In Guyana, the gold mine project to extract a several tons of gold in the middle of the Amazon is most likely to cost lots of biodiversity

conclusion: all forms of money have a negative impact on society and nature alike.

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May 9, 2018 / TheNewswire / Vancouver, Canada - Guyana Goldstrike Inc. (the "Company" or "Guyana Goldstrike") (TSXV: GYA, OTC: GYNAF, FSE:1ZT) is pleased to report that the Company's geological team has completed preliminary trenching, mapping and sampling at the Paunch area on its Marudi Gold Project ("Marudi" or the "Property") located in the Guiana Gold Belt, Guyana, South America.

Peter Berdusco, President and CEO of the Company states "Our mandate via the recent investment by Zijin's Global and Midas Exploration Funds is to explore Marudi for additional hard rock ounces to add to the Company's existing resources. To this effort, we have initially identified seven areas of geological interest for the discovery of gold mineralization. Our first area of focus, Paunch, is located only 1 km north of the Marudi camp and is accessible by road. We anticipate assay results from Paunch very shortly."....... more http://www.guyanagoldstrike.com/inde...project-guyana
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WWF France calls gold mine project ‘ecological disaster and economic mirage’
57,000 tons of explosives

According to WWF France, the company plans a total deforestation of 1,513 hectares including deforestation of primary forests with a high ecological value of 575 hectares. The organisation also quoted the operator who said that to extract the gold, 57,000 tons of explosives, 46,500 tons of cyanide and 195 million litres of fuel will be needed in the coming 12 years, the time-scale set for this project.

A pit with a volume equivalent to 32 Stade de France [the national stadium of France with a seating capacity of 81,338, which makes it the sixth-largest in Europe] will also be dug on the site where more than 2000 plant and animal species have been inventoried, including 127 protected.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/ene...onomic-mirage/

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Acid Mine Drainage: Eating Away at the Environment

In the United States and Canada, gold mines--some more than 100 years old, some recently closed, and some active--are leaking acidic water, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation costs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials estimate that 40% of western U.S. watersheds are affected by mining pollution. There are more than 25 mines, some of them active, on the U.S. Superfund list.

Of all the environmental hazards that gold mining presents, the mining industry and environmentalists agree that acid mine drainage (AMD) is by far the most serious. AMD is a process in which acidic water is produced from the combination of sulfide minerals (such as pyrite, marcasite, and chalcopyrite), water, air, and highly specialized bacteria.
https://foolsgold85.blogspot.com/

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Production of gold has many negative environmental effects

............. Moving that much earth doesn't just require a lot of energy. It can also lead to toxic mine drainage, probably the biggest environmental concern associated with gold-mining. When you dig up rock that's been buried for a long time, air and moisture can set off chemical reactions that produce acids and leach toxic metals. If those substances -- sulfuric acid, arsenic and copper, for example -- run off into lakes, rivers and streams, they will pose serious risks for populations of fish and other aquatic organisms. Mine drainage is a problem for many kinds of operations, but it's especially significant for gold extraction. For one thing, gold is often found in rock that contains a lot of acid-generating sulfides; for another, mining gold produces much more unwanted rock than does mining other minerals.

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Once you start extracting the gold from the ore, new issues arise. Take mercury, for example. The element, which has been linked to a host of negative health effects, is found in many metal and coal deposits. Large-scale gold operations often start processing ore by roasting it, which can shoot a lot of mercury into the atmosphere. (The same thing happens at coal-burning power plants, the source of about half the United States' airborne mercury emissions in 2005.)

New pollution control technologies can greatly reduce the emissions from gold roasters. For example, according to University of Nevada environmental science professor Glenn Miller, scrubbers have helped Nevada cut its mercury emissions from more than 20,000 pounds a year a decade ago to just about 4,000 pounds a year. Meanwhile, there's hope that new treatment processes can also alleviate the serious mercury pollution issues related to small-scale gold-mining in the developing world. According to the EPA, these operations -- which produce about one-fifth of the world's gold -- are currently the planet's No. 1 source of mercury releases to the environment.

Whether or not they roast the ore, big mining operations typically finish off the extraction process by dousing the ore in cyanide. Cyanide is extremely lethal, but as an environmental contaminant it's not as problematic as mercury, since it degrades fairly quickly. (Mercury sticks around forever.) Some of the byproducts of that degradation process, such as nitrates, may contaminate groundwater, but a bigger issue is that the use of cyanide allows mining companies to go after very low-grade ore. That means they end up digging up more earth to produce the same amount of gold, which produces huge amounts of tailings, the material that's left over once the ore has been processed. Gold tailing ponds and piles are chock-full of contaminants such as arsenic, antimony, residual cyanide and mercury, and so must be carefully managed to avoid generating runoff or coming into contact with wildlife. These tailings can stay toxic for centuries, so proper post-closure plans are crucial...........
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?noredirect=on