Sign this petition !

Sign this petition against the project Montagne d’Or !

Hi everyone ! Some of you may happen to be compulsive petition-signers. In this case, great, I have something for you ! Otherwise, I hope I will be convincing...

You may have heard about the project Montagne d’Or. 

Basically, this project is about the construction of a gold mine in French Guyane. 

According to the two mining companies responsible for the project, Nordgold and Colombus Gold, 85 tons of gold would be extracted. It is supposed to boost Guyane’s economy, by creating 750 direct employments, or by the way of taxes ; and this project would create an benefit of 56 million euros for Guyane’s region. Plus, it would prevent from illegal gold panning, which is common in the region.

Sounds great, doesn’t it ?

It does, if we pass over the following facts :

1. The ore is located between two protected natural areas, and it would involve the destruction of more than 1500 hectares of forest, a third of which is primary forest. It would endanger the biodiversity of the forest, as more than 2000 species (both animal and vegetal) have been sorted on the site, among which 127 are protected.

2. Digging this two-and-half-kilometre-long and two-hundred-meter-deep site would require several hundred thousand tons of explosives and cyanure, plus 195 million litres of fuel. The risks of an environmental disaster are thus very important : it has happened many times in the past, for example in 2000, in Baia River mine, which is considered as the worst environmental disaster in Europe after Tchernobyl.

3. This project is aBSoLutELy not sustainable, and the potential benefits compared to the public funds invested in it are ridiculous. After only 12 years of exploitation, the mine would close down definitely. 54 million tons of ore will have been extracted, which would give in the end... 85 tons of gold. Not much. As I said earlier, this project would create 56 million euros for the region : in fact, this is just enough to build a high school. Definitely not much.

And how much would it cost ? Around 420 million euros of public funds, that could as well be invested in sustainable economic activities, such as tourism, fishing, agriculture...

Plus, it would do nothing against illegal gold panning. 

4. According to a poll conducted in 2017 by IFOP, 3/4 of Guyane population doesn’t agree with this project, because it represents an important risk for their environment. Digging that mine would go against the people’s voice,

Montagne d’Or is a project that is very harmful for the environment as well as for the sustainable development of Guyane, and the economical consequences would only benefit the two companies responsible for it.

And we must not forget that gold is mostly used for jewellery and finance, and isn’t a metal highly needed for new technologies. 

I thus invite you to sign the petition against that project on WWF’s website by clicking on the link down below, on which you will probably find better explanations than mine (the website is in fReNcH, sOrRY for such a blasphemy...).
Don’t forget to spread the word around you ! Your friends, family, teachers will be most welcome to support this cause.

Stop Montagne d’Or : the link

Bye,
Jabrielle