LA MERCED DE BUENOS AIRES, Ecuador, Aug 2, 2019 (BSDS/AFP) – In a desolate
area of Ecuador’s northern Andes, dozens of electricity generators are
cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape as armed security forces keep watch.
Nearby, sacks of earth and rock have been piled up next to a sign reading:
“confiscated gold material.”
A month ago, 2,400 police and military personnel descended on La Merced de
Buenos Aires in the mountains just north of the capital Quito to put a stop
to indiscriminate illegal gold mining in the area.
Up to 15,000 miners and their families once flocked to the remote area,
where they could earn the equivalent of $150 each day breaking up rocks that
can contain up to 40 grams of gold per-ton.
All that remains of the black market industry are the terracotta-colored
scars the miners have cut into the green landscape and the dozens of shelters
they jury-rigged from tarpaulins and sticks.
The government raid chased away the miners and the criminal groups that
accompanied them, while also removing an obstacle to Ecuador’s plans to wean
its economy off its main export oil and encourage the development of mining,
as fellow Andean nations Peru and Chile have done.
“In the next five to seven years, mining will be the economic pillar,”
Deputy Mines Minister Fernando Benalcazar told AFP.
– ‘Gold is like a magnet’ –
Buenos Aires was once a mountain village home to 1,800 peasants, but in
late 2017 it was transformed by a huge influx of prospective gold miners.
“As the number of people increased, the gold came out. People came from
Venezuela, Peru, Dominicans, from all over Ecuador,” 50-year-old German Fraga
told AFP.
“There wasn’t enough food in the stores. So they began to stock up, to
bring in trucks, as much as they could.”
Prices soared amid the hoarding, and at one point there was so much money
in circulation that a 15 kilogram (33 pound) household gas canister, whose
official price was $1.60, was changing hands for $40 in the mines.
Armed group and prostitution followed, authorities said, until the
security crackdown cleared them all out.
But one miner, a man with rough hands and fingernails busted by wayward
hammer blows, says they will be back.
“They sent us away, but gold is like a magnet, it attracts good and bad,”
said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
If the miners return, they may find themselves having to deal with a new
landlord: Australian company Hanrine, whose concession extends into the area
where the miners of Buenos Aires worked.
Investment from foreign mining firms is crucial to Ecuador’s plan to end
its reliance on oil revenue and shift to exploiting its massive mineral
reserves, albeit with government regulation.
“It’s very easy to launder this money, to handle it. What we see in Buenos
Aires clearly demonstrates this,” Benalcazar said of the illegal mining
industry, adding that barely 7.5 percent of the country’s territory has been
designated for mineral prospection.
With 11.1 million ounces of gold, 51.6 million ounces of silver and 9.8
million tons of copper thought to be in its soils, Ecuador may become one of
the main mining sites in the world.
The country is developing five large-scale metal mining projects, and will
receive $2.25 billion of investment up to 2021 when it hopes to have
increased mining’s share of gross domestic product to four percent, according
to the Ministry of Mines and Non-Renewable Natural Resources.
That would be an increase from just 1.61 percent in 2018.
– Illegal or traditional? –
Several groups, including organizations of local and indigenous peoples,
are against the government’s plans, and not just because mining pollutes
water sources and ecosystems.
“What we don’t like is that (the government) wants to bring in
transnationals. That’s not good because here, in our country, there are poor
people,” said a local senior citizen, Jose Fraga.
Instead, he’s in favor of “traditional mining, even though they say it’s
illegal.”
Meanwhile, the government is pushing ahead with its plans.
The open air Mirador mine, operated by Chinese group CRCC-Tonguan and with
reserves of 3.2 million tons of copper, began production on July 18.
And just north of the illegal mines of Buenos Aires lies Cascabel, which
is being exploited by Australia’s SoGold and for which the government has
high hopes.
The mine “has huge preliminary reserves of silver that would place it
between the first and third mines in the world for production,” enthused
Benalcazar.