Gold digger
The day that we got hounded by wasps seemed like one of those days that could only get better, but we were quite mistaken.
Things took a turn for the serious when our director gathered us that evening to tell us about a potential safety situation that had developed along our river. Recently, the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment had announced that they intended to remove mining from 80% of the entire department of Madre de Dios. About 60% of this department consists of protected areas and reserves, so this would be a boon to the wildlife in the area. Gold mining can have some pretty serious effects on the environment and the miners, a little known fact, it appears, amongst those who buy it.
On a simple level, where gold mining exists, the evils of poaching and deforestation will soon follow. The miners must survive and they either have to hunt choose to do so in lieu of bringing in food from the nearest markets, which can be hours away. However, the real disadvantage lies not just in the presence of the miners, but in the specific technique they use to get the gold out of the land. First, large amounts of riverbed and shore are dug up and poured onto a rough blanket on a belt. Larger mining operations will use bulldozers to do so while the single family digs by hand. Then, river water is pumped up and the sediment is washed down the blanket. The sediment with the gold precipitates in the blanket and is then recovered. Then, mercury is added to the mixture where it binds to the gold and can be burned off to reveal the gold in pure form. This is then transferred through several hands before it reaches a hungry market, desperate to keep aesthetic and economic traditions alive, and completely ignorant of how this precious metal reaches them.
Mercury has been shown to have negative effects on health and reproductive abilities of several species, including our own. When burnt, it gets released into the air and precipitates about 10m around the site of the burning. Therefore, it gets in the water and back in the earth and also remains on those who handle it. Birth defects in mining areas are common. However, mercury poisoning at this rate is a slow process and can be tied to the development of cancers or other illnesses later in life. It is almost a curse that it does not have any immediate and obvious effects because doctors have had a hard time convincing miners of the reality of this danger.
My home is a large part of this problem. For centuries gold has been essential to the Indian way of life. It serves as a security for an often-uncertain future. It plays an integral part in ceremonies and is a symbol of status as well as economic stability. Gold is how people store their money, and it is passed down from generation to generation in the form of jewellery and other ornamentation. It has played an important part in Indian architecture as well, although today, not too many temples are gold-plated.
In a nutshell, just in India alone, with a sixth of the world’s population, there is a huge and rising demand for the metal that only grows more invaluable with time.
Never have I had this fact affect my life so starkly as at that moment at the dining table in the middle of the jungle. The director explained how the research coming out of our field site was believed by the miners to be the source of the information for the Ministry of the Environment and was instrumental in creating this threat. While CICRA research focuses on many things, including the extent of mercury in our surroundings and its effect on wildlife, such research was definitely not the reason for the announcement, which seems likely to be political and not directly scientific. However, people will believe what they will, since belief need not depend on reason.
Several of us at the table were worried. We asked a lot of questions and were informed of some interesting facts. First, we were being given the option to leave and go to Puerto Maldonado, the very site of the proposed strike. If not, we’d have to stay away from the field site, in case any miners passing by us on their way to Puerto Maldonado decided to pay us a visit.
We were unsure as to how angry they would be, or whether the rumours of ACCA’s implication in all of this were really true. However, steps had to be taken and so, we were being given the option to leave.
Gideon and I glanced at each other across the table. It didn’t strike me as a particularly good idea to go to Puerto. We were finally seeing some action at the traps and we felt like we’d be better off staying. So, we asked if we could and were told that indeed we could, if we’d be willing to keep in touch and head out to a predestined meeting point if it should become necessary.
Talk that night was tinged with anxiety. I watched the various people at the station, with their varying backgrounds and nationalities, weigh in on the issue of leaving. We found out later that Gid and my decision helped lend credibility to the idea of staying and so, many others decided to stay as well. Some did want to leave though, and even tried to book tickets out of Puerto with varying levels of success.
We spent long hours whispering about all the possibilities that night. Mostly, we were just worried that all our work over the last few months was to amount to nothing. With troubled minds, we finally fell asleep.
The next morning brought one more round of baiting of our traps in the jungle and by 7am we were back at camp for a late breakfast. Talk at the table was about as interesting a conversation as you could possibly want to have.
“I think we should have a plan”, declared Gideon. “If we are to stay here, I don’t want to get surprised by the miners entering camp from a route we haven’t counted on”
“I’m with you!” said Iona, who is in Forestry School and has a fascination for jaguars, “They could easily enter camp from trail 19, it comes directly up from the mining camp downstream. We wouldn’t even know until they were already here!”
Entering into the spirit of things I suggested that we figure out some system of being alerted as to the presence of a stranger at camp.
“Trip wires!”
“Look outs!”
“Night watches!”
The ideas flew fast and hard and the adrenaline in the air was almost palpable. This was not going to be one group of people easily surprised. We continued to talk late into the morning about ways in which to hide our valuables – field equipment and electronics being the top priority.
“I don’t care what they do to my clothes” said one researcher, “I’ve got to get my lab packed first!”
Reluctantly abandoning the idea of a morning hike we decided to buckle down to the daunting task of getting all our equipment ready for a possibly 3-4 day forest stay.
Of course, in ten minutes we were surprised by none other than the first saddle back tamarins we would see actually enter the traps and eat the bananas. Also, it happened in the trap closest to camp, right outside one of the dormitories. They jumped all over the tree the trap was in, looking for the beautiful custard apple-type fruit it bears, called anona, that remains their favourite reason to visit camp. Finding nothing but the bananas in the trap (we had cleverly removed all the ripe fruit from the tree earlier that morning) they philosophically settled down to chow on them instead.
Needless to say, Gideon and I were ecstatic. I grabbed my camera and taped every moment. Gideon tracked them by GPS. We followed them as they slowly moved around the camp and then finally, as they made a daring dash across camp back to the jungle. There, they encountered a group of highly satisfied titi monkeys, wearing guilty banana-covered smiles on their faces. Encouraged by this sin of faith, they then proceeded to chow down on the remains of the bananas in the second trap.
By this time I was so happy I almost looked like the titi monkeys. With big, goofy smiles, we just watched them eat to their hearts content, noting when each animal entered the trap and whether they stayed in there or just grabbed fruit and fled. To our delight, they didn’t seem to feel threatened by the weird fruiting tree in their territory at all!
After weeks of struggling to attract a group to our traps, this show of faith on the part of the tamarins really blew us away. We were all the more acutely aware of the pending mining strike and our determination to stay safely in the jungle was doubled.
We busied ourselves for the rest of the day testing and setting up full 6-compartment traps at three separate locations. The traps needed to be spray-painted to prevent rusting, the strings attached such that we could stand even 20 feet away and unobtrusively shut the trapdoors when the monkeys entered, and of course, the choicest fruit was picked for our big banana buffet day.
Exhausted but silently excited, we returned to camp, ready to turn in early and be up at the crack of dawn to put out fresh fruit. We hurried in to dinner at seven and began to wolf our meals down.
“Ahem” said Adrian, clearing his throat. “ I have an announcement to make that concerns camp safety”
All thoughts of the strike having fled my mind at witnessing the tamarins enter the traps now flooded back in, a sense of impending doom overpowering my faculties.
Sure enough, the announcement was quite simply an order for evacuation. What’s more, our departure time was set for 6 am the next morning.
6 am!?!
How can we do that? We have 300lbs of stuff in the lab! Where are we going to put it?How is it going to get there at night?
And then, why are we leaving four whole days before the strike?
My disappointment must have been plain to see. Tears stung my eyes and I fought to keep it together in front of the others in the dining room. Failing, I had to remove myself to a different table. Gideon remained and asked the director the questions I should have been there to hear the answers to. I was too upset. I mean, it was just too bad to be told to leave, right before I was convinced we could catch the monkeys!
Who would bait our traps while we were gone? Would we have to start all over again?
The thoughts came tumbling through my mind helter-skelter. I’ll admit that I just gave up. Cursing under my breath I left the comedor and went back to my room. Gideon joined me in a half hour, with not much more information or advice. We tossed around a few ideas but in the end, we knew we’d have to leave.
There was only one thing to do.
Hot chocolate.
We trooped back to the dining hall. There, we met more researchers who were as concerned as us.
Roxana didn’t see the point of going there four days early. We brought the matter up with the director and realized that the field station had a scheduled boat for the next day, which was the principal reason for moving us out so early.
That’s not the only way out of CICRA, however. There’s the river taxi or collectivo, that runs once a day very early in the morning and is comfortable but slow.
After much discussion, we reached a compromise. One more day at the station and then we’d all leave together on the station’s boat.
Triumphant and now, very tired, we turned in for the night, dreaming of miners dressed as tamarins eating oversized bananas in mesh cages.
The next morning was one of subdued excitement. We awoke before dawn and got dressed in the dark. Rushing over to the lab, we got our bait together and sprinted down to the traps. They were fully baited by the time the titi monkeys started duet calling in the morning, which also serves as the alarm clock for the jungle.
It wakes every living thing up.
We staked out a small transect by the traps and began to take turns walking the line. Relying on our ears rather than our eyes in the dusky twilight dawn, we waited tensely for the first signs of the tamarins. By 7:30am, Gideon was yawning broadly so much that I packed him off for a quick nap. We would need to be fully awake for the day if we were to trap the tamarins.
Under the low-lit canopy, the sounds of jungle surrounded me. I stopped to breathe it all in when a sudden jump in the trees made me spin around.
“Monkeys!” I breathed, my mind on high alert.
A few minutes’ searching revealed the culprit, a plump, brown titi monkey, heading to the traps for breakfast, throat parched from all that dueting.
To my right, another rustle occurred. Turning to glance briefly at it I was forced to take a second look – for on my right were four of the staff, carrying large tents on their backs, tramping noisily through the forest.
Someone yelled something from the back of the line and barely missing a step, the guy in the front yelled back, shattering the early morning calm.
I hissed at them to stay quiet, but they just greeted me heartily and walked right past me. The last guy in the group was carrying a hand-held grass cutter.
This was the last straw. I followed them at a trot asking them where they were going.
“Not far,” they replied, just to the large tree up ahead where there is a place for us to store the station’s equipment.
“You don’t mean that large tree?” I gasped, indicating the tree to which my trap was tied.
“Oh yes,” they replied cheerily, “that’s it!”
“Are you going to use the machine?” I asked.
“Lo siento Mini, we have orders to clear the area for the equipment, ” said Marco, laughing at my reaction.
I sprinted back to camp, towards the director’s cabin. Of course, he’d authorized the movement of equipment because we only had one day to hide the important stuff. He apologized profusely for the miscalculation on their part – they had no idea that our trap was nearby. Of course, it was because our monkeys led us to that spot that we discovered it and suggested it as a useful hidden rendezvous point in the jungle. We had no idea they were taking us up on the suggestion!
Ah, these days in field work. They can cut one so deeply but with time they seem so irrelevant. At the moment, however, I was angry like I’d never been before. I wisely removed myself from the presence of all staff lest I prove to be a worse threat to them than the miners. I reported to Gideon who, in his calm way, went to speak with them. They stopped the machine in the jungle but I was convinced that it was too late for the monkeys. I’d seen the titi monkey take flight at the sound, and they are far more imperturbable than the pichicos.
The rest of the morning I spent packing, having firmly shelved the thought of trapping the monkeys if only to protect myself from yet another giant disappointment. Gideon, refreshed from his short nap, took to the trails, monitoring them all morning like the trooper he is. In a few hours, having packed most of our things away, I joined him to keep him company.
We never saw them that day.
By nightfall we were exhausted once more, but this time it was from carrying our large bags to the station’s hideaway. We helped to move the equipment of researchers from past years, the ones who were unfortunately not at the station but who were planning to return in the near future, and the small but hefty collection of reference books that the station owns. We moved water purifiers, weighing scales, Sarah’s collection of caterpillars, Allison’s bug trapping equipment and finally, Renata’s short-eared dog project supplies. It was a lot of moving, let me tell you and my feet ached by the end.
Then, we packed our clothes away into a few small bags and prepared to say goodbye to the station. We felt like rats deserting a sinking ship. I glared at every miner along the boat ride down to Laberinto.
Would we ever see the station the same again? When would we be allowed back? Was all that planning for nothing?
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