A good watch

[MattW3344]

 

[Colin_T]

Disappointing about the Chinese doing illegal gold mining in the swamps and lakes where the rainbowfish live. My guess is there will be lots of rainbowfish becoming extinct in New Guinea and West Papua in the very near future due to illegal mining activity in the area.

Gary has a couple of deformed and sick fish, hopefully he sorts them out.

 

[GaryE]

Some of the rivers we saw in Gabon were a mess from gold miners.

 

[Naughts]

Some of the rivers we saw in Gabon were a mess from gold miners.

BBC2 series "Equator from The Air" with Gordon Buchanan shows these issues.

 

[Back in the fold]

One issue back in Tropical Fish Hobbyist was an article about collecting in one of the tributaries of the Amazon River and the author had a picture of a barge that goes up and down the river mining gold . He says they really make a mess of things and that they also have little speedboats full of guys with machine guns patrolling around to run off rivals and anybody that might squeal on them . What a greedy crummy world we live in .

 

[GaryE]

I didn't see the actual mines in Gabon, but you would pass beautiful clear streams, and then a few km down the road, cross a bridge over water that was absolutely golden, with heavy sediment and no clarity. There were fish, but not many.
I found the gold colour ironic.
It's very easy to blame Chinese business, but Canadian, European and American outfits - really businesses that belong to no nation - are right in there with them.

At one point, we found a meandering stream that was shallow enough to walk across in hip waders. We were getting our gear out when some older men and women arrived, and told us there were no fish anymore. There was a palm oil plantation up the road, and the river was full of pesticides from it. The stream had been the village's water supply, and they had to walk a distance to safe water. They wouldn't even do laundry in it.

If you guys could see it - it looked like a perfect savannah stream.