Gold-rush in a forested El Dorado: deforestation leakages and the need for regional cooperation
Open accessAbstract
Tropical forests of the Guiana Shield are the most affected by gold-mining in South America, experiencing an exponential increase in deforestation since the early 2000's. Using yearly deforestation data encompassing Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and the Brazilian State of Amapá, we demonstrated a strong relationship between deforestation due to gold-mining and gold-prices at the regional scale. In order to assess additional drivers of deforestation due to gold-mining, we focused on the national scale and highlighted the heterogeneity of the response to gold-prices under different political contexts. Deforestation due to gold-mining over the Guiana Shield occurs mainly in Guyana and Suriname. On the contrary, past and current repressive policies in Amapá and French Guiana likely contribute to the decorrelation of deforestation and gold prices. In this work, we finally present a case study focusing on French Guiana and Suriname, two neighbouring countries with very different levels of law enforcement against illegal gold-mining. We developed a modelling framework to estimate potential deforestation leakages from French Guiana to Suriname in the border areas. Based on our assumptions, we estimated a decrease in deforestation due to gold-mining of approx. 4300 hectares in French Guiana and an increase of approx. 12 100 hectares in Suriname in response to the active military repression of illegal gold-mining launched in French Guiana. Gold-mining in the Guiana Shield provides challenging questions regarding REDD+ implementation. These questions are discussed at the end of this study and are important to policy makers who need to provide sustainable alternative employment to local populations in order to ensure the effectiveness of environmental policies.
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Military operations against mining in French Guiana and Madre de Dios (e.g. Operation Mercury) were effective but have displaced the cause to other areas.
“So far, military 646 operations against mining in French Guiana and Madre de Dios (e.g. Operation Mercury) were effective 647 but have displaced the cause to other areas [55,162].”
From A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome (2023) · cites this paper as [55]
Section 3.3 (page not provided) reports that military repression was associated with less gold-mining deforestation in French Guiana and more in Suriname, supporting the effectiveness-and-displacement claim for that case. The paper does not address military operations in Madre de Dios or Operation Mercury, so it does not support that part of the sentence. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Research works printed but not linked: 14
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- Asner G P, Llactayo W, Tupayachi R and Luna E R 2013 Elevated rates of gold mining in the Amazon revealed through high-resolution monitoring Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110 18454-9 · DOI · Paper page
- de Kom J F, van der Voet G B and de Wolff Fa 1998 Mercury exposure of maroon workers in the small scale gold mining in Suriname Environ. Res. 77 91-7 · DOI
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- Heemskerk M 2002 Livelihood decision making and environmental degradation: small-scale gold mining in the suriname Amazon Soc. Nat. Resour. 15 327-44 · DOI
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A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome
Hänggli, A., Levy, S. A., Armenteras, D., Bovolo, C. I., Brandão, J., Rueda, X., & Garrett, R. D. (2023) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/acd408 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
- Authors
- Dezécache, C., Faure, E., Gond, V., Salles, J.-M., Vieilledent, G., & Hérault, B.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Forests and Societies (FR)
- Joint Research Centre (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Dezécache, Camille
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2017-03-01
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 034013
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2592020087
- Cited by
- 79
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 5.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Agritrop (Cirad) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Joint Research Centre (European Commission) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- ONF International
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Mining and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
- Keywords
- gold mining, deforestation, Guiana Shield, gold prices, illegal mining, law enforcement, regional cooperation, REDD+, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, Amapá, borderlands, environmental policy
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