L'activité aurifère dans la commune de Maripasoula, impact écologique et humain

Abstract

The village of Maripasoula is located in southwestern French Guiana, in the Upper Maroni region. A land formerly settled by Amerindians and runaway Blacks, at the end of the sixties it became a « commune », France's smallest administrative subdivision. In recent years, the Ministry of the Environment has envisaged several possibilities for creating a nature refuge in southern French Guiana. While exact boundaries have not yet been officially defined, the project as planned already encompasses most of the area of the village of Maripasoula. Predating this governmental commitment to the conservation of a protected area, the land was traditionally exploited for subsistence. These two claims on the space draw on the wealth of the natural environment, but come up against the gold mining industry's lobby. Since the beginning of this century, the discovery of gold ore in the Upper Maroni region has set off a series of mining phases, the most recent in the early nineteen-nineties. However, what was once very small-scale has become today, with the new gold diggers and their modern mining equipment, a more efficient activity but also much more detrimental to the environment.