Latest update April 10th, 2025 12:07 AM
Vast destruction seen in Reg. 7 -GGMC has little capacity to monitor gold industry
Just a few miles from Essequibo River, in the Cuyuni/Mazaruni area of Region Seven, lies an area called Arimu.
Part of the Arimu area, Region Seven, which has been mined out years now and which has been largely abandoned with little reclamation work done.
From above, a vast area of wastelands from a bad movie, has been carved out from the jungle with the waters ranging from blue to green to a sickly yellow.
Arimu is a mined out area that has small miners returning to sections of it, hoping to find the remains.
A significant part of it has already been parceled out to a number of prominent gold miners who control large plots of the country’s available lands that has been allocated for mining.
From Timehri, Arimu is about 50 miles due west.
On the ground, it is not unusual to find persons in the side trails with metal detectors.
One man showed a few flakes he found worth about $10,000.
A small clear area has shops and places for partying and other night activities. Arimu is one of the hundreds of mined out areas which has been abandoned and left like that across the country…in Regions One, Seven and Eight and to a lesser extent, Region Nine.
It would be in conflict with the Code of Practice for Mine Reclamation and Closure Plans as published by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission in 2010.
Under those codes, miners have to return the lands to as much as possible to its natural state as possible.
The polluted waterways in the Arimu area, Region 7.
This Code of Practice (Provision) is a mandatory one that applies to gold and diamond mining
operations ranging in size from small‐scale to medium‐scale, GGMC said in explaining the Code of Practice.
The code was said to be subordinate to the Mining (Amendment) Regulations 2005 and was intended to complement regulatory requirements, not to replace them.
Compliance with the rules, regulations and laws is therefore necessary, GGMC said.
The miners are obligated to restore the site to a condition in which it is visually acceptable to the community and productive for further uses.
More importantly, it was explained, there must be moves to ensure that the rehabilitated land blends in with the surrounding landscape.
The Code said that the site must be reclaimed to the extent that the area impacted will be amenable to support a balanced diversity of flora and fauna.
The scene in the Arimu backdam area.
Steps must also be taken to prevent drainage interruption and groundwater loss.
The Code goes further. There must be moves by the miners to re‐vegetate the area throughout mine life with appropriate plant species that will control erosion, provide diversity and enable plant succession so as to restore a stable and compatible ecosystem.
The sooner re‐vegetation is initiated, the faster an ecosystem will be re‐established, it was explained.
Last week, at Arimu, miners were told that they were working on the mined out areas.
One man who came from Brazil years ago, has been dwelling in the country’s backdams for decades.
The destruction is in many parts of Guyana. In fact, in Region Eight, in the Mahdia backdam areas, the scenes would be shocking.
“Miners are largely working for landlords. They have to pay a percentage and sometimes they go bust. When you bust, you don’t want to hear about putting back vegetation.”
GGMC officers are unable to properly manage the rough terrain.
In fact, it was stressed that mines officers are paid to turn a blind eye.
“This is not the only area that has been left like this. The whole Cuyuni and Mazaruni area is like this. Miners are not adhering. You have to go to other regions to see the problem. I come and reach the mine out area in Arimu about 10 years ago.”
In Region 7, there are scores of mined-out areas like Arimu.
In fact, the backdam is filled with Venezuelans, Brazilians, Chinese, Russians, Canadians and even South Africans.
The Cuyuni/Mazaruni area is a mineral rich area filled with not only gold and diamond, but waterfalls and an abundance of wildlife.
The biggest gold mine, Aurora, is there and being developed to facilitate underground mining now.
The debate over the clearing of forests for mining and logging has come as Guyana has been actively pursuing a green pathway with its economy and actively looking to receive cash incentives for keeping its deforestation rates.
It was only last week that Guyana collected the last of the US$50M from a US$250M deal with Norway to protect its forests.
While the five-year deal was extended to nine years, with climate change, there have been talks of the value of the forests.
In recent years, GGMC has been talking tough of mining operations but operators have been pushing further and further into the backdam challenging the Commission to carry out its monitoring mandate.
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