Gold rush tears up a patch of the Amazon

[struggle4progress]

By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press
Last updated: 8:44 p.m., Saturday, February 3, 2007

... Drawn by a Brazilian math teacher's Web site descriptions of miners scooping up thousands of dollars in gold, between 3,000 and 10,000 people have poured in since December, cutting down huge trees, diverting streams and digging ever-deeper wildcat mines, in an area that only months ago was pristine rain forest.

Hundreds of mud-covered men with picks and shovels hack at the earth, marking their tiny plots with tree branches and string. Others feed dirt into wooden troughs and the residue into pans. A lucky few will end up with tiny nuggets and flakes of gold to sell for $530 an ounce in the town of Apui, about 50 miles north ...

Price-gouging (chain saws costing around $400 in gold) is rampant and malaria is spreading in the makeshift city, nicknamed Eldorado do Juma after the Amazon's mythical Eldorado, or city of gold. It already has bars, restaurants, barbershops, bakeries, equipment shops and jewelry stores, most of them constructed out of tree branches and tarps. A 16-room brothel is under construction ...

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=560114&category=&BCCode=&newsdate=2/3/2007

[BlueStorm]

1. All I gotta say is...

:WTF:?

Tearing up valuable and beautiful land in pursuit of gold? Geez, we really are a greedy bunch?

Blue