As jittery investors have sought safe-haven investments in gold during the recession, the metal's price has soared on world markets.
Guerrilla Mining in Guiana's Midst
Published February 24, 2011
In the jungles of French Guiana, on the northern border of Brazil, police and illegal gold miners play this game.
Police raid them and blow up their equipment. Soon as they leave, the miners replace it all, and go back to work.
What makes their game worthwhile is the soaring price of gold, which has surged in recent years to more than fourteen-hundred dollars an ounce.
Also soaring is the amount of toxic mercury they're spewing into the air. Fifty tons a year, and counting. Police are being dispatched all the way from France to try and interrupt the wildcat mining.
American journalist Damon Tabor slogged his way into the jungle to see them and the miners firsthand, and writes about it in this month's edition of Harper's Magazine
Project
Join the Pulitzer Center for a film screening and discussion on the impact of natural resource extraction on the environment, indigenous populations, public health and corporate responsibility.
With the price of gold skyrocketing, Brazilians have been crossing the border into the jungle of French Guiana, where illegal mine operations have been multiplying, in search of a new El Dorado.
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Grantee
Damon Tabor is a Brooklyn, New York-based journalist who has traveled widely in Asia, South America, and Europe and covered subjects ranging from surviving kidnapping in a failed state to search and...
