Download or read book Small scale Gold Mining in the Amazon written by Centro de Estudios y Documentacion Latinoamericanos (Amsterdam) and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Human and Environmental Dynamics of Artisanal Small scale Gold Mining in the Peruvian Amazon written by Rachel Constance Engstrand and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of the Amazon as a primeval tropical rainforest, undisturbed and stable since the dawn of time, is a myth. While the forest provides a myriad of valuable local and global ecosystem services, such as biodiversity conservation and carbon storage, it is also host to numerous human activities, such as farming, logging, and mining, that impact this system at a continuously expanding rate. Of these human activities, artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is thought to have the most destructive environmental impacts due to the large-scale deforestation, soil disturbance and heavy metal contamination associated with this activity. Understanding how forests respond to and recover from gold mining induced changes is crucial to ensure the future provision of ecosystem services for the future. Due to its illicit nature, little is known about the drivers and dynamics of ASGM in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, an area which is renowned for having both some of the highest levels of biodiversity and gold mining activity in the Amazon. To address this, I first examine the human context in which ASGM occurs in this region. I use qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with miners and other local stakeholders to learn about the social-environmental drivers, impacts, and the perceived future of ASGM. I then leverage remote-sensing to complement these human stories with an understanding of the dynamics and spread of ASGM over a 36-year time-period. I expand on this data using machine learning to identify which environmental and social factors can predict the intensity of future mining in any given area. Finally, I discuss the results of a field study in which I collect soil samples and conduct vegetation surveys on a 15-year chronosequence of abandoned gold mines. I look at how gold mining impacts vegetation structure, soil biogeochemistry, and soil microbial communities over time to understand the potential for natural recovery in a post-mining ecosystem. I analyze these results in the context of the human and spatial perspectives explored earlier. This combination of on-the-ground, aboveground, and underground perspectives is used to create a holistic understanding of the broad-scale impacts of ASGM and to help inform policy and decision makers working to regulate ASGM to create a brighter ecological future for this region.
Download or read book Transformations in Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining Work and Production Structures in the Tapaj s Region of Brazil s Amazon written by CARLOS DE MATOS BANDEIRA JUNIOR and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently, artisanal and small-scale gold mining, known in the Brazilian Amazon as “garimpagem”, generates direct income to approximately 35,000 gold miners in the Tapajós region. Around 2,000 gold extraction areas are located in this region, operating various technical and organizational structures which require distinct levels of capital and technological investments, constituting a complex commercial supply chain for services, inputs and equipment on a regional national and international scale based on the commercialization of gold, which, in most cases, is negotiated under informal and illegal conditions. The main objective of this ethnographic research is to analyze the predominant mining production model used in the region in consolidation with the use of backhoe loader technology in the production process and focusing on the relationships and working conditions of the miners. The findings of this research is to understand and describe how the productive structures which currently explore gold in the Tapajós region are organized and operated and under what conditions the gold miners extract ore from the Amazon soil.
Download or read book Anatomy of the Amazon Gold Rush written by David Cleary and published by Springer. This book was released on 1990-06-18 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1979 this century's largest gold rush began in the Brazilian Amazon and has continued ever since. This book looks at the Amazon gold rush without sensationalizing it, at the politics and economics of gold in Brazil, and at the implications of the gold rush for Amazonia and its people.
Download or read book The Amazon Gold Rush and Environmental Mercury Contamination written by Daniel Marcos Bonotto and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of the Amazon area to sustain the global equilibrium in the environment has been recognised world-wide. This has been much more accentuated in the present days due to the intense debate related to global warming. Consequently, all initiatives/studies directed to a better knowledge/management of that huge environment are welcome and needed. This book is a contribution to this task, as gold has been exploited intensively in the Brazilian Amazon during the past 30 years using garimpo methods (small-scale gold mining), where the elemental mercury (Hg) used in amalgamating the gold, the final stage of the ore dressing process, has caused abnormal Hg concentrations in waterways. This has occurred in several areas of the Amazon region, where most of the ore prospected is alluvial. Particular attention to the Madeira River has been given since 1986 by several investigators. The main reason for this is that the Madeira River is the largest tributary of the Amazon River and the gold mining was officially allowed on a 350-km sector of the river, for its mid and upper reach, in the north-western reach of the Amazon basin. Consequently, mercury was released from gold-mining fields to the atmosphere or to waterways in the metallic form, due to the large number of mechanical dredges operating simultaneously (about 6,000 during the peak mining activities). Although Hg0 is relatively immobile in the aquatic environment and its solubility is low in water, Hg contamination in people living upstream and downstream from garimpos has been reported. The gold-mining activities on the Madeira River basin reduced substantially in the present days, i.e. it is practically absent. However, despite this, it is necessary a better understanding of the Hg behaviour in tropical aquatic systems, mainly close to the most populated areas, as people may be still suffering toxicological consequences of the Hg releases in the past. Therefore, even in the present days, the knowledge of the mercury occurring in the aquatic system of the Madeira River basin is a great concern by local/international authorities and environmentalists, since it can contribute for identifying the effects of the anthropogenic Hg inputs relatively to the background reference levels expressing the natural Hg concentration. This book describes the results obtained on the analysis of samples of water, bottom sediments, suspended solids and fishes that were collected at the Madeira River basin, Brazil, with the purpose of investigating the mercury release in the aquatic environment as a consequence of the gold mining activities.
Download or read book The Socio Economic Impacts of Artisanal and Small Scale Mining in Developing Countries written by G.M. Hilson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to examine both the positive and negative socioeconomic impacts of artisanal and small-scale mining in developing countries. In recent years, a number of governments have attempted to formalize this rudimentary sector of industry, recognizing its socioeconomic importance. However, the industry continues to be plagued by
Download or read book Gold written by Michael John Bloomfield and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gold remains a highly prized and impactful resource within the global economy. From the insatiable demand for gold in the electronics that permeate our day-to-day lives to the environmental desolation driven by gold mining in the Amazon, the gold trade continues to touch the lives and livelihoods of people across the world. Bloomfield and Maconachie tell the intriguing story of the yellow metal, tracing the seismic shifts in the industry over the past few decades. They show how huge purchases of gold reserves by BRICS countries mark the shifting balance of power away from the West, and how rising affluence in India and China has led to a surging demand for gold jewellery, calling into question current approaches to make supply chains more responsible. Explaining why gold is so difficult to regulate and why it is only becoming more so, the authors suggest ways we could, collectively, make practices work better for the countless workers and communities who suffer at the producer end of the supply chain. Linking local to global, producer to consumer, and gold’s extraction from the Earth to the financial centres that fuel it, this book offers a probing analysis that reveals who wins and who loses and what this means for the future of gold.
Download or read book Monitoring Water Siltation Caused by Small Scale Gold Mining in Amazonian Rivers Using Multi Satellite Images written by Felipe De Lucia Lobo and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The small-scale mining techniques applied all over the Amazon river basin use water from streams, including digging and riverbed suctioning, rarely preventing environmental impacts or recovery of the impacted areas. As a consequence, thousands of tons of inorganic sediment (which can contain mercury) have been discharged directly into the rivers creating sediment plumes that travel hundreds of kilometers downstream with unknown consequences to the water quality and aquatic biota. We hypothesize that because of intensification of mining activities in the Brazilian Amazon, clear water rivers such as the Tapajós and Xingu rivers and its tributaries are becoming permanently turbid waters (so-called white waters in the Amazonian context). To investigate this hypothesis, satellite images have been used to monitor the sediment plume caused by gold mining in Amazonian rivers. Given the threat of intense water siltation of the Amazonian rivers combined with the technological capacity of detecting it from satellite images, the objective of this chapter is to inform the main activities carried out to develop a monitoring system for quantifying water siltation caused by small-scale gold mining (SSGM) in the Amazon rivers using multi-satellite data.
Download or read book From Andes to Amazon written by Sally Faulkner and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gold Miner written by Raymond Youngblood, Jr. and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the simplicity of actual photos, this book explains the true nature of small scale mining in Africa and South America: mining for minerals life style and how villages in Africa and South America can financially help cities and small towns regain financial control in the developed world.
Download or read book Artisanal Small Scale Gold Mining written by Katherine von Stackelberg and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2022-06-13 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This framework document provides a pragmatic approach for designing representative studies and developing uniform sampling guidelines to support estimates of morbidity that are explicitly linked to exposure to land-based contaminants from small-scale artisanal gold mining activities. A primary goal is to support environmental burden of disease evaluations, which attempt to attribute health outcomes to specific sources of pollution. The guidelines provide recommendations on the most appropriate and cost-effective sampling and analysis methods to ensure the collection of representative population-level data, sample size recommendations for each contaminant and environmental media, biological sampling data, household survey data, and health outcome data. This framework focuses on small-scale artisanal gold mining (ASGM) activities that are known to use and generate mercury (Hg) as well as other metals, such as arsenic (As) and lead (Pb), depending on the specific ores being mined. A particular concern with Hg is the conversion to methylmercury (MeHg) in aquatic environments, leading to bioaccumulation and biomagnification in fish that may be locally consumed. Exposure to Hg, MeHg, and Pb are strongly associated with neurodevelopmental health outcomes in children. Exposure to Hg and MeHg are also associated with neurological illnesses in adults. Exposures to Pb are associated with renal outcomes in children and adults, and cardiovascular outcomes in adults. Exposure to As are associated with neurodevelopmental health outcomes in children, arsenicosis and skin disorders in children and adults, and potential cancers in adults, including skin, bladder, and lung. The primary objective of this framework is to guide research to assess the relationship between environmental contamination, exposures, and health outcomes related to a subset of contaminants originating from ASGM activities for particularly vulnerable populations (such as children) and the general population within a single household in the vicinity of ASGM sites in low- and medium-income countries. To achieve this objective, biomonitoring and health outcome data are linked to household survey and environmental data (for example, soil, dust, water, agricultural products, fish) at the individual level from an exposed population compared to individuals from an unexposed (reference) population. Data on exposures and health outcomes in the same individual across a representative set of individuals is required to support an understanding of the potential impact of ASGM activities on local populations. These guidelines can also assist in building local capacity to conduct environmental assessments following a consistent methodology to facilitate comparability across ASGM sites in different geographic areas. Sampling strategies and methods are prioritized given information needs, resource availability, and other constraints or considerations. The framework includes a number of supporting appendixes that provide additional resources and references on relevant topics.
Download or read book Remaking Indigeneity in the Amazon written by Esteban Rozo and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on archival and ethnographic work, this book analyzes how indigeneity, Christianity and state-making became intertwined in the Colombian Amazon throughout the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century, the state gave Catholic missionaries tutelage over Indigenous groups and their territories, but, in the case of the Colombian Amazon, this tutelage was challenged by evangelical missionaries that arrived in the region in the 1940s with different ideas of civilization and social change. Indigenous conversion to evangelical Christianity caused frictions with other actors, while Indigenous groups perceived conversion as way of leverage with settlers. This book shows how evangelical Christianity shaped new forms of indigeneity that did not coincide entirely with the ideas of civilization or development that Catholic missionaries and the state promoted in the region. Since the 1960s, the state adapted development policies and programs to Indigenous realities and practices, while Indigenous societies appropriated evangelical Christianity in order to navigate the changes brought on by colonization, modernity and state-formation. This study demonstrates that not all projects of civilization were the same in Amazonia, nor was missionization of Indigenous groups always subordinate to the state or resource extraction.
Download or read book Examining the Golden Practices of Small Scale Mining written by George Okyere Ofosu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-25 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) has often portrayed mining regions as ‘informal’ zones that suffer from environmental degradation problems. Water pollution and degraded landscapes, for example, have long been noted as the inevitable consequence of the operations of ASM. Such insistence on the institutional absences of ASM zones has dovetailed with a lack of academic attention to some of the ‘golden’ mining practices taking place there. Thus, this work seeks to (re)examine the topic of ‘development’ in ASM. The findings suggest that small-scale miners, contrary to popular perception, could be caretakers of the environment. In addition, emphasizing how the dynamic interplay between resources and environmental demands may come to support public policy, the findings illustrate, contrary to the dominant narrative, how the activities of small-scale mining operators can engender a win-win situation for both mining companies and local mining communities.
Download or read book Rise of Mercury Emissions in the Amazon Rainforest an Evaluation of Artisanal and Small scale Gold Mining and Biomass Burning Sources written by Marcos J De la Cruz and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two important global sources of mercury emissions to the atmosphere are biomass burning (BMB) and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) operations. These activities, prevalent in the Amazon rainforest, are driven by agricultural and cattle ranching expansion and rising international gold prices, respectively. Although there are indications of increasing ASGM activities in the Amazon, there are no studies of corresponding mercury consumption and emissions within this context. In this study, a regional assessment of mercury consumption and emissions from ASGM activities is made for the period between 2001 and 2014. Mercury consumption and emissions are derived from analyses of official and illegal gold production estimates and mercury imports. Between 2001 and 2014, annual ASGM mercury emissions from the region increased approximately 155% from 57.4 metric tons to 146.1 metric tons. If illegal gold mining occurring in the Amazon rainforest is considered, mercury emissions increase to 242 tons in 2014. Between 2001 and 2014, ASGM mercury emissions (excluding emissions from illegal gold mining) for the whole region were 1,339 metric tons. Similarly, over 3,420 metric tons of mercury were consumed and released to the environment as tailings and emissions with almost 65% coming from just 3 countries (Colombia, Peru, and Suriname) out of 8 countries and 1 overseas territory evaluated. In contrast, BMB mercury emissions derived from deforestation rates in the Amazon decreased 80% from 12.7 tons to 2.6 tons in the same period. Decrease of BMB emissions was driven by lower deforestation rates in Brazil. Between 2001 and 2014, approximately 105 tons of mercury were released to the atmosphere from deforestation activities. These results show the significant increase of ASGM mercury emissions in the Amazon rainforest, which would represent 12% of global mercury emissions from anthropogenic sources.
Download or read book Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Water Siltation Caused by Artisanal Small scale Gold Mining in the Tapaj s Water Basin Brazilian Amazon written by Felipe de Lucia Lobo and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main goal of this research was to investigate the spatial and temporal impacts of water siltation caused by Artisanal Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) on the underwater light field of the Tapajós River and its main tributaries (Jamanxim, Novo, Tocantinzinho, and Crepori rivers). In order to accomplish this, two fieldwork research trips were undertaken to collect data associated with water quality and radiometric data. This data provided information to quantify the underwater light field in water affected by a gradient of mining tailings intensity, clustered into five major classes ranging from 0 to 120 mg/L of total suspended solids (TSS) (Chapter 3). In general, with increased TSS from mining operations such as in the Crepori, Tocantinzinho, and Novo rivers, the scattering process prevails over absorption coefficient and, at sub-surface, scalar irradiance is reduced, resulting in a shallower euphotic zone where green and red wavelengths dominate. The effects of light reduction on the phytoplankton community was not clearly observed, which may be attributed to a low number of samples for proper comparison between impacted and non-impacted tributaries and/or to general low phytoplankton productivity in all upstream tributaries.
Download or read book Informal Gold Mining and Mercury Pollution in Brazil written by Dan Biller and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1994 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gold rush in the Amazon region is creating serious environmental problems that imperil future generations. Mercury pollution is a particularly serious problem that should be addressed through an education campaign, through the use of more appropriate (and inexpensive) extraction technologies, and through an effective combination of command and control measures and market- based incentives.
Download or read book The Amazon written by Mark J. Plotkin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amazon is a land of superlatives. The complex ecosystem covers an area about the size of the continental U.S. The Amazon River discharges 57 million gallons of water per second--in two hours, this would be enough to supply all of New York City's 7.5 million residents with water for a year. Its flora and fauna are abundant. Approximately one of every four flowering plant species on earth resides in the Amazon. A single Amazonian river may contain more fish species than all the rivers in Europe combined. It is home to the world's largest anteater, armadillo, freshwater turtle, and spider, as well as the largest rodent (which weighs over 200 lbs.), catfish (250 lbs.), and alligator (more than half a ton). The rainforest, which contains approximately 390 billion trees, plays a vital role in stabilizing the global climate by absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide--or releasing it into the atmosphere if the trees are destroyed. Severe droughts in both Brazil and Southeast Asia have been linked to Amazonian deforestation, as have changing rainfall patterns in the U.S., Europe, and China. The Amazon also serves as home to millions of people. Approximately seventy tribes of isolated and uncontacted people are concentrated in the western Amazon, completely dependent on the land and river. These isolated groups have been described as the most marginalized peoples in the western hemisphere, with no voice in the decisions made about their futures and the fate of their forests. In this addition to the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, ecologist and conservation expert, Mark J. Plotkin, who has spent 40 years studying Amazonia, its peoples, flora, and fauna. The Amazon offers an engaging overview of this irreplaceable ecosystem and the challenges it faces.
