Costa Rica Assails Big Risks Taken By Small
Miners
By
Leslie Josephs
(Reuters) - Costa Rica is pushing to
legalize hundreds of small-scale miners who
scrape out tiny amounts of gold from
abandoned mine shafts using dangerous and
polluting techniques.
Lured by record prices for gold, which
topped $1,200 an ounce this year, some 600
informal miners around the town of Abangares
in hilly northern Costa Rica use toxic
mercury to extract gold from rocks chipped
out of narrow tunnels.
The environment ministry estimates the
miners produce around 500 ounces of 14 carat
gold a month and sell it to local dealers at
cut rates below the market, around $476 an
ounce.
Informal mining is practiced in many parts
of the world but Costa Rica is as the
forefront of a trend to regulate the miners
by urging them to form cooperatives, apply
for official mining concessions with
environmental permits and pay taxes.
The government of the lushly forested
Central American nation, which touts its
strict environmental rules, is worried
unchecked informal miners are dumping
dangerous chemicals into water supplies.
"This is a social problem caused by
unemployment in the tourism sector," said
Jose Castro, head of mining at the
Environment Ministry. The economic downturn
has hit the tourism industry at beaches and
nature reserves in the region.
"What we're trying to do is organize (the
miners) and monitor their activities,"
Castro said.
Top mining officials toured the area around
Abangares this month and want to push
through the tougher regulations before
President Oscar Arias' term ends in May
2010. The government campaign has made
headway, with about half of the miners
already organized into officially recognized
cooperatives and one in the process of
applying for a formal concession.
PROFIT OUTWEIGHS RISK
Better known for its exports of bananas and
high-quality coffee, Costa Rica's does not
have the mineral resources of other Latin
American countries. Metallic mining
comprises less than 1 percent of the gross
domestic product.
There are no major operational gold mines
and the only big project, Las Crucitas,
which is being built by Canada's Infinito
Gold Ltd, has been suspended pending a
supreme court ruling on whether it is
environmentally safe.
But with gold prices soaring, informal
miners are willing to take big risks to
scrape a living out of deep caves, some a
century old, abandoned by international
mining companies.
Miners have died when weakly supported
tunnels collapsed during rainy season. And
they regularly handle mercury with their
bare hands, even though the liquid metal can
cause birth defects, miscarriages, nerve
damage and renal failure.
"There is no other work. You can earn more
here than in any kind of company," Jose
Campos, a 29-year-old miner said.
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