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Illegal gold mining on Colombia's rivers on the rise: UN

27 Jul 2021 28 Jul 2021

The illegal mining of gold from Colombia’s rivers and waterways is on the rise, according to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published on Tuesday.

More than 52,000 hectares of nature reserves — an area similar to the size of Madrid — was affected by illegal alluvial gold extraction in 2020, the UN said.

In total, more than 100,000 hectares — 69 percent of which is illegal — of one of the most biodiverse countries in the world show “evidence” of alluvial gold exploitation, the UN report said.

It’s a process of extracting gold from the sediment at the bottom of rivers and other waterways, and results in the waters being contaminated by mercury and other toxic substances.

It is “a worrying situation because it has ties to organized crime,” said Pierre Lapaque, the Colombia representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime representative, as he presented the report in Bogota.

The study shows that alluvial gold exploitation increased slightly from 2019 when there were 98,000 hectares affected, 66 percent of which was done illegally.

Organized crime is behind this increase, the UN said, adding that it was mostly affecting the northern, northwestern and western regions.

Those regions are blighted by violence raging between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers battling for control of the lucrative drug and mineral extraction trades.

“These illegal organizations are a threat to biodiversity and create violence and poverty,” said the US ambassador in Colombia, Philip Goldberg.

The report did not say how much gold has been extracted illegally, nor its commercial value.

Colombian authorities say the total gold production in the country increased from 37.5 tons in 2019 to 47.8 tons the next year, when prices reached historic highs.

In more than half of the areas affected by gold extraction there are also coca leaf crops — the main ingredient in cocaine — the report said.

Colombia is the largest cocaine exporter in the world, much of it destined for the US.

Firefighters battle California blaze generating its own weather

27 Jul 2021 28 Jul 2021

Thousands of US firefighters are battling a blaze in California that has grown so big it is generating its own weather system, with authorities warning on Monday conditions could worsen.

The flames have grown large enough to create clouds that can cause lightning and high winds, which in turn fan the fire, according to experts.

Around 5,400 firefighters have been struggling to contain the inferno, which was just 22 percent contained late Monday, the California fire and forestries department reported.

“If these clouds get tall enough they do have the potential to produce lightning,” warned Julia Ruthford, a government meteorologist assigned to the blaze.

The Dixie Fire has been raging in the forests of northern California since mid-July, part of a climate crisis that has brought sweltering heat and an alarming drought. Over the weekend it merged with another fire, prompting new evacuation orders.

Jon Cappleman, who lives in a rural area near the town of Twain, told AFP that Dixie is “the largest fire I’ve seen in my life,” but that he does not plan to evacuate and is prepared to fight the blaze himself if it reaches his property.

Cappleman has been siphoning water from a nearby creek to keep the soil near his house damp, and says he, his wife and their goats keep surrounding areas clear of brush.

“A lot of people think we’re foolish,” Cappleman said of his family’s decision to stay.

But “you don’t leave the safety of your family in the hands of strangers.”

– Incendiary summer –

Wildfires are common in the state but this summer has been particularly incendiary.

Fires have already ravaged three times more vegetation this year than they had at this time in 2020, the worst fire year in California’s history.

Rescue workers have been dispatched from as far away as Florida to help contain the Dixie Fire and its pyrocumulus clouds.

Despite its size — the fire’s circumference stretches at least 82 miles and it has burned 197,487 acres — it has so far ravaged remote areas, destroying the few dozen homes and small buildings in its path.

– ‘It’s been hard’ –

Moving along steep slopes, the firefighters sometimes ride a train from which they can spray water on otherwise inaccessible areas.

But in these weather conditions, “the embers can really easily travel a mile ahead of the fire,” Rick Carhart, a spokesman for the firefighters, told AFP.

This means places such as the village of Quincy, where evacuees are being housed, are also under threat, he added.

Carhart said that at times firefighters have been forced to carry their tools and hike through the rugged terrain.

“It has been burning in extremely steep canyons, some places where it is almost impossible for human beings to set foot on the ground to get in there,” he told a local CBS affiliate. “It’s going to be a long haul.”

“It’s been hard watching it relentlessly moving through our forested lands,” Peggy Moak, resident of a nearby village, told AFP.

The infernos in California and neighboring Oregon have come unusually early in the fire season, driven by the multi-year drought, gusty winds, and a scorching start to the summer that experts have linked to climate change.

In a golf course with yellowed grass, or a nearly dry lake, the signs of the drought that assists the flames are visible everywhere.

A preliminary investigation said the Dixie Fire broke out after a tree fell on one of the thousands of power lines that dot the state’s landscape.

The power line was owned by Pacific Gas & Company (PG&E), a private operator previously found guilty of causing a fire in 2018 that nearly wiped out the nearby town of Paradise and killed 86 people.