THE Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) has indicated its willingness to actively support diversification of small- and medium-scale mining activities into rare earth minerals, such as platinum and colombite tantalite, in addition to the traditional gold and diamond mining.Board Chairman Clinton Williams recently said the GGMC is pursuing plans to encourage miners to not only focus on gold and diamonds, but to try to find and extract other equally valuable minerals, which are undoubtedly part of their properties.

He mentioned platinum for example, and said: “The Board intends to ramp up the policy options on what other minerals we need to pursue, because non-renewable resources like gold and diamond will not be there forever.”

He said that too many miners walk away from lands mined out of gold and diamonds without appreciating the latent potential of other undiscovered minerals left behind.

The Board will very soon present to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNR&E) a short- to medium-term strategic plan for the sector, which will be focusing on this diversification initiative.

(Clifford Stanley)