The Kachin people, one of dozens of ethnic groups in Myanmar’s resource-rich border areas, have long made a living by farming, harvesting forest products, and mining with hand tools. Subscribe to the E360 Newsletter for weekly updates delivered to your inbox. “To build our village to a habitable and healthy environment like before will be very difficult,” said a villager from Nam San Yang, which has been heavily mined.
Residents and activists describe widespread environmental destruction as a result of the gold rush - polluted water, erosion, deforestation, and a loss of farmland - and say it has created tensions between villagers who oppose the mining and those who are mining or who sold their land to miners. Along with several other people interviewed for this article, the activist and civil society worker requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals from the military. Another civil society worker who researches extractive industries in Kachin estimated that gold mining has increased tenfold since last year’s coup, the result not only of an influx of small-scale miners but also larger operations using mechanized equipment. “Gold mining is suddenly popping up like mushrooms everywhere,” said a local environmental activist in the state capital, Myitkyina. Dredging boats crowd waterways, while on land, excavator trucks dig pits into which gold miners blast water to dislodge the earth. Once-tranquil riverbanks are now cluttered with dredging machines, and the sound of the river’s flow is drowned out by revving engines.
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