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The news earlier this week that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), has fined a Brazilian gold miner G$12 million (app $60,000 US), for allegedly committing several environmental transgressions in pursuit of his mining activities, including destroying a section of the Cuyuni River bank, would by now have gotten left behind amidst the various other issues that compete for public attention at this time.
The circumstance is a poignant reminder of one of our country’s most worrying frailties; our inability to match the rhetoric we espouse on the issue of protecting our environmental bona fides with our capability to engage in serious and effective practical action.
The first thing that should be said about the protection of our environmental integrity is that laws and strictures can only be effectively enforced if there exists both the will and the wherewithal to do so. One makes this point conscious of the fact that our policy makers continue, for some inexplicable reason, to behave as though rhetoric can miraculously be transformed into practical action. But it goes beyond that.
Followers of the local mining culture are by now more than acutely aware that the culture of despoiling of parts of our hinterland goes ‘cheek by jowl’ with illegal activities through which the integrity of the environment is ruthlessly plundered in exchange for bribes and kickbacks. Periodically, and usually in order to gain a measure of political mileage, high officials sound their voices. There is, however, no evidence of any serious historic continuity to initiatives designed to protect the environment from rapacious mining activities.
As is the custom from one political administration to another, the commission of the offence and the imposition of the fine have been followed by one of those familiar official comments setting out just what the delinquent Brazilian miner was up to and pledging to “continue to take a firm stance against illegal mining and prosecute defaulters, in keeping with the Mining Act and Regulations, for the sustainable governance of the mining sector,” usually the inevitable galling episode in the drama. The truth of the matter is that there continues to be huge loopholes in such systems as the authorities say they have to protect the environment and even if it is true that resources are a problem, undoubtedly, part of the weakness has to do with official indifference.
After the accustomed fashion, the new Minister of Natural Resources has trumpeted a warning about “a firm stance against illegal mining,” which of course the GGMC is hardly in a position to effect. The latest official statement also alludes to “a renewed strategic vision for the extractive sector” without offering so much as a glimpse into the bare bones of that “vision,” all of this, of course, being part of the historic pattern of official behaviour.
Comments
Illegal mining has to have consequences and needs to be stopped as it causes big damage to the environment and loss of revenue to the Guyana. Does the Guyanese authorities have the staff, resources, and willingness to curb illegal mining?
THE PENALTY FOR ILLEGAL MINING SHOULD BE DOTS.
To be more precise, trained personnel, monitoring equipment, precise regulations and partnerships with affected groups (e.g. Indigenous inhabitants) i.e. a system in place for solving the situation. Do they even really care? Isn’t banditry widespread in lawless governments..a wink here, a wink there? Now the biggest bandits are back in town..guess who? They were around the last time the PPP were in power..denuding our natural resources in the interior.
” Do they even really care?” Jo, you are bringing right to the point! The costs of monitoring should be covered by the fees for mining permits.