In the rural village of Lakwev in northeast Haiti, people have been digging for gold since the 1960s. Holes from tunnels dug by hand are scattered across the land, and with the price of gold increasing, nearly 80 percent of the village's population is involved in unearthing the valuable metal.
Across the border in the Dominican Republic, the Pueblo Viejo mine--now run by two Canadian mining companies, Barrick and Goldcorp--is set to resume operations this year. The Dominican Republic previously ran the mine, without success, and the operation caused a lot of environmental damage to lakes and rivers. The mining companies have projected that the mine will operate for 25 years and produce about 23.7 million ounces of gold.