Toward the Greening of the Gold Mining Sector of Guyana: Transition Issues and Challenges

Abstract

work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.http://www.iadb.org 2017 Abstract 1Guyana is a country with abundant mineral wealth. Extractive industries, along with agriculture, drive the economy. Mining poses several inherent challenges due to its negative impact on the environment, its relatively high level of capital intensity compared to other main productive activities, and the heavy enforcement demands on understaffed and underfunded regulatory institutions, especially when the vast majority of miners are highly dispersed artisanal, small, medium-scale (ASM) miners. This paper surveys recent developments and trends in the Guyanese gold mining sector, the most important of the five mining subsectors, and analyses the issues surrounding the transition to more environmentally sustainable mining practices. Perverse incentives exist between maximizing private profits, honoring government royalty payments, generating gainful employment, on the one hand, and overcoming the economic and cost constraints of complying with environmentally responsible and sustainable practices in the ASM sector, on the other. The paper makes recommendations on how to better align incentives, especially to bridge the financing and knowledge gaps, to permit optimal extraction of the resource, promote environmental sustainability, and improve public-private collaboration.JEL Classification: Q32, Q33, Q38

Evaluating the impact of small-scale mining on the achievement of the sustainable development goals in Guyana

“…Predominantly, ASM has negative environmental effects on land (SDG 15) and water (SDG 14) ecosystems. Literature sourced outline two areas of concern, 1) impacts from land clearing and dredging -physical degradation and 2) the discharge of metallic mercury from the amalgamation process -chemical contaminant (Pasha, Wenner and Clarke, 2017). Physical degradation resulting from ASM include deforestation, clearing of top-soil, agitation of river beds and river bank erosion often leading to the disruption of wild life habitats and potential loss in ecosystem services (Roopnarine, 2002).…”

“…Miners also use the wood for fuel and to construct their camps. Pasha, Wenner and Clarke (2017) identified that between 1990 and 2009, an estimated 45,000 hectares of forest was cleared for gold mining. Valuing the impact that ASM has on deforestation, an estimated value of US$5,382 per Ha sourced from Costanza et al (2011) was used as the total economic value of tropical forest ecosystems.…”

“…This task is undertaken at a country-level to provide a proof-of-concept of the technique. Guyana is chosen for this task due to the significant contribution that ASM plays in its economy, the long-term role that the sector has played in the social fabric of the country and the environmental consequences that the sector has brought (Hilson & Laing, 2017;Hook, 2019;Lowe, 2006, Pasha et al 2017Roopnarine, 2005;Singh et al, 2013).…”

Small man goes where the large fears to tread: Mining in Guyana: 1990-2018

“…This is a function of the type of processes involved in small-scale mining (clearing forest and removing topsoil) but should be highlighted as a key downside of the nature of Guyana's mining industry. Options are available within and outside the sector, however, to mitigate these effects through reforestation and rehabilitation (Román-Dañobeytia et al, 2015;Pasha et al, 2017). Beyond its impact on forests small-scale mining also has impacts on water-courses that are potentially much greater than large-scale activity.…”

Project-Based Methods for Assessment of Active Learning Stem Video Lessons

“…Extractive industries are a major driving component of the country's economy, with a majority of highly dispersed artisanal, small, and medium-scale (ASM) miners. Mining poses several inherent challenges due to its negative impact on the environment and strong barriers to the efficient enforcement of existing regulations (Pasha et al, 2017).…”