分类： environment

On July 27, an indigenous community in Suriname sounded the alarm after a large shipment of equipment suspected to be used for illegal gold mining was delivered to the border between Atjoni and the Matawai people’s traditional territory. The incident has sparked swift pushback from community leaders and environmental advocates, who are demanding an immediate end to the encroachment.

Visual evidence obtained by local media outlet Starnieuws clearly shows heavy machinery, water pumps, barrels of fuel oil, and other specialized gear consistent with small-scale and industrial gold mining operations already staged at a makeshift camp within the territory. Marlon Valentijn, captain of the Matawai community, traveled to the site immediately after receiving reports of the incursion to assess the situation firsthand.

In an interview with Starnieuws, Valentijn stated that camp occupants were given an unambiguous order to leave the area immediately. “We do not want any gold mining activities on our land,” he stated firmly, emphasizing that the Matawai have never consented to extractive operations in their traditional homeland, and the entire community remains united in blocking any attempts to begin mining. During his inspection of the camp, Valentijn encountered two Brazilian men who told him their project supervisor is based in Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital. He confirmed that a substantial volume of equipment has already been moved into the area, and additional excavators are reportedly en route to the site.

Valentijn announced that relevant national authorities have already been notified of the incursion, and the community is taking all available steps to prevent the unauthorized mining operation from expanding. The situation has also been brought to the attention of John Goedschalk, presidential climate advisor for Suriname and a prominent environmental activist. Goedschalk described the new incursion as deeply worrying, and extended his full and unreserved support to the Matawai community in their opposition to the mining.

He rejected outright any attempt to develop gold mining operations in the Matawai territory, stressing that no extractive activity should be forced on a community that has clearly stated it does not welcome such projects. For his part, Captain Valentijn said he chose to speak publicly about the incident to make the Matawai’s position clear to all outside parties: no form of gold extraction will be accepted on their traditional land.

“We want everyone to know that this activity is not permitted on our territory,” Valentijn said, adding that the community will formalize its opposition in official communications with national authorities. He reiterated that all people occupying the camp and all mining equipment must be removed from the area without delay. This latest conflict over unauthorized gold mining comes amid a broader ongoing public debate in Suriname over unregulated extractive activity across the country’s interior, with previous investigative reporting exposing systemic governance gaps and unaddressed environmental damage along key waterways including the Marowijne River.

The strongest typhoon to hit Chinese territory this year, Typhoon Noul, made landfall in southern China over the weekend, bringing destructive gale-force winds and torrential rainfall that have forced mass evacuations and widespread disruptions across Guangdong Province and Hong Kong.

According to China’s National Meteorological Center, the storm moved inland over the coastal region of Huidong County, Huizhou City, Guangdong, on Sunday afternoon. The Hong Kong Observatory confirmed the typhoon carried maximum sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour as it crossed into Guangdong’s interior, where it gradually weakened after landfall. Even as its intensity diminished, Noul still unleashed severe wind gusts and extreme rainfall across large swathes of the region, leaving damage in its wake.

Precautions ahead of the storm led authorities to evacuate more than 715,000 residents across Guangdong by Sunday, state broadcaster China National Radio reported. That figure marked a sharp increase from the 340,000 people evacuated just a day earlier, as the storm’s projected path shifted and threat levels rose. State-run CCTV also documented downed trees across multiple coastal locations in Guangdong, including Huilai County, as strong winds swept the shoreline ahead of landfall.

In Hong Kong, the storm triggered major travel disruptions and safety incidents: Hong Kong International Airport canceled roughly 350 flights on Sunday, while local authorities confirmed at least nine people across the city suffered storm-related injuries. A day earlier, as Noul approached the special administrative region, a section of a large scaffolding structure attached to a high-rise building collapsed amid worsening conditions. Hong Kong Police confirmed no injuries were reported from that incident.

Meteorologists warn that heavy rain and strong winds will continue to impact parts of southern Guangdong and southeastern Fujian Province in the coming days as the remnants of Noul move slowly inland. Fishing boats across the region have already anchored in sheltered harbors, including the Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone, to wait out the storm’s aftermath.

Noul also brushed Taiwan over the weekend: the island’s Central Weather Administration reported the storm passed over waters south of Taiwan on Saturday before continuing west toward mainland China, leaving only scattered rainfall on the island with no major damage reported.

This storm marks the third significant typhoon to impact China in July 2026. Earlier in the month, Typhoon Maysak hit southern China on July 3, followed by Typhoon Bavi, which made landfall in eastern China on July 11 and forced the evacuation of more than two million residents.

Along the Marowijne River, which forms a disputed border between Suriname and French Guiana (an overseas department of France), an unfolding environmental disaster is raising urgent alarms from French authorities, indigenous communities, and scientific bodies. More than five years after Suriname signed a 2021 border agreement for the river, the country has yet to ratify the deal, leaving the river’s hundreds of islands and unclarified border zones as safe havens for criminal networks and unregulated gold prospectors.

On the Surinamese side of the river, illegal gold miners are poisoning ecosystems with mercury and causing irreversible destruction to riverbanks and island habitats, according to on-site inspections and data gathered by French enforcement agencies. During an aerial survey organized by EMOPI – the French Guiana-based mining police unit – the scale of the damage was laid bare: miners use heavy machinery to strip riverbank terrain and rely on mercury to extract gold, leaving behind excavated shorelines, toxic standing water, widespread erosion, and heavily contaminated river water that crosses the unmarked border into French territory.

Sébastien Linares, EMOPI’s project manager based in Cayenne, explained that after Suriname dismantled 30 illegal mining barges (known locally as skalians) in 2022 – the last major crackdown on the activity praised by French authorities – prospectors simply shifted operations to Surinamese riverbanks, inland areas, and unclaimed river islands. By 2023, Linares’s team counted at least 37 active shoreline mining sites and 9 exploited islands, some of which have been in continuous operation since 2019. Today, just two to three small illegal barges remain active opposite the Gran Santi region of French Guiana.

Mercury contamination from the mining has emerged as a major public health time bomb for communities on both sides of the border. French public health officials regularly test hair samples from French Guiana residents to track mercury exposure, and have recorded a 25% increase in contamination levels in the most remote river communities since 2005. The average mercury concentration measured in residents of the Upper Marowijne region currently sits at 12 μg/g – exceeding the World Health Organization’s (WHO) safety threshold of 10 μg/g, and far outstripping the 1.5 μg/g limit French authorities set for children. This discrepancy led French Ambassador Nicolas de Lacoste to summarize the cross-border harm with the quip: “You get the gold, we get the mercury.”

Indigenous Wayana communities in southeastern Suriname are facing even more extreme contamination, documented through their own community-led monitoring program, the Wayana Biocultural Monitoring System. Jupta Itoewaki, an indigenous rights activist working with the program, shared that local tests have recorded mercury levels up to 8,469 times the WHO safety limit, and arsenic levels as high as 4,623 times the accepted standard. Wayana residents are exposed to these toxins daily through contaminated drinking water and food sources, but Itoewaki notes that the Surinamese government has failed to conduct systematic medical monitoring of affected communities, calling the state itself a contributor to the crisis.

Itoewaki added that illegal mining activity has grown visibly across southeastern Suriname along both the Marowijne and Lawa Rivers, with prospectors including Brazilian garimpeiros (artisanal miners), Surinamese nationals, and criminal actors operating from the French side. Supply chains for the illegal operations are largely run by Chinese business owners along the Surinamese riverbank, who operate stores catering exclusively to mining needs. When French authorities conduct raids on illegal sites, miners simply retreat across the unclear border to Suriname to resupply before returning to the region.

France has already enacted strict regulations to limit mining harm on its side of the river: all legal gold mining requires a strict permit that limits operations to a maximum 25-hectare area for just four years, and requires full ecological restoration of mining sites – including returning soil, waterways, and vegetation to their original pre-mining state – before operations can conclude. Mining police maintain continuous inspection authority to enforce these rules. However, French officials say the lack of action from Suriname and the unratified border agreement have rendered cross-border enforcement ineffective, describing current efforts as “mopping with the tap left open.”

Ambassador de Lacoste told reporters that urgent coordinated cross-border action is needed to protect the river’s unique ecosystem and the communities that depend on it. The French Scientific Council for the Amazon Park has also joined the call for immediate intervention, noting that contamination already affects more than 300 populated areas on the French side of the border. Ratification of the 2021 border agreement would not immediately end illegal mining, de Lacoste acknowledged, but it would establish a formal joint governance body – the Maroni River Council – and create the legal framework needed for coordinated enforcement against illegal activity. Once borders are clearly demarcated, authorities can crack down on the criminal networks that use unclaimed islands as bases for operations, he added.

Beyond illegal mercury mining, Itoewaki warns that the Wayana community now faces a new environmental threat: large-scale industrial mining permitted by the Surinamese government that would use cyanide for extraction. The Surinamese government has awarded a 102,000-hectare concession to a Canadian mining company on traditional indigenous territory, a move that is legal under Surinamese law but violates the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ 2015 ruling requiring Suriname to obtain free, prior, and informed consent from indigenous communities for development on their lands. Itoewaki says the community’s traditional leader was only informed after the concession was granted, without translation or input into the decision.

For the Wayana, ratification of the border agreement is a necessary first step to curb cross-border illegal activity, but not a complete solution. Itoewaki argues that a bilateral agreement negotiated without including the Wayana as legitimate territorial authorities repeats the patterns of colonial control that created the current crisis. “We call for ratification of the protocol, but it must also be paired with formal recognition of our land rights,” she said. “Without that, nothing will change for our river.”

French officials also note that cracking down on illegal gold mining would also help address broader cross-border crime, including human trafficking, drug smuggling, and contraband trade that thrives in the ungoverned border zone. France has offered to support Suriname in cutting off the illegal supply lines that sustain mining operations, but says progress cannot happen until the border agreement is ratified.