AA/Dakar/Alioune Ndiaye
Once upon a time there was Falémé; a source of life for the populations living on its shores. Agriculture, fishing and other activities, not to mention the supply of water for domestic use that the proximity to the river allowed, are in the process of collapsing, heading straight for annihilation.
Most important tributary of the Senegal River with a contribution of 25% (data from the organization for the development of the Senegal River -Omvs), the Falémé which serves as a natural border between Senegal and Mali is today the victim of multiple aggressions which make fear its pure and simple disappearance; and by extension the collapse of significant sections of the socio-economic sectors of which it was at the origin.
“There is extreme urgency because the river is in a state of almost clinical death; it is worrying, ”warned the former high commissioner of the Omvs, Ahmed Diane Semega, during a field visit in 2019.
This situation is caused by the effects of gold panning, which has become the main activity in the Kédougou area and all around the river. “When I discovered that there was gold in our field, I mobilized the whole family so that we now work on gold panning”, says Sémou Koulibaly, whose rural perimeter has now become a dioura (artisanal gold panning site).
Once considered a complementary activity during the dry season, gold panning has experienced a boom in recent years with the arrival of exploration companies as well as the soaring price of gold.
– Renewed interest in the precious metal
It is now enough for veins to be discovered on a rock for the place to become an artisanal site that the gold enthusiasts are quick to invest. According to a count established by the local populations, there would be nearly 600 diouras throughout the Falémé.
“In the past, we just used calabashes and basins to wash the alluvium and recover the gold, but today the extraction of the ore is done by digging wells often extended by galleries”, adds the former farmer.
Like him, many inhabitants of the eastern region of Kédougou (694 km from Dakar) have turned into gold panners either thanks to the discovery of gold in their fields or to have more substantial income.
According to a report of the monographic study on gold panning in Senegal, published in 2018 by the National Agency for Statistics and Demography (ANSD), a gold panger earns 21 times more than a farmer. “The income of artisanal gold miners is on average 3,198,546 FCFA/year (5,414 USD/year) while a farmer earns on average 150,000 FCFA/year (253 USD/year)”, noted the publication of the agency.
The value of gold production from gold panning activity in Senegal amounted to 86.6 billion FCFA (regarding 147,220 million USD) between April 2016 and April 2017, according to the same report.
– Waters strangled by gold panning
This activity, which requires large quantities of water, makes Falémé a point of treatment for auriferous rocks, but at the same time a place of search for the precious metal by operators using semi-mechanized tools.
“The situation of the river has become a very serious problem. Moreover the course of the river is occupied by gold diggers who have made the water completely polluted. There is dredging practiced by locals but also by Malians and other Burkinabè. Worse still, there are the Chinese settled in the area who contribute more to the deterioration of Falémé,” said Kama Dansokho, a young resident of Kolia, a locality of Kedougou.
“The washing and concentrating of the gold involves the use of an inclined table to facilitate the flow of water and light particles,” Dansokho explains, indicating that all this will end up in the river. “The river allowed our parents to do market gardening and fishing and unfortunately these activities are weighed down because of pollution,” he laments.
“There are also manufacturers, such as Afrigold located in the town of Kolia, who participate in the phenomenon. They draw water for the treatment of minerals and reject it by reverse circuits, thus causing the river to ingest waste and products of all kinds”, continues the young man who is very committed to the fight once morest pollution in the Falémé.
This high concentration for an activity that drains hundreds of thousands of locals and other workers from the sub-region thus chokes the river.
“It is the Chinese who do the most pernicious actions on the river because they even cut the river for their dredging operations. When they end up somewhere, they migrate elsewhere without even deigning to clear the sand barriers that they have installed”, says Alioune Bakhoum, member of the NGO La lumière, one of the three entities involved in the International Citizen Observatory of the Falémé River (OCIF/ Falémé).
“When they flirt, it sucks and it digs a trench. Wastewater returns to the river and contributes to the deterioration of water quality. There are also fuel and oil leaks on the dredgers. It is all these elements as well as the large quantity of earth dumped in the bed of the river which are at the origin of this ecological scandal”, regrets Bakhoum.
– SOS for Falémé
“Bold measures by the Malian and Senegalese governments must be taken urgently to ban these extremely serious operations,” he told Anadolu Agency.
Ocif/Falémé, whose two other components (Asfa 21 and Sauvons la Falémé) come from Guinea Conakry and Mali, was launched in March 2020 in Kéniaba, Mali. “The deterioration in the quality of the waters of the Falémé, making its use tendentious because of its pollution and the growing insecurity because of the overpopulation linked to mining, motivated its establishment”, he continues.
“Today, we are on a three-year plan to be rolled out for an amount of 3 billion CFA francs (4.9 million USD)”, notes Bakhoum, assuring the need for a synergy of actions to contribute effectively to the survival of the river. .
“It is mandatory in order to save Falémé from a slow but certain death if nothing is done,” he warns.
– A new direction for the sub-sector
At the Senegalese Ministry of Mines and Geology, a new entity was set up in May 2021 to precisely regulate artisanal gold panning. This is the directorate of artisanal and small-scale mining (Demape). “In December, management launched the artisanal and small-scale mining mentoring program to better address aspects of environmental degradation and water pollution,” Abu Sow told Anadolu. head of Demape.
It is planned to set up a processing center for minerals from artisanal mining in the locality of Kharakheina. A center on an area of 10 hectares where we will have 400 processing units”, he explained, assuring that the objective is to drain all the ores from the ASM to a single place for processing.
“This will make it possible to monitor the processing without the use of chemicals but also to have an estimate of the quantity of gold resulting from these ores”, he argued.
Returning to the mechanisms to be put in place to interrupt the chain of contamination of the Falémé, Sow is of the opinion that only a synergy of actions should prevail in the sense that the artisanal gold panning sub-sector is transversal. “It affects several areas including that of mines but also the environment, health and safety,” he insisted.
“From year to year, the river will deteriorate and it is no exaggeration to say that it may disappear one day,” he warned.
– Mercury, an aggravating factor
“The wells in a diura are often a few tens of centimeters apart (…) The pieces of auriferous rock are collected in bags. The rocks are then crushed manually with a pestle or by people equipped with engines. It is with water that we work the powder obtained to isolate the gold”, explains, moreover, Sémou Koulibaly, returning to the process also involving the use of mercury.
The amount of mercury used in ASM (small-scale artisanal mining) in Senegal is 5.2 tons according to estimates made as part of a national action plan project carried out in 2018 to reduce the use of mercury in the activity.
“This estimate corresponds to the two main gold regions, namely the Kédougou and Tambacounda regions. The Kédougou region uses 3.9 t/year”, noted the inventory carried out with the support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Council of the ‘Gold Craft.
According to this inventory, the Kédougou region produces 2.9 tons of the total gold production on the national territory, estimated at 3.9 tons. Tambacounda another gold region makes just the remaining 968.6 kg.
“The sediments at the main gold mining sites have very high mercury levels with, for example, a maximum value of 9.9 mg/Kg,” says Birane Niane, author of work on the impacts of gold mining in Kédougou. A value which, according to him, exceeds the maximum thresholds recommended for fresh water.
“The concentrations of total dissolved mercury and methyl-mercury measured in the water confirm mercury contamination and active methylation in the aquatic ecosystem”, he notes once more.
Paradoxically to this, Senegal has subscribed to the Minamata Convention which prohibits the use of mercury in mining activity. “Senegal has a mercury eradication plan in the artisanal mining sub-sector, but the observation is that the use of these products is increasing,” admits the head of Demape.
However, he mentions the ”dioura vert” initiative as an alternative that his management is currently testing on a site in Bantako for mercury-free treatment. “We intend to deploy this mechanism to be able to support gold panners in abandoning mercury,” he says.
The Falémé is thus facing so many attacks that nothing seems to slow down for the moment. Will she survive this impending ecological disaster that awaits her? Only significant and concerted measures at the level of the countries concerned will be able to reverse the trend. Otherwise, the 414 km river will irreversibly dry up causing immeasurable consequences for the Senegal River (1750 km), the 2nd longest in West Africa following the Niger.
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