In the heart of the Amazon forest, on the Oyapock River, in the village of Camopi, bordering Brazil, Emmanuel Macron came to encourage the fight against illegal gold panning in Guyana.
A few striking figures summarize the scale of the problem, which is crucial for the department.
Each year, seven tonnes of gold per year are thus extracted, on 400 hidden sites, by some 8,000 garimpeiros, these clandestine miners - "90% Brazilian" according to a gendarme - who operate on the Atlantic coast or in the primary forest .
Against a ton of gold annually for legal producers.
That is, with the price of a gram of gold increasing from 30 euros in 2019 to 60 euros today, a loss of around half a billion for Guyana.
Operation Harpie, bringing together several hundred Legion soldiers and gendarmes, launched in 2008 against this trafficking, nevertheless dismantled almost half of the clandestine sites.
A dangerous struggle: a year ago, GIGN major Arnaud Blanc was shot dead in the jungle by garimpeiros.
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