–GGMC Commissioner

ILLEGAL mining is causing a lot more deforestation than envisaged, Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) Mr. Rickford Vieira has said.He made the comment during a recent presentation on challenges facing the mining sector.
The GGMC Commissioner said that  an additional problem was that the gold acquired through illegal mining was not sold through the normal channels, thereby robbing the country of a main source of revenue.

‘A main focus of the GGMC this year will be on the use of  aerial surveillance,  including satellite imagery to combat the illegal activity’ — Rickford Vieira

He said: “At the moment we don’t have any control. We need to see where  they are, where they are going. When you are on the ground you can’t see those things.”

AERIAL SURVEILLANCE
He said that as a result a main focus of the GGMC  this year will be on  the use of  aerial  surveillance,  including satellite imagery to combat the illegal activity.
An increased resort to remote  sensing via the  Geospatial Information System  will help the  GGMC   to monitor these  activities  in a near real time process .
Officers can then make visits to these “hot spots “ with a greater degree of precision.
Vieira said that the GGMC has received support from the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force  and will continue to rely on these two agencies to  complement the air surveillance  and geo-spatial information  received.
He  disclosed  also that the GGMC will  push for the revision of regulations related to the definition of boundaries of mining  claims.
He said: “At the moment  our laws allow people to locate claims in keeping with what they call a chain and compass survey. With this system the descriptions are so vague that whenever somebody finds gold they move their claims and put it there and so there are a lot of litigations against the GGMC.”
He said that GGMC will move to revise these  regulations  to ensure that people use Global Positioning System (GPS)  coordinates in locating the claims so that the problems related to the traditional way  can be eliminated.

(By Clifford Stanley)