Thousands of illegal gold miners come to the abundant rainforest of French Guiana in search of a fortune, leaving a trail of environmental destruction.
I am not sure which was more terrifying – the six-metre anaconda coiled beneath the floorboards of the research station or the Eurocopter pilot’s extreme acrobatics over the dense rainforest. Two days in French Guiana and that was not the half of it.
Rainforest covers 98 percent of its territory and to enter the interior you either fly or take to the endless rivers and waterways that meander through a region of jungle the size of Ireland. From above, this carpet of biodiversity spreads in every direction as far as the eye can see, the canopy a thousand shades of green.
This is a rare commodity in Amazonia – intact rainforest. But then suddenly a great gash of brown appears where the trees have been ripped out. “Look! Look down!”
The pilot banks the helicopter round 180 degrees and swoops down to hover 30 metres (100 feet) above the scarred earth. People are looking anxiously skywards, scuttling about. Others are throwing machinery and pumping equipment into pools of muddy water.
These are the garimpeiros, the illegal miners, here from Brazil in their thousands in search of a fortune. The Guiana tectonic plate stretches from Brazil through French Guiana and into Suriname. It is rich in minerals, especially gold. And it has been a pull for small-time prospectors since the 1850s.
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