SITUATION ANALYSIS OF THE SMALL-SCALE GOLD ... - WWF

known. The risk of water- and air-borne movement of mercury to locations far beyond
mining areas is now also becoming a cause of concern.
Problems in the alluvial gold mining sector have been extensively documented: scholars
and students, international organizations and government agencies, consultants and
commissions have produced an extensive list of dissertations, reports, papers and project
plans. To date, however, efforts to regulate the alluvial mining sector and introduce
environmentally sounder mining techniques have not had a measurable impact on gold
mining pollution abatement. It is essential, therefore, that the government‟s policy,
regulatory and institutional framework is reviewed, as well as the private sector and civil
society aspects of the overall problem, in order to find out why it is so difficult to make
progress. Understanding the problem is half of the solution.
Of all stakeholders, the State is the greatest loser. The state also invests the least into the
sub-sector. According to the report of the National Planning Office between 1995 and
2001 the State collected less than one percent of the gross production value of gold in
Suriname (SPS 2002:20). According to the estimates of the Suriname Planning
Foundation (Stichting Planbureau Suriname; SPS), the State should recuperate about 16%
of the gross production in turn-over taxes, fees and royalties, an amount between one and
two million US Dollars per month. 4 If the SSGM sub-sector could be transformed from
an informal to a formal sub-sector, the State would be the greatest beneficiary.
Regrettably, the lack of confidence in the sub-sector has discouraged the administration
from investing greater effort and resources into the sub-sector.
A second loser is Suriname society. The people of Suriname are witnessing massive
environmental destruction in the interior as, large rainforest and drainage basins tracts are
destroyed by SSGM. The service providers to the sub-sector profit from gold mining, but
the community as a whole sees very few benefits from the extraction of this nonrenewable
resource. Moreover, a very high environmental price is paid for the extraction
of gold. There are almost no dynamic spread effects or other pro-development effects
beyond the sub-sector. On the contrary, the negative impacts of SSGM may threaten
other economic activities such as fish farming. Exports may be held back if mercury
levels in water near farming areas exceed internationally, accepted limits. The sub-sector
has been left to fend for itself; the administration is tolerating this situation, while the
Suriname community passively observes without demanding change.
The miners themselves also lose. Several thousand Indigenous and Maroon individuals
are employed in the sub-sector, but very few have gold exploitation concessions. When
registered enterprises show up with an official reconnaissance or exploration permit
native miners have to withdraw from the concession and seek employment elsewhere.
There are up to 10.000 foreign miners and service providers working in the gold fields of
the interior, and most of them do not have valid residence or work permits. There is no
4 The estimate depends on whether one uses the conservative production estimate, six tons per year (tpy), or
the optimistic estimate, 12 tpy. Suriname exports 12 tons of gold per year, but information from gold
buyers and recent arrests of gold smugglers suggest that a substantial share in smuggled in from Guyana
and French Guyana.
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