justice urges the state to “extend” the concessions of the controversial Gold Mountain mining project

The government had promised it would stop, but the controversial Montagne d’Or mining project in Guyana has just won support from the local administrative court.

The latter in fact ordered the State to “extend within six months” the concessions of the Montagne d’Or company, while the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had implicitly refused to renew them for 25 years old on January 21, 2019, due to their incompatibility with the government’s ecological agenda. These concessions, covering an area of ​​40 km2, are in fact located in the municipalities of Saint-Laurent du Maroni and Apatou, in the middle of the forest, between two reserves with high biodiversity value.

But, according to the administrative court, this primary gold extraction project – the largest ever carried out in France and supposed to create 750 direct jobs -, “presents enough elements justifying its technical and financial capacities to exploit the concessions” .

The Montagne d’Or company plans to mine and process an 85-tonne gold deposit there over the next few years.