The fortunes of more than 100 nomadic porkknockers may be about to change in the wake of a key decision made earlier this week at a hastily convened meeting at the Brickdam offices of the Ministry of Natural Resources to have pieces of prospecting equipment seized from them by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) restored.
It will take far more than this to redress the balance in a gold-mining industry where there is still a yawning imbalance in power and earnings between the big players controlling vast expanses of gold-bearing lands and small nomadic operators owning no more equipment than they can carry themselves and prospecting illegally on mostly mined-out areas.
Just how they came to be operating in an area known as the North Fork Backdam in Konawaruk, Region Eight, is unclear though reports are that they had been given clearance to work there by security guards in the employ of a local company, Tesouro Mining Resources.