![]() Miners often have little or no awareness of gold dredging hazards to commercial waterway transport and the harmful effects of the discharge of contaminants into the sensitive Amazon Basin. Independent miners typically live and work on rafts with their families, river mining being their only means of subsistence. They recruit the workforce from riverside communities and miners’ unions to run the labour-intense operations. Major organised miners own large fleets of unlicensed mining rafts, tugs and pushers, usually without licenses. Illegal mining rafts in the Amazon region They typically carry a suction dredger and other apparatus to excavate the riverbed and extract gold, invariably using toxic mercury to separate the metal from sediments. Most rafts engaged in gold dredge are rudimentarily built, although some are equipped with air conditioning and satellite internet. In the neighbouring state of Amazonas, the activity is forbidden but remains widespread and tolerated.ĭredging rafts can be seen in plain sight prospecting gold in the many tributaries of the Amazon River, particularly during the drought season, when dredging is intensified, and rows of mining rafts become part of the riverside landscape. Clandestine gold dredging poses a threat to the safety of inland waterways navigation and the environment Illegal miningĪlongside fishing and subsistence agriculture, gold mining has been a significant source of income for the poor riverine population of the Amazon region for many decades, mainly upstream of the Madeira River and other streams near Porto Velho in Rondônia, where mining licensing is precariously regulated.
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