THE PRICE OF GOLD

Dr Stephen Tuffnell shines a light on the staggering cost that intensive mining practices inflicted upon the natural world

- Dr Stephen Tuffnell

Gold mining is the work of dismantling the landscape. And it came with colossal costs to the environment. "Nothing but flood and fire is so ruthless as the miner," wrote one miner from Yukon's Bonanza Creek in 1898.

Mining birthed a host of industries with a voracious appetite for the earth's natural resources. From city-building and commercial agriculture to logging and hunting, from iron working to steam transportation, gold rush societies deforested their local areas, decimated animal populations, and quite literally turned the earth inside out. But the transition to industrial mining accelerated the pace of that destruction to an unprecedented degree.

DIMINISHING RETURNS 

Ironically, geology determined the environmental toll. Whether via placer mining (in which the rock surrounding the gold has eroded) or lode mining (in which the gold is encased in solid rock), miners and engineers devised novel methods for recovering gold that consumed significant quantities of natural resources.

Most rushers sought placer gold in the form of fine flakes and occasionally nuggets) deposited in streams and riverbeds. Their preferred tools may have been picks, pans and shovels, but they left nothing to chance. They worked hard to regularise the unpredictable environment. Using tonnes of lumber, teams of miners dammed creeks and streams, diverted currents with chutes and sluices, and placed unbearable pressure on local ecosystems. And it was hard work. After just two years at the mines in California, one miner reflected that this country wears a man out very fast.”