In an advertisement in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek about developments in the mining sector, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) stated its commitment to mercury reduction.
It said that “The Mineral Processing Unit continues to work tirelessly on the identification and testing of alternative gold recovery methods, aimed at improving gold recovery methods and reducing the use and instance of mercury in the recovery process. Several pieces of equipment were identified and tested such as Knelson Concentrators, Shaking Tables, Centrifugal Systems, etc. GGMC has procured the RIVEN equipment, a specialized gold recovery system from Alaska, which was deemed suitable for Guyana’s mining operations. This equipment will be deployed in a suitable location to facilitate testing, which will determine its suitability to Guyana’s mineral sector”.
This paragraph confirms that the GGMC has achieved very little in relation to taming the use of this dangerous metal here. As a signatory to the Minamata Convention, Guyana is obligated to reduce and where feasible eliminate the use and release of mercury from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM). Except that Guyana and its regulatory authorities are held in thrall by rich gold mining interests. While the traditional pork knocker also poses threats to the environment by the indiscriminate use of mercury, it is the larger operators who are continuing to use mercury wantonly who pose an even bigger threat.
What the GGMC needed to and can still do is to state clearly how much mercury is being used here and what success it has had ensuring that it is used responsibly, with retorts and not in sluice boxes etc. At last word, mercury importation under the regulations was capped at 1,000 flasks or 34,500 kilogrammes per year. Should that cap be lowered for instance to 20,000 kilogrammes and who is effectively monitoring the importation of mercury and is there a real idea of how much is being used per annum?
In its advertisement yesterday, the GGMC adverted to the RIVEN equipment and said it will be deployed in a suitable location to facilitate testing. Amazing. This was supposedly on the agenda since 2021.
In October 2021, the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) and the Ministry of Natural Resources in a joint press release announced that they had signed an agreement on technology to reduce the use of mercury.
The RIVEN system was to be pilot-tested for the next 12 months. Has time frozen or we forgot to start the pilot? Either way it seems that the GGMC is taking very lightly this obligation to phase mercury out from ASGM.
In that same release, Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, stated that the government would be incentivizing miners to adopt improved recovery and mercury-free technologies. What incentivizing has since occurred? He did enter the caveat that Guyana would work towards achieving the objectives of the Minamata Convention, in a “realistic” manner, a signal that we were not going anywhere too quickly.
For the many local – and indigenous – communities at risk of mercury poisoning such as Chinese Landing, Parabara and Isseneru it is imperative that the government and the regulatory authorities get their act together.
In April this year, Reuters reported on a study that found that people from nine villages in Brazil’s Yanomami territory were contaminated by mercury, with those living closer to illegal gold mining sites presenting higher levels of contamination.
The study by Brazil’s state-run Fiocruz institute collected hair samples from about 287 Indigenous people in October 2022. They all tested positive for contamination by mercury, with around 11% of the samples showing high levels of the heavy metal used by wildcat miners.
“This scenario of vulnerability exponentially increases the risk of illness in children living in the region,” specially in those under five years-old, Paulo Basta, who coordinated the study, said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Indigenous people with higher levels of mercury presented cognitive deficits and more often presented nerve damage on their bodies’ extremities, according to the study.
All of the 47 samples of fish collected by Fiocruz researchers also tested positive for mercury contamination.
“Our children are being born sick. Women are sick, our old people are sick! Our people are dying because of mining,” Dario Kopenawa, head of the Yanomami’s Hutukara Association said in a press statement that accompanied the study, Reuters said.
The dangers from mercury contamination are real and must be limited. Allied with efforts to reduce indiscriminate mercury use in the gold sector there should also be wider studies of how it is affecting human health in communities that are adjacent to mining.
At a workshop here in October 2022 themed “Cooperation for reducing mercury in Gold Mining in the Guianas”, Suriname’s Permanent Secretary of Mining at the Ministry of Natural Resources, Precoiosa Simons had saliently highlighted the need for enforcement.
“Regulation of small-scale gold mining is necessary, in order to enforce environmentally responsible mining and processing activities, as well as to obtain an acceptable tax contribution. Therefore, this process starts with transforming illegality in the sector to a formal status as a smallholder,” she said. With this objective, she stated that Suriname is committed and has introduced a number of programmes to achieve its goals of phasing out the toxic metal.
During a visit to French Guiana in March this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said the government was seeking to designate new regulated gold mining zones to combat illegal mining and its environmental consequences.
Workers in these areas would be held to sustainable mining rules, Mr Macron said, including an existing ban on mercury. Illegal miners in French Guiana release around 1.3 kg of mercury for each kilogram of gold extracted, World Wide Fund for Nature data showed, Reuters said.
Mercury poses a clear and present danger to vulnerable communities and the government, with greater resources now available to it, must act to sharply reduce its presence here and ultimately phase it out.
