Collecting material to be washed in the "batea" (wooden pan) in the search for flakes of gold--within the pit created by the machines on the road to Lloró.

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Artisanal Gold Mining in the Shadow of the Machines, El Chocó Colombia

Steve Cagan | Colombia

Since 2013, I have been photographing the daily resistance of communities in the department of El Chocó, Colombia to violence and threats to their environment and cultures. One theme has been mining for gold, especially the dangers that recent mechanized mining present to the environment, to traditional communities and to their cultures and grassroots economies.

One impact has been that for many people artisanal mining has changed from being a part-time activity in local streams and rivers to a full-time activity within the pits excavated by the machines. The new arrangement allows people to find more gold than previously, but at the cost of abandoning farming, hunting and fishing, of becoming cash-dependent for the first time, and of damage to community social and cultural structures.

The story here is about the application of traditional skills and practices to a new situation—traditional artisanal mining in the shadow of the machines. Even here the contradictions are important, as work previously done in a low-level and sustainable way is now carried out within the very zones of environmental and social degradation.
 

Large-scale mining—for gold, coal, precious industrial metals and more—is becoming an increasingly critical global issue, as mining threatens various natural environments throughout the world. Some of the areas that have been publicized recently are Central America, Central Africa, Brazil, Chile, Canada, the United States and Colombia.

In Colombia, a variety of habitats are under threat from actual or proposed mechanized mining activities. My project is focused on the department of El Chocó, in the northwest of the country. This is an area of tropical and sub-tropical rain forest, an area of great rainfall—indeed, one of the wettest places on the planet—and a place of great diversity in flora and fauna.

In this environment, native communities thrived for thousands of years before the arrival of the Spanish, and Black communities, descendants of slaves brought here by the Spanish to work in the gold mines, have thrived for 500 years, living on the generosity of the forest, and developing cultures grounded in the habitat of the rivers and swamps.

Traditionally, panning for gold was an element in the family economy of rain forest communities—but it was only one element. People planted, hunted, fished, cut lumber, all primarily for their own consumption, and panned for gold. Gold was what provided cash, needed for the things they could not produce themselves—tools, cloth, salt, utensils—and this kind of mining was a part-time activity.

This activity—which still goes on—has barely any environmental impact. The amount of dirt that is turned over is very little, and even this is primarily from the existing river or stream beds. Holes are not opened in the forest floor, or if they are, they are small and shallow. These artisanal miners do not use mercury or cyanide, as mechanized miners do.

In the 1980s, people in the area began to use motorized pumps to wash the soil in the search for gold. While this activity still had a relatively small environmental impact, it changed the economic and social role of mining, as some people began to make much more money and to devote themselves to mining full-time.
In recent years, impelled by the sky-high price of gold, mechanized mining has come to this area, and with a vengeance. Scores, if not hundreds, of large backhoes have been brought in to open large pits in a search for the gold. The new mining operations represent a threat to the important but delicate rain forest environment, and also to traditional cultures.

The environmental threats of mechanized mining activities are many: the destruction of significant areas of rain forest, as the thin forest topsoil is pushed aside and discarded and large pits are dug; serious degradation of streams and rivers as many tons of silt and rocks, oil and chemicals are dumped into them; and air, soil and water contamination by mercury that is burned in the open air.

The newer mining also produces profound social distortions as people abandon the range of economic activities—small-scale farming, hunting and fishing, and sustainable lumbering—that have defined them culturally and supported their families, to become full-time artisanal miners in areas abandoned by the machinery

This activity has also provoked divisions within the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities that make up over 90% of the population of the area. Some individuals and communities see the mechanized mining as a great economic opportunity, while others see it as a threat to their forest and their way of life—and even have doubts about the economic benefits.

Finally, mechanized mining has become a deeply important element in the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia. Both guerrilla and paramilitary groups, operating in the shadows, extort money from the miners and have even begun to invest in mining operations. The violence connected with and supported by the armed groups has spilled over into village and city life, distorting social relations.

As serious as these problems are, a much greater threat looms just over the horizon: the Colombian government is promoting even larger-scale mining by transnational corporations. The communities—even those who support current mechanized practices—are nearly unanimous in their opposition to this development.

 

steve@stevecagan.com

216-932-2753

www.stevecagan.com

Steve Cagan has over thirty-five years’ experience photographing and exhibiting. His major work is in what is called documentary or socially-engaged photography; his avian photography is a by-product of his love of nature and birding.

Major projects have included: “Industrial Hostages,” on factory closings in Ohio; Indochina; Nicaragua; El Salvador (especially about a community that formed in a refugee camp and returned to found a new town); and Cuba (especially about the struggles of working-class people in the harsh economy after the fall of the USSR), and “Working Ohio,” an extended portrait of working people. Current major project, since 2003: “El Chocó, Colombia: Struggle for Cultural and Environmental Survival,” documenting that threatened rain forest area and the special cultures there.

He has exhibited and published on four continents. He has published reviews and critical writings in a variety of professional journals and books. Major awards include two Fulbright Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and several Ohio Arts Council Fellowships and New Jersey Arts Council Fellowships. He taught in the Visual Arts Department of Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, 1985-1993.

He is co-author (with his wife Beth) of the book, This Promised Land, El Salvador, which won the 1991 Book of the Year Award of Association for Humanist Sociology. In 1991, he was named “Teacher of the Year” at Rutgers University.

More of his work can be seen at www.stevecagan.com, www.pbase.com/stevecagan, and https://socialdocumentary.net/photographer/stevecagan, among other places.
 

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