Barrick Gold Corporation: Legal gold mining destroys forests and contaminates water sources globally! An open pit at Barrick Gold Corp.’s Veladero gold mine in Argentina’s San Juan province. The mine has estimated reserves of 10 million oz of gold. – Photo by Marcos Brindicci/Reuters files 

On January 24, 2023, Survival International’s statement on “Yanomami health emergency: a genocide foretold” was published with a “Six Point Plan” – a list of “solutions” which included as #5 – “Clean up the supply chains to ensure anyone buying Brazilian gold can be sure it’s been legally produced. » ???

The reality is that illegal & legal gold mining are both destructive & toxic!

Ilegal gold mining destroys forests and contaminates water sources in Indigenous territory in the Amazon region! – photo João Laet 

Here, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman discusses the ravages of gold mining in Yanomami territory and its effects on the community with Davi Kopenawa, the Yanomami leader. He explains how the toxic substances used in gold ming contaminate rivers, wildlife and people. As always, he has nothing positive to say about gold, not even the “legally produced” gold that Survival, and others, are promoting.

“AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned disease that the Yanomami people face, that the illegal gold miners bring in. But it’s also mercury contamination. This issue of the use of mercury for gold mining, needed to extract the gold, over 90% of the Yanomami have mercury levels in a number of communities that are far higher than the World Health Organization recommends. Mercury is not found natively in the area. Can you talk about the effects of mercury poisoning on the children, on the Yanomami people, adults, as well?

DAVI KOPENAWA YANOMAMI: [translated] I’m going to explain. Our forest peoples don’t know of any illegal gold miner who doesn’t use mercury. Mercury is poison. It harms our health. Mercury, what you’re asking about, well, the miners who work without mercury aren’t going to get the gold. They place the mercury where the gold is, to separate it out, to clean it, and then the mercury stays in the water.

And we, the community, we’re downriver. So the Yanomami draw their water from the river for cooking, to drink and for bathing. Children, adults and the elders are all getting mercury poisoning. And now it’s killing my people.

It flows through the rivers in the Yanomami area. The rivers that are contaminated are the Catrimani, the Apiaú, the Mucajaí and the Uraricoera. And it also impacts the Orinoco River in Venezuela in the Yanomami region, as well, in the Mutuacá. The water originates in the mountains, and that’s where the gold miners are, at the headwaters in the mountains.”

The fact that “legal” gold corporations are systematically polluting groundwater, air, soil, and glaciers and causing a loss of biodiversity around their legal gold mines makes the notion of “Cleaning up the supply chains to ensure anyone buying gold can be sure it’s been legally produced” ludicrous and counter-productive for Indigenous peoples, wildlife and the environment.

Here’s one of many, many examples:”The complaint alleges that Barrick Gold Corporation has violated Guidelines provisions on disclosure, environment and general policies at the company’s Veladero and Pascua Lama gold mines in the Argentine San Juan province.

The complaint alleges that Barrick has systematically polluted groundwater, air, soil, and glaciers and has caused a loss of biodiversity around the gold mines. 

The complainants also highlight the company’s negative impact on the local population’s health and the deteriorating regional economy resulting from the destruction of natural landscapes and restrictions on access to land and water resources. 

Moreover, the case alleges that Barrick has violated the right to information, has been improperly involved in local political decision-making, and has used violence against social and environmental organisations.”

But it isn’t an issue for legal gold only in South America: Tanzanian villagers accuse the Canadian mining giant of being complicit in killings and torture at the North Mara gold mine. A group of Tanzanian villagers is suing Barrick Gold over alleged police killings, torture and other abuses at a gold mine in northwestern Tanzania!

Near Barrick Gold’s legal Pueblo Viejo gold mine

“Legally produced gold” is NOT a solution! The only viable solution for Indigenous peoples, wildlife and the environment is for consumers to STOP BUYING GOLD, particularly for useless decorative ornaments like gold jewelry, watches and accessories.

Gold is a colonial relic from an era of global domination of Indigenous peoples and lands.

It’s stupefying that Davi Kopenawa’s friend, the anthropologist Bruce Albert, echoed Survival’s #5 “solution” in a recent interview with O Valor:

Albert stated that “The gold trade must be thoroughly reviewed so that inspection of the origin of the metal produced and destined for the financial and jewelry sector can be systematically implemented.”

I commented on Albert’s interview:  “…just like in the six point plan of Survival International, ‘STOP BUYING GOLD’ is missing.”

Bruce Albert is a consultant for the gold merchant Cartier’s art foundation. Survival has supported Cartier’s “Yanomami – themed” art exhibitions for 20 years. Is that a factor influencing their pro-legal-gold statements? 

How long has Survival been supporting Indigenous peoples? 50+ years? That’s long enough to have informed themselves about the reality behind the shiny publicity facade of the gold industry.

I am appalled by the apparent conflict of interest/complicity of people in the hierarchy at Survival International as well as other supporters of Indigenous people and wildlife. Why does denouncing gold appear to be such a dilemma for them? 

Not any conceivable reward or donation – Nothing could compensate for the deadly and irreversible outcome for the Yanomami and so many other Indigenous peoples exposed to legal and illegal gold mining globally. Why is that not evident to them?

Rather than giving speeches inside during “The Yanomami Struggle” opening at the Cartier Foundation in January, 2020, representatives of Survival could have been outside the Cartier Foundation to protest with signs such as “Stop the greenwashing of dirty gold!” and “Pas de Cartier!”

photo montage: “Pas de Cartier” series – “Their True Nature #1- Cartier Foundation”

photos: Fondation Cartier – Luc Boegly / gold mining site – João Laet 

photo of Yanomami, Alto Orinoco, Amazonas, Venezuela and photomontage – Barbara Crane Navarro

Representatives of Survival could have been outside the Triennale Milano at the inauguration of the Triennale Milano/Fondation Cartier “The Yanomami Struggle” exhibition to protest with signs such as “Stop the greenwashing of dirty gold and blood diamonds!”…but that didn’t happen then, either.

photo montage: “Pas de Cartier” series “Their True Nature #2 – Triennale Milano”

photos: Triennale Milano – Gianluca Di Ioia / gold mining site – João Laet  

photo of Yanomami, Alto Orinoco, Amazonas, Venezuela and photomontage – Barbara Crane Navarro

Now, in 2023, Cartier is again presenting “The Yanomami Struggle”, this time in New York.

Representatives of Survival could have been outside The Shed in the Hudson Yards shopping center to protest with signs such as “Stop the greenwashing of dirty gold and blood diamonds!” at the inauguration of the Shed/Fondation Cartier “The Yanomami Struggle” exhibition …but that didn’t happen this time, either.

The mantra that Cartier as well as most of the other jewelry companies, gold mining corporations, Bruce Albert and Survival evoke is the “illegal/legal” gold dichotomy with: “Clean up the supply chains to ensure anyone buying gold can be sure it’s been legally produced.” But this has always been illusory because “legal” gold is also toxic! Cyanure is used in legal gold mines like mercury is used in illegal gold mines.

And since cartels and organized crime elements, with the help of complicit banks and refineries, took over the gold industry – from around 2007, as was so brilliantly illustrated in Netflix’s “Dirty Gold” documentary film – legal and illegal gold are now indistinguishable. 

“The entire history of Latin American colonial barbarism, for over 500 years up through today, has mining as its objective. Mining is literally behind all the genocide, slavery and countless coups d’état, year after year, in almost every country. Understanding this is essential.”                – Maurício Angelo

Paradise Destroyed – Bartolomé de Las Casas

For more detailed information, please read here:

21st Century COLONIALISM – implemented by Corporations and NGOs? Whose Survival is at stake here, Survival? The survival of the rainforests and Indigenous peoples or of Cartier and others in the gold and diamond jewelry industry? – If you plan to donate to an NGO, please read this first! – update 2023