The announcement earlier this week that 13 dredges and a dragger had been caught mining illegally in the area of the protected Kaieteur National Park area underscores the challenges that the authorities in Guyana will continue to face in circumstances where the mining of gold continues to coexist with imperatives that have to do with our obligation to the environment.
It is a challenge which, in recent times, has become a preoccupation in public discourses on both the mining sector and the environment though those of us who are coastal dwellers really have little idea as to the nature of the coexistence between the two.
The reports that reach us from mining communities mostly describe a condition of indifference to considerations that have to do with the environment and the report earlier this week regarding illegal mining activity on the bank of the Potaro River, in the face of regulations to the contrary, is one of the more recent examples of the sort of defiance of the law and absence of mindfulness of environmental considerations that arise in the face of what is loosely describe as ‘gold fever.’
Unfortunately the reality is that we are yet to reach a stage in the gold-mining sector where there is widespread sensitivity among miners to the importance of responsible and environmentally sensitive mining practices and if the country seriously wishes to keep its environmental credentials reasonably intact it cannot delude itself into thinking that voluntary compliance will materialize out of thin air. In other words the sensible thing to do—at least for the time being—is to assume that there is a high likelihood that environmental laws will be transgressed and take such action as is possible to minimize those transgressions.
This, of course, brings us to the time-worn argument about the extent to which the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) can effectively provide the necessary policing/monitoring function given, first, what we are told are the limitations on its resources and, second, the realities of the areas in which gold-mining occurs, not least the distant locations and the kinds of relationships that can and almost certainly do, in some instances, develop between those who mine gold and those who are responsible for policing the environment.
In the case of the Kaieteur National Park incident there is much more that needs to be said, like whether there does not exist any form of special policing/protection for what we are told is an environmentally sensitive area; how long these dredges and dragger were operating in the area and whether or not it is reasonable to assume that they might not have been detected and deterred before they actually were. All of this, of course, is a trifle speculative, though it does not absolve the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment of the responsibility of explaining what might be seen by some as an anomalous situation.
That being said, what the Kaieteur National Park incident has, hopefully, driven home to the authorities is that if the country’s environmental credentials are to remain reasonably intact (and that is likely to have implications for our credentials as an investor-friendly country), it is no longer feasible to trot out the time-worn excuse of not being able to muster the resources necessary to provide proper environmental policing for those areas where gold might be found and which, simultaneously, which might be of critical environmental importance. The reality is that while the gold-mining industry has become important to livelihoods and to the country’s economy, its worthwhile exploitation cannot be separated from our corresponding responsibility to protect and preserve the environment. One is not certain that there is always an enduring mindfulness on the part of either the miners or officialdom of the importance of recognizing and striking a balance.