract

Small-scale gold mining increasingly causes environmental problems and socio-political conflicts in the Amazon. Uncontrolled use of mercury and deforestation threaten the livelihoods of the inhabitants of the forest, and the health of the miners and their families. Tensions arise when miners work in territories without licenses and governments have no control over the activities and the revenues generated. The scale of the problems increased in the past few years due to the high price of gold and the introduction of more mechanized mining techniques. At the same time, the activity offers a livelihood opportunity to many hundreds of thousands of people. In this book the authors give a situation analysis of small-scale gold mining in five countries in the wider Amazon region. This work comes from a base line study that is part of the GOMIAM project (Small-scale gold mining and social conflict in the Amazon: Comparing states, environments, local populations and miners in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Suriname). GOMIAM develops a comparative understanding of socio-political and environmental conflicts related to small-scale gold mining in the Amazon. The chapters describe the different social, political and environmental situations in each country, including technical, economic, legal, historical, and policy aspects of the small-scale gold mining sector. The contributors are all involved in the GOMIAM project as researchers. They have different disciplinary backgrounds, which is reflected in the broad scope of the ethnographic, economic, technical and political data collected in this book.