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

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The World Wildlife Fund (through the WWF Guianas Regional Program Office (WWF-
Guianas) ) is providing financial and technical assistance for the abatement of the
negative impacts of Small-Scale Gold Mining (SSGM) activities 1 in the Guianas and is
promoting regional cooperation for harmonization of policy and guidelines in SSGM.
The basic purpose of this program is to promote better mining methods and practices, and
thus curb health threats and pollution caused by gold mining activities.
The objective of this report is to identify the causes and consequences of this absence,
and to outline a strategy that can help Suriname develop a SSGM policy that in the long
run will contribute to significantly improve gold mining practices regionally. The purpose
of this policy development strategy is to achieve a win-win-win situation in Suriname for
the environment, the small-scale gold miners, the interior community and the State.
The strategy calls for direct and indirect interventions involving key actors in the three
main groups of stakeholders: the private sector, the State, and civil society. All key
stakeholders have a role to play. The fundamental idea is to create enabling environments
that empower miners to achieve higher productivity and better recovery rates, become
more reliable tax payers and environmentally responsible gold producers, thereby
assuring the government of a fair take produced with better technical mining methods.
Up-to-date and practical mining laws and regulations are necessary conditions for
achieving this objective. A strong and properly funded government mining agency is
indispensable to the success of the proposed undertaking.
The first basic assumption entertained in this report is that pollution in SSM is a
management problem, first and foremost. In this context it is argued that poor and poorly
educated miners do not have the required management capacity to set up and run
sustainable SSM enterprises, and are unable to develop low-impact SSM methods.
Brazilian and Maroon 2 small-scale miners, who make up over 98% of the miner
population in the interior of Suriname, face significant language and cultural barriers in
the sub-sector, which prevent them from moving out of the informal gold mining subsector.
Hence, assistance schemes are a conditio sine qua non for achieving lasting
improvements in the sub-sector.
The second one is that it is not possible to develop effective legislation and regulations
without 1) reliable information on the gold mines of the interior, and 2) a good
understanding of the root causes of the many challenges faced by the stakeholders in the
sub-sector. Laws and regulations drafted from behind a desk in Paramaribo will never be
able to capture the variety and complexity of operations in the sub-sector, nor be able to
recognize the many regulatory opportunities that have already been developed by miners
themselves. Regulatory traditions and customs developed in the mines („the miner‟s law‟
1 The abbreviation SSM is used for „Small-Scale Mining.”
2 Descendants of escaped slaves who settled in the remote rainforest interior of Suriname.
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