“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
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20 de junio de 2016
A Desperate Search for Gold After Brazil's Worst Mining Disaster Ever
After death and job cuts, locals turn to illegal prospecting
Mudslide shut iron pit and exposed remnants of 1700s gold rush
In
the red-dirt hills of Minas Gerais, a part of Brazil named for the
mines that provided livelihoods for generations, the country’s
worst-ever environmental disaster has unearthed a new opportunity for
locals stung by recession and job losses -- panning for gold.
Wildcat
mining is on the rise in communities devastated by the collapse of a
dam that in November unleashed a deadly avalanche of sludge from the
giant Samarco iron-ore mine, killing residents and destroying homes.
Thousands were left jobless amid a deep national recession. But the
landslide also churned up riverbeds enough to expose flecks of precious
metal like those that sparked Brazil’s first gold rush three centuries
ago.
While no one knows how many people are digging illegally to
make ends meet, the number of complaints to the environmental military
police in the city of Mariana jumped about 30 percent since the
disaster, said Sgt. Valdecir Nascimento, a 24-year veteran of the unit.
That tally could grow because Samarco -- owned by BHP Billiton Ltd. and
Vale SA -- has cut 3,000 outsourced jobs in a rural area where
unemployment is already more than twice the statewide rate.
“I
tried getting another job, but that’s hard, so, I pan for gold,”
said Davidson Gomes, 49, as he peeled back rocks and sifted through
sediment with his hands at the bottom of the river running through
downtown Mariana. A father of three, Gomes said he performed odd jobs
before the mudslide.
Dam burst damage in Bento Rodrigues, Brazil on Nov. 6, 2015.
Photographer: Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images
The
Nov. 5 dam collapse unleashed billions of gallons of mining waste that
entombed entire villages in a lush valley checkered with patches of
rust-colored soil and dozens of baroque-style churches erected during
the previous gold boom. The spill left as many as 19 dead and hundreds
more homeless. Many wildcatters are betting that the communities that
lost the most offer the best prospects.
“The mud that slid through
the region did so with a lot of force,” said Hernani Lima, an
engineering professor at a local mining college. “It scooped the river,
digging the bed deeper, leaving gold closer to the surface. The mudslide
did the work the miner’s dredger would do, but with more force.”
Iron Slump
Mining,
illegal or otherwise, is part of the region’s DNA. The alluvial gold
that first attracted fortune hunters here runs through the communities
of Mariana and nearby Ouro Preto, which means Black Gold. In the 18th
Century, these hills produced nearly as much gold as all of Spain’s
colonies did in more than three centuries. Once the hills and rivers
were perceived to have been stripped bare of gold, the fortune hunters
abandoned the region, leaving their gilded churches behind.
Mining rig
Source: Bloomberg
These
days, instead of hunting for gold, mining giants such as Rio de
Janeiro-based Vale scrape the soil for iron ore destined for the steel
furnaces of Brazil’s largest trading partner, China. But Minas Gerais
has fallen on hard times as demand slowed and the price of iron ore
slumped more than 70 percent from its 2011 heyday. Prospects
deteriorated further after the shutdown of Samarco, the area’s primary
economic driver.
“The situation is very serious,” Mariana Mayor
Duarte Junior said. “You have people looking for work, but there isn’t
any to be had. Our unemployment rate has hit 27 percent.”
Gold Rally
For some, the only option is to search for what’s left of the gold.
“When
there’s a crisis and unemployment, the people who have this tradition
of mining in their blood -- who are the grandsons, great-grandsons and
great-great-grandsons of the first miners of this region -- they head
back to the river to work,” said Lima, the engineering professor.
For
those who can afford motorized equipment and a team of capable hands,
gold ventures can still be profitable, especially with the added
incentive that prices are once again on the rise, he said. After three
straight years of decline, bullion is up 21 percent in 2016, touching an
almost two-year high of $1,315.71 an ounce on Thursday.
“Things
are very difficult right now,” said Adriano, a 55-year-old man in
Mariana who declined to provide his last name because, like many others,
he is afraid of being charged by the police. “But I think it’s better
for someone to try to work rather than getting mixed up stealing or with
drugs.”
Some of the officers in Mariana’s military environmental
police unit said they tend to look the other way when it comes to
individual panners like Gomes, preferring to use their limited resources
to stop larger, mechanized operations that pose a bigger environmental
threat.
Some
of the pressure may ease if the iron mine reopens soon, which would put
more people back to work. Before the dam collapse, Samarco was the
world’s second-largest producer of iron-ore pellets, with an annualized
output rate of about 30 million metric tons. The mine wants to restart
by year-end at about 60 percent capacity to help fund a 12 billion-real
($3.5 billion) compensation package over 15 years.They aren’t
alone. Many residents have staged protests in the hope of convincing
authorities to quickly return Samarco’s operating licenses. About 1,200
of the mine’s 3,000 workers, who were kept on the payroll after the dam
collapse, are scheduled to be let go at the end of this month. More than
half of those are from Mariana.
For better or worse, this is a mining town.
“The
source of jobs here is mining,” said Sergio Alvarenga de Moura,
a Samarco union representative. “There aren’t other opportunities.”