Part 6: The hardships of fighting illegal gold mining

(Baonghean.vn) Going with Working Group No. 1 (Provincial Environmental Police) to inspect illegal mineral activities in Tuong Duong district, we went to Yen Na, Yen Hoa, and Yen Tinh communes, witnessing with our own eyes the "stream cutting" technology of individuals and organizations illegally mining gold.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Minh Tien, Head of Working Group No. 1, Deputy Head of PC49 (CSMT Department - Nghe An Police) said: In addition to individuals or small groups of people who openly dig for gold illegally, most businesses violate in a "secret" way. These businesses have mineral operating licenses but during the production and exploitation process, there are signs of violations such as: continuing to mine when the license has expired; or only having an exploration license but still mining; mining outside the licensed area, and causing environmental pollution in the mining area.

Environmental Police Working Group (Nghe An Police) inspects gold mining sites.

Leaving Canh Toong village, we continued to Na Cang and Cha Lum villages in Yen Tinh commune. This is also a hot spot for bandit gold mining in Yen Tinh commune in particular and Tuong Duong district in general. Because in addition to being surrounded by rugged mountains and forests, with difficult roads, many rumors of picking up gold here have attracted many people to seek their luck, even gold diggers from Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa... These people use all kinds of tools from crowbars, hoes, shovels, to engines to pump out gold, digging a big hole every few meters, causing small streams to be chopped up and mountain slopes to be torn up.

In addition to checking and chasing in Yen Tinh, during the working process, the delegation inspected the inner communes: Yen Hoa, Yen Na, Yen Thang... and the communes located near National Highway 7 such as: Tam Quang, Tam Dinh, Tam Thai, Thach Giam, Xa Luong. In summary of the sweep, Working Group No. 1 chased and cleared many mining sites along the streams, destroyed 7 water pumps, 12 camps used to serve illegal gold mining; fined 140 million VND for 2 illegal mining units, 20 million VND for 1 mining unit that violated technical procedures, causing environmental pollution.

The results achieved by the Special Task Force have shown that the drastic measures to dismantle machinery and impose heavy penalties have caused illegal gold mining activities to subside. However, to restore order and prevent the above situation from recurring is not simple.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Minh Tien also added: The biggest difficulty in carrying out this work is the limited awareness of the importance of protecting precious natural resources by organizations and individuals. Many people believe that gold under streams and creeks is natural, and for generations they have had the habit of digging for it during their free time, so they continue to do so. Meanwhile, mining units only care about immediate economic benefits and do not pay attention to environmental protection, and if they do, it is not adequate, only a coping measure.

The illegal mining situation is happening, the reason is that the cases are not handled thoroughly, many cases are discovered by inspection but only to the extent of making a record, and the means are returned, so that people can continue to mine. This causes illegal gold mining to flare up again when the inspection team withdraws. According to Decision No. 2636/ dated July 8, 2011 of the Provincial People's Committee on the establishment of inspection teams to handle illegal mineral activities in the whole province, the inspection and expulsion team only operates for a period of one month (from July 26 to August 26). On the other hand, the specialized environmental police force is still thin, and the equipment is not enough to be able to fight for a long time.

Faced with the above situation, the Party Committee and the authorities of Tuong Duong and Que Phong districts need to have better coordination with the functional departments to eliminate illegal gold mining. Mobilize and propagate to the people, especially need to create jobs for people during the off-season so that they no longer depend on "going to gold" when the farming season ends.

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