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Identifying and analyzing the causes and consequences that generate the high consumption of mercury in gold mining activities is an internacional priority. In Colombia, eighty-seven percent of the country's gold mines have no mining title and only 3% posses environmental lawlessness, the failures of formalization programs and the inadequacy of importation controls on the supply are the cause of the high consumption of mercury in Colombian mining. To diagnose the country's gold mining activities and the excessive use of mercury in them, we used six information sources (semi-structured interviews, 2011 Census on Mining Activities), nine dependent and 21 independent variables. The study evidenced the miners' partiality in favor of the use of mercury in the procurement of gold; the process is easy, quick and inexpensive. Mercury concentrations were found to be above tolerable levels. In response, government has opted for a policy of persecution of the activity rather than the promotion of their formalization.

Describes the 1995 breach of the tailings pond at a large gold mine on the Omai river, which released cyanide-laced sludge and spurred the government to restrain foreign development harmful to the population and the environment; Guyana. Refers to Omai Gold Mining Ltd. which manages the mining operation on behalf of Cambior, a Canadian transnational and Golden Star Resources Ltd., a US transnational.

Introduction For much of the 1990s, the tourist town of Bergama was the epicentre of Turkey's most effective and visible environmental social movement against a multinational mining corporation aiming to establish the first modern gold mine in the country. Bringing relatively prosperous peasants together with a small group of ambitious policy entrepreneurs, the movement marked a turning point in environmental politics in Turkey. Motivated primarily by the environmental and public health risks posed by cyanide leaching, the peasant activists waged an unprecedented campaign that acted as a forceful reminder of the potential of social mobilization to impart lasting change both at the local and national level. While the peasant activists failed at the end to stop the operation of the mine, their campaign sparked a national discussion over the environmental costs of rapid economic growth in Turkey.

Conflicts of different nature surround the activity of small scale gold mining. After first addressing some of these conflicts, we subsequently focus on how the fact that the activity often takes place in remote and marginal areas, influences the ways these conflicts emerge and develop. We distinguish four different takes on the issue, and discuss each of these on the basis of case studies in Peru and Surinam. We finally suggest some general conclusions about the role of geographical and political distance as a structural feature in the conflicts around gold mining.

Gold mining, like all other forms of mining, is strongly associated with the production of a wide range of residues, whether this concerns (toxic) waste materials or the environments transformed in pursuit of gold. Frequently, these residual products, such as soil, mud, rocks, and water, as well as the environments from which they are extracted or where they are deposited, appear as waste, cast aside or abandoned, rendered as useless by-products or destroyed lands. In this photographic essay, we build on recent insight regarding the fluid character of waste by extending analysis into both the domains of materials and of space because not only can specific materials be repurposed as resources, but also specific spaces can be transformed from sites of abandonment to sites of production (or vice versa), whether for mining or other activities. These photographic series show how different actors repurpose material and spatial residues. By centralising images of processes of repurposing, this essay nuances and offers a counterweight to dominant visual narratives. These typically focus on environmental and social damage, and often take a perspective 'from above' as they largely draw on aerial images. In doing so, these narratives tend to flatten or even erase local complexity and heterogeneity, and risk reproducing received negative stereotypes about artisanal and small-scale mining and miners. Importantly, as will transpire throughout the essay, the phenomena and processes depicted in our images shape and are shaped by different social, political, economic, technological, environmental, and historical relations and dynamics. These include, for example, former mining trajectories, gendered production relations, miners' socio-economic positions, the involvement of external actors, and the introduction of new capital, knowledge and technologies. Ultimately, this illuminates the necessity of approaching 'waste' in fluid, relational, and transformative terms as material and spatial endings are turned into new beginnings. ; Funders: Belmont Forum, NORFACE (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe). ; Gold Matters

The book presents the historical evolution of gold mining activities in the Egyptian and Nubian Desert (Sudan) from about 4000 BC until the Early Islamic Period (~800-1350 AD), subdivided into the main classical epochs including the Early Dynastic - Old and Middle Kingdoms - New Kingdom (including Kushitic) - Ptolemaic - Roman and Early Islamic. It is illustrated with many informative colour images, maps and drawings. An up to date comprehensive geological introduction gives a general overview on the gold production zones in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and northern (Nubian) Sudan, including the various formation processes of the gold bearing quartz veins mined in these ancient periods. The more than 250 gold production sites presented, are described both, from their archaeological (as far as surface inventory is concerned) and geological environmental conditions, resulting in an evolution scheme of prospection and mining methods within the main periods of mining activities. The book offers for the first time a complete catalogue of the many gold production sites in Egypt and Nubia under geological and archaeological aspects. It provides information about the importance of gold for the Pharaohs and the spectacular gold rush in Early Arab times.