Illegal Mining by Brazilians Contaminates Rivers and Threatens Indigenous Communities in French Guiana

"I feel like a pig in dirty water," says the chief of a community affected by high mercury levels

Oct.14.2024 1:08PM

Mayara Passion

Villages of Alto Maroni and Camopi (French Guiana)
The suffering is that of someone watching their home being destroyed. "When I bathe in the river, I feel like a pig in dirty water," says Patrick Twenké, the "grand man" (big man) of the Wayanas Indigenous people in French Guiana. "It's humiliating."



View of Ilha Bela, an informal village on the banks of the Oiapoque River, in the region of the Tumucumaques National Park, on the Brazilian side of the border with French Guiana.Credito Ronan Liétar / WWF - Ronan Liétar/WWF França


Two years after succeeding his father in this ancestral leadership position, he sees the village of Taluen, on the border with Suriname, taken over by the consequences of illegal mining, which is expanding in this French overseas department with labor coming from Brazil.

"The biggest problem is the river, which feeds us. And the forest, which is like our refrigerator. Now many of us are afraid to go hunting in the woods due to the presence of the miners," says the leader of a people spread across six villages, with around 1,500 people.

The relationship with the Brazilian miners is not confrontational. The Wayanas have even organized soccer tournaments with them, but the remnants of mining are everywhere, says chief Aïmawale Opoya.

"With them come motor theft, drugs, prostitution. Many use the health unit here, and there are many cases of AIDS among the miners."

And, even more seriously, the contamination of the rivers with mercury used in the gold separation process, which is indiscriminately discarded into nature. The toxic metal stains parts of the Maroni River yellow and brown, the river where the chief and the "grand man" have bathed since childhood.

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2024/10/illegal-mining-by-brazilians-contaminates-rivers-and-threatens-indigenous-communities-in-french-guiana.shtml