Usar p⁄gs xvii-134 - ResearchGate

Methodology (Figure 23, Table 11, Map 11):• Data on mining concessions granted by the Ministry of Mines were obtained from the official gazettes inwhich concession boundaries are published. Geographic coordinates were extracted for each concessionboundary.• Data on contracts granted by the CVG were obtained from a hardcopy database purchased from CVG-Tecmin. The database included: name of contract, area of concession, name of contracting company, legalrepresentative, location, objective of contract, date of request and signature of contract, duration, UTMcoordinates.• An additional CVG database was acquired that includes environmental permits by contract. No equivalentdatabase was available for concessions allocated by the MEM.• These datasets were integrated into a Microsoft Excel digital file, which includes area of eachconcession/contract, company name, year granted, and environmental permits.• To link concessions and contracts to multinational mining companies, we conducted an Internet searchusing mining industry and stock market databases (e.g. www.infomine.com, www.freeedgar.com,www.sedar.com). We also conducted a general Internet search by company.• Additional information on each company was obtained primarily through reviewing corporate filings to theSecurities and Exchange Commission, the Canadian Securities Administrators, and from corporate annualreports and news releases available from Internet websites.• To verify ownership, we sent letters of clarification to each of the foreign companies found to have holdingsin the Guayana region. Of the 28 companies originally identified, we received 5 responses. We were unableto locate addresses for 3 companies. Two companies responded that they no longer held interests in theGuayana region.• Map 11 (“Mining in the Guayana Region”) is the result of plotting geographic coordinates listed ingovernment databases. The CVG-Tecmín database was used to identify mining contracts, and coordinatesfound in official gazettes were used to determine mining concessions granted by MEM. In both cases, someconcessions and contracts were incorrectly plotted due to either errors in geographic coordinates, or the orderin which the coordinates were listed. Unfortunately, we were unable to correct these errors due tomechanical difficulties, which resulted in the separation of the attribute data from the coordinates. We havechosen to show mining concessions and contracts as general polygons where a group of concessions orcontracts has been awarded. Small-scale mining points are approximate locations of mining communities.As such, they represent a proxy for where small-scale miners can be found.Limitations:• There is no official government database listing mining concessions. The Ministry of Energy and Mines isdeveloping a digital database of mining companies with concessions and contracts in the Guayana region, butonce complete these data will not be publicly available.• For concessions allocated by the MEM, geographic coordinates are not provided consistently. In somecases, the decree identifies concession boundaries according to rivers, roads, or other objects (trees andhouses), making the accurate representation of concession boundaries dependent on the accuracy of basemaps. Map 11 should only be used as a rough representational tool for identifying some areas where miningrights have been allocated.• The data obtained from the CVG included numerous errors, such as incorrect geographic coordinates,improper order of coordinates, and text indications instead of numerical coordinates. This is likely a result oferrors in data entry, as well as a failure to consistently provide geographic coordinates.• Concession/contract area and accompanying statistics related to the area of the Guayana regionunder concession have been aggregated from the CVG-Tecmín and MEM records. Thus they should be109