Ivory Coast to clamp down on illegal gold mining – by Joe Bavier (Reuters India – March 24, 2015)

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(Reuters) – Ivory Coast launched an operation on Monday to shut down hundreds of illegal gold mining sites blamed for violence, unregulated immigration and environmental destruction, the defence and mining ministers said.

The West African nation is recovering from a decade-long political crisis that ended in a brief 2011 civil war, and the government is now seeking to develop the mining sector as part of efforts to diversify the economy.

Informal, unregulated gold mining became rampant during the years of turmoil due to the absence of state authority, particularly in the rebel-occupied north.

Minister of Industry and Mines Jean-Claude Brou said the operations, which will be carried out by gendarmes, will begin by dismantling 148 illegal mining sites identified in Ivory Coast’s northern and central regions. They will be extended to the eastern and western regions later in April.

“Once we’ve cleaned things up, those who want to work will come to the administration and seek authorisation. We’ll give them training,” he told journalists in the commercial capital Abidjan. Brou said that, while laws exist to regulate the informal gold mining sector, there were no such permits currently active.

While many Ivorian gold mining sites are small-scale, poorly organised operations, analysts say a number of large mines are controlled by members of the army and security forces.

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