At the 10th annual conference of the Indigenous Environmental Network, held in Mexico in mid June, activists declared that mining for gold had brought tragedy to indigenous people and the environment worldwide. "Large-scale gold mining violently uproots and destroys the spiritual, cultural, political, social and economic lives of peoples as well as entire ecosystems," said a coalition of more than 100 representatives from various non-governmental organisations. "Commercial gold mining projects are mainly on indigenous lands and most governments continue to representthe interests of mining corporations against people." The coalition came together earlier at a `People's Gold Summit,' held in the foothills of the Sierra mountains in California -- where farmers brought the 1849 gold rush to a halt by successfully suing mining companies to stop them from destroying farm land.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the stampede for gold, the California-based mining watchdog Project Underground released a report called Gold, Greed and Genocide on the impact of mining on the environment and its effect on Native American communities. "Californian India nations were decimated; first by disease that the '49ers brought with them and then by the new Californian state government,'' said the report. During the 1849 gold rush, some 7,600 tons of toxic mercury, used to separate gold from ore, ended up in rivers and lakes, resulting in neurological disorders and deaths among the nearby communities.

``The mercury still contaminates rivers and the San Francisco Bay," said Danny Kennedy,director of Project Underground. Today, indigenous groups around the world--like the Yanomani and Macuxi in the Amazon, or the Igorot people of the Philippines--are similarly endangered because of gold mining activities, said members of the coalition. "We've had many problems in the Amazon with small-scale gold miners in Brazil, known as garimpeiros,'' said Leia Oliveira of the Indigenous Council of the state of Roraima, Brazil.

"They brought disease and violence and many indigenous people have died." Of 500,000 garimpeiros tested in Brazil, more than 30 per cent had mercury levels in their bodies above the World Health Organization's tolerable limits, added Kennedy.

In Venezuela, a joint venture involving the federal government and the Canadian-based company Placer Dome plans to mine for gold in the Imataca forest reserve--home to 10,000 indigenous people, said Yaritza Aray of the Indigenous Federation of Bolivar State. The 200,000 hectare mine, located on the south eastern border with Brazil andGuyana, would run through land inhabited by five indigenous groups: the Pemon, Akawaio, Arawako, Warao and Karillla. "When Placer Dome starts, what will happen to these communities?"

Aray asked. "The social impact will be severe -- as they are with other indigenous groups affected by mining. Prostitution, alcoholism and disease will destroy these cultures." In the United States, the second largest producer of gold in the world, more than 70 per cent of gold is taken from native lands, according to Project Underground. The Western Shoshone indigenous group, located in state of Nevada, are the unhappy host to more than three dozen open-pit gold mines on their land. Community leaders said they continually had been denied land and treaty rights, because the US government allowed mining companies to drill on reservation land. "To dig under the earth to get to that gold, to pump out that water to get to that gold is a crime against humanity, a crime against life upon which people depend on," said Carrie Dann, aWestern Shoshone elder. "Gold mining today is destroying the life for the future generations," she added.

Several coalition members from various islands in Indonesia had similar horror stories of pollution, caused by US-based Newmont Mining Corporation. "I am fisherman and to support my family we depend on the resources from the sea," said Anwar Stirman from the northern sector of Sulawesi. "But because of contamination from Newmont, we find millions of dead fish--and the company never responds to our complaints." A new threat of contamination has arisen as cyanide was quickly becoming the chemical of choice for mining companies to separate gold from crushed ore, said the coalition. "No mine has ever avoided leaking cyanide-laced water and waste into the ecosystem," said Kennedy. Earlier this decade, a spill of billions of gallons of cyanide-laced waste from the Omai mine in Guyana caused the death of thousands of fish and other animals. Only last year in Kyrgystan a major cyanide spill resulted in 80deaths and the evacuations of thousands of people living downstream of a Canadian-owned gold mine, Kennedy said.

More than 85 per cent of gold that is sold around the world today is turned into jewellery. "Gold mining is not an essential industry like the harvesting of food," said Project Underground. "Yet, the cumulative impacts of gold mining is at least as bad as that of industrial forestry and agri-business." The single biggest market for gold was in India, which imported more of the metal than any other country in the world, according to Project Underground. In 1998-1999, gold imports were valued at $7.0 billion, second only to oil at $7.5 billion. Gold remains a major status symbol in India and was an essential part of the traditional dowry offered before any wedding by the family of the bride, said the organisation.

``The jewelry serves no useful purpose," said Kennedy. "It simply lines the pockets of executives and shareholders of companies like Freeport McMoRan, Homestake and Newmont.'