Mining cooperatives, with an inordinate influence within the government, settle in the Madidi National Park of the Amazon
The photographs are uneven, taken in secret. They show a river running through a jungle: on the other side, there is still thick forest, however, the nearest bank is a mess of dirt and muddy roads, however, there is other evidence that gold miners have settled in Madidi, Bolivia’s most prominent national park.
This mining operation is full of thousands of people. But as miners enter the Amazon and other protected areas, the pro-industry Bolivian government is veering off course with its environmentalist rhetoric.
The economic risks are enormous. Last year, Bolivia exported $2. 5 billion worth of gold, making it the country’s largest export. This figure doubled to 2020 and represented 6. 2% of GDP.
Almost all of this production comes from gigantic mining companies, but from small and medium-sized farms called “cooperatives. “
The word “cooperative” is still a misnomer: those organizations are very hierarchical. Some are family farms that look like informal mining companies, and others are giant businesses, apart from the name.
What unites them are the privileges they get from the state and the struggle they fight to protect them.
These privileges come with low royalties on the gold they mine. In 2020, Bolivia exported $1. 25 billion worth of gold and the state earned $34 million, a tax rate of 2. 7%.
Then there is the lack of import and use of poisonous mercury, which miners use to amalgamate gold particles.
In December 2021, UN rapporteurs accused the Bolivian government of respecting the Minamata Convention that controls the use of mercury.
But Fecoman, La Paz’s gold miners’ union, says mercury regulations would jeopardize jobs that are generated through gold mining, and can mobilize large numbers of others to make their case.
“The cooperatives have consolidated themselves as a political force with an overcapacity for mobilization,” said Alfredo Zaconeta, a mining expert at Cedla, a Bolivian think tank. “If the cooperatives march, they prevent the country. “
However, it rarely happens at this stage, as the political strength of cooperatives extends to the government itself.
“They have a presence in the legislative branch, they are provided in the executive, they are in the ministries and they have a deputy minister of mining cooperatives,” Zaconeta said.
This influence has helped cooperatives claim more mining rights, including in areas of Bolivia.
There have long been gold mines north of La Paz, along the so-called “golden road” that runs through the Amazon’s national parks. Parks have increased.
In December 2021, the virtual publication Todos Nube reported that 8% of Madidi had been granted as mining rights to 140 cooperatives, companies and individuals.
Such a scenario is not unusual in Bolivia’s protected areas, where environmental law is undermined by extraction rights purporting to predate it, or overridden by upcoming legislative changes. Apart from mining, 75% of Madidi overlaps with oil and fuel concessions.
However, recently the miners moved to Madidi to begin their operations.
One park ranger, who asked not to be named, described how miners make deals with park communities, providing a percentage of the gold and critical jobs or infrastructure in exchange for permission to extract.
The form of mining practiced in the Madidi is open pit or alluvial. Gold particles are scattered across the earth in a minuscule concentration. But the value of gold is such that it is successful to process a ton of land for one gram of gold, with relatively inefficient methods.
Along the way, the landscapes are transformed.
“I saw such devastation of nature,” the ranger said. “They deforested and dismantled 100-meter mountains, all for this metal. “
Rangers’ ability to monitor and prevent mining is limited by their lack of resources and the risk of violence.
In April, Cecilia Requena, a deputy from the centrist Comunidad Ciudadana party, traveled down the river to see that illegal mining was positioning itself in Madidi and pushed it back with stones and dynamite.
Even those who oppose gold mining recognize that, given its social and economic importance, it would be to prevent it. But they need the state to do whatever it takes to restrict the environmental damage it causes.
This may mean simply restricting mining rights in protected areas, eliminating activities that are manifestly illegal, and encouraging others to practice them, for example by recycling the mercury they use.
If the state acts, some worry that more of the country will end up like the prosperous city of Mapiri, where the worst effects of small-scale mining can be seen.
“Mapiri has one of the most conflictive spaces in Bolivia,” said Jimena Mercado, a journalist who reports on gold mining. “You see the point of violence and you think: is this going to fall in Bolivia?Scenes
“And where you see illegal gold mining, you see other illicit activities,” Mercado added. “Sexual exploitation of minors, armed groups, drug trafficking, everything is mixed. It’s cancer. “
Neither the gold miners’ union nor Fecoman responded to requests for interviews.
This article changed on October 19, 2022. A previous edit incorrectly attributed the main credits of the image.