A collective of six associations announces that they are taking the French state to court for “culpable failure to protect the health of its citizens and its ecosystems”. He calls for a “drastic” strengthening of measures to combat illegal gold mining.
Associations launch legal action against the State “to denounce its failures in the fight against illegal gold panning” in Guyana and in terms of “protection of human rights and nature”announced in a press release Monday October 16 this collective composed of the Association of Victims of Mercury-Haut-Maroni, the Wild Legal program, the Coordination of Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations of Guyana (Copag), the Indigenous Youth of Guyana (JAG ), the Maiouri Nature Guyane and Solidarité Guyane associations.
This collective denounces “the unbridled development of gold panning” (gold mining) in Guyana and the “uncontrolled proliferation of clandestine sites”. In January 2023, these associations identified “500 throughout Guyana, and no less than 114 within the Amazonian park in Guyana alone”. However, gold panning has harmful consequences on the environment. “More than 7,000 tons of mud are dumped every day into the waterways” of the territory and “more than 13 tons of mercury per year”they warn in this press release.
Mercury “still poisons the lives of Native Americans”
Mercury used for gold mining pollutes river waters and it is also considered by the World Health Organization “as one of ten chemicals or groups of chemicals of very high public health concern”. Jean-Pierre Havard, president of the Solidarité Guyane association, lists the possible consequences: “Visual and hearing disorders, convulsions, mental disorders and learning delay in children born to contaminated mothers”.
Since 2006, France has banned mercury for gold panning in Guyana “but it still poisons the lives of Native Americans” particularly on Haut-Maroni. Analyzes carried out in 2023 “confirm the persistence of intolerable rates”. This is why these associations attack the French state “which has not put in place a lasting solution to guarantee the right to health and food security of these populations whose livelihood traditionally depends on nature”.
The collective emphasizes that “this appeal is unprecedented” so that the State “put an end to his culpable deficiency” For “protecting the health of its citizens, but also of its ecosystems”. The applicant associations claim “drastic reinforcement” measures to combat illegal gold panning.
“It is not tolerable that the actions of the State are content to simply document the damage over thirty years again and again, without putting an end to it.”
The collective of associationsin a press release
The applicants “are based on judicial precedents”. They recall that in 2012, the Court of Cassation “had recognized for the first time the existence of ecological damage caused by Total to the Breton coast”, after the sinking of the tanker Erika. Another example, “pollution of the river Turag in Bangladesh led the judge in 2018 to recognize that it is the duty of the state to protect and defend the specific rights of all the country’s rivers.