For decades, tens of thousands of local miners called “galamseys” — a word derived from the English phrase “gather them and sell” — have scraped a living toiling in shallow pits and tunnels, often illegally on land belonging to big mining companies such as Newmont, Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti.
But the soaring gold price, which has doubled to $1,650 in four years, has attracted Chinese workers and heavy equipment to the sector, drastically changing the scale and nature of operations. In 2011, 30 percent of the country’s 3.6 million ounces of gold production came from small-scale mines, up from less than 25 percent in 2010, according to Toni Aubynn, chief executive of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, an industry association. Production is expected to increase further, and with it the involvement of small-scale miners.
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