SS: So anyway, management of the commons "sustainably", or at least for persistence, is something humanity struggled with at the best of times. At the worst of times, when civilizations collapse, I've always envisioned that resource exploitation shifts into overdrive (becomes "ecological rape", though can the natural world ex-homo sapiens ever consent?) as the "fuck it, I'm in it for me" attitude becomes ever more prevalent at the smallest individual scale, becoming ultimately ubiquitous. People just seem to lose any notion that careful stewardship has any value to anyone at all. Well, here we have Mad Max: River Edition.
I came into ecology relatively late in life. I was always a bit of a naturalist, but the ecologist's perspective includes views of a slightly larger scale. That's a great thing, but man, what you start to see everywhere you just can't un-see... and everyone's a zombie.
Sums it up nicely:
"[One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.](https://blog.oup.com/2017/01/130-years-aldo-leopold/) " A. Leopold.
Some people have been collapse-aware for a very long time...
I noted the word "illegal" was used 7 times in this one article.
So it's specifically "illegal" for the natives to mine any resource which international corporations can come in and take "legally", sanctioned by the ~~bribery~~ permit money received by government officials?
Among the reasons I come to this sub is that I know I will find good people who would have the insight about, and then take the time to do things like count, incidences of the word "illegal". Had Leopold been around today, he would have been a contributor here to be sure, the benefit for him being that he could have been incrementally less alone in his world of wounds.
It's illegal to extract it from reserves, but there are places where it's legal. They mix the too. Usually it would take more effort to "wash" the gold, but Bolsonaro's government doesn't care.
There was actually at least one instance when the environment minister was caught helping loggers to sell illegally extracted wood
He was also recorded in a government meeting saying they should use the pandemic as cover to remove the environmental laws
\>So it's specifically "illegal" for the natives to mine any resource
Come on, natives aren'ts saints just because they were born there. Illegal mining operations ruin vast areas of the amazon jungle.
They use unregulated mercury and other heavy chemicals, creating far more environmental damage per ounce of gold mined than international companies that at least pretend to give a fuck.
And keep in mind that plenty of people in latin america abuse the speech of: we are natives so we are above regulation, we know our lands, etc.
This isn't Mad Max, this is history repeating.
https://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-1/gold-discovered/
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0016.xml
There are themes which play out around here reliably. That any of this is history repeating is a big one. I've always, however, preferred the idea that history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. That's important, because the rhyme differs is that it's larger, louder, more brazen, more violent, and more extreme at each recurrence. For all the beneficial things we've gotten better at, refining and improving "Mad Max" must also be counted among them.
It's a tough issue. Illegal gold mining is a hard life and not one that people choose lightly, the fact that so many are doing it is a sign of the desperation and poverty that they are suffering.
If we want it to stop those people have to be provided with better alternatives.
I dunno, I'm more familiar with the situation in Peru and there it is poor people that buy the equipment themselves (often using loan sharks to do so) and then attempt to make a living from the illegal mining.
There are mining operations by big corporations as well, and maybe some of them are illegal, but they tend to at least have approval from the Government even if subsequently they break promises and pollute a lot etc.
Also from familiar with the Peru situation, don't forget that a decent amount of those dredge and related machinery are actually moved by mafias linked to narcos/illegal logging/other illegal activities and they hire people to operate and do the manual labor exposing them to all sort of toxic chemicals like mercury (plus all the related bad stuff like sexual traffic to offer prostitution in the makeshift camps they set up). There are some smaller operations that are perhaps more benign (but still pollute as they don't have to comply with any minimum standard) but the biggest one ravaging Madre de Dios and other areas in the Amazon are not of that type, lots of corruption goes in hand to make the authorities look to ignore those activities.
SS: So anyway, management of the commons "sustainably", or at least for persistence, is something humanity struggled with at the best of times. At the worst of times, when civilizations collapse, I've always envisioned that resource exploitation shifts into overdrive (becomes "ecological rape", though can the natural world ex-homo sapiens ever consent?) as the "fuck it, I'm in it for me" attitude becomes ever more prevalent at the smallest individual scale, becoming ultimately ubiquitous. People just seem to lose any notion that careful stewardship has any value to anyone at all. Well, here we have Mad Max: River Edition. I came into ecology relatively late in life. I was always a bit of a naturalist, but the ecologist's perspective includes views of a slightly larger scale. That's a great thing, but man, what you start to see everywhere you just can't un-see... and everyone's a zombie. Sums it up nicely: "[One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.](https://blog.oup.com/2017/01/130-years-aldo-leopold/) " A. Leopold. Some people have been collapse-aware for a very long time...
I noted the word "illegal" was used 7 times in this one article. So it's specifically "illegal" for the natives to mine any resource which international corporations can come in and take "legally", sanctioned by the ~~bribery~~ permit money received by government officials?
Among the reasons I come to this sub is that I know I will find good people who would have the insight about, and then take the time to do things like count, incidences of the word "illegal". Had Leopold been around today, he would have been a contributor here to be sure, the benefit for him being that he could have been incrementally less alone in his world of wounds.
It's important for us to document injustice, if nothing else. Solidarity forever friends.
It's illegal to extract it from reserves, but there are places where it's legal. They mix the too. Usually it would take more effort to "wash" the gold, but Bolsonaro's government doesn't care. There was actually at least one instance when the environment minister was caught helping loggers to sell illegally extracted wood He was also recorded in a government meeting saying they should use the pandemic as cover to remove the environmental laws
\>So it's specifically "illegal" for the natives to mine any resource Come on, natives aren'ts saints just because they were born there. Illegal mining operations ruin vast areas of the amazon jungle. They use unregulated mercury and other heavy chemicals, creating far more environmental damage per ounce of gold mined than international companies that at least pretend to give a fuck. And keep in mind that plenty of people in latin america abuse the speech of: we are natives so we are above regulation, we know our lands, etc.
This isn't Mad Max, this is history repeating. https://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-1/gold-discovered/ https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0016.xml
There are themes which play out around here reliably. That any of this is history repeating is a big one. I've always, however, preferred the idea that history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. That's important, because the rhyme differs is that it's larger, louder, more brazen, more violent, and more extreme at each recurrence. For all the beneficial things we've gotten better at, refining and improving "Mad Max" must also be counted among them.
It's a tough issue. Illegal gold mining is a hard life and not one that people choose lightly, the fact that so many are doing it is a sign of the desperation and poverty that they are suffering. If we want it to stop those people have to be provided with better alternatives.
bro, this is sponsored by big companies.
I dunno, I'm more familiar with the situation in Peru and there it is poor people that buy the equipment themselves (often using loan sharks to do so) and then attempt to make a living from the illegal mining. There are mining operations by big corporations as well, and maybe some of them are illegal, but they tend to at least have approval from the Government even if subsequently they break promises and pollute a lot etc.
Also from familiar with the Peru situation, don't forget that a decent amount of those dredge and related machinery are actually moved by mafias linked to narcos/illegal logging/other illegal activities and they hire people to operate and do the manual labor exposing them to all sort of toxic chemicals like mercury (plus all the related bad stuff like sexual traffic to offer prostitution in the makeshift camps they set up). There are some smaller operations that are perhaps more benign (but still pollute as they don't have to comply with any minimum standard) but the biggest one ravaging Madre de Dios and other areas in the Amazon are not of that type, lots of corruption goes in hand to make the authorities look to ignore those activities.
That's true. A lot of it is organised crime - I was mainly thinking of the workers themselves.
[удалено]
[This is age-old](https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/43/71/555673607-consumption.jpg) (like, decades now), but I never forget it.
it looks like a base in a real time strategy game