Cali-fornication of Coyote Piss

Ils se souviendra toujours

Ils sont toujours en vie

Ils parleront toujours

Le peuple les entendre pour toujours

WB Yeats

L'obscurité profonde et l'horreur omniprésente du génocide américain des Premières Nations de la Californie pendant la ruée vers l'or du 19 century colours everything. Les réflexions suivantes sur les Fonds Sierra ‘Reconquérir les Sierras’ Conférence en Avril 2015 ne sera pas une tentative d'éduquer sur l'histoire glauque de la Californie. Je ne suis pas qualifié pour le faire. The original people of California where not the only First Nations people to suffer in the name of ‘Coyote Piss’, le descripteur utilisé quand on parle de l'or. Mais pour l'amour de cet article, je vais garder mon attention à la Californie. As an outsider observing the historical trauma that was carried out against the First Nations I simply cannot rehearse it here. What it does re-enforce for me as a jeweller, an activist and anti-poverty campaigner, is the simple fact that gold is not a neutral product and the way it is removed from the ground is never benign.

 

The Yuba gold fields remain an emasculated tundra of toxicity and mine waste. Même maintenant, 150 years after the gold rush, life is struggling to return. The scale of the devastation cannot be put into words – only breathed in like a noxious fume, to be cleansed in the crucible of The Sierra Fund’s good intentions and exhaled as hope for a cleaner future. The Sierra Fund educated guess is that there is 19 à 21 millions de livres de mercure pris derrière les barrages à travers les bassins versants de la Sierra. Bien entendu, les conséquences sont considérables, en particulier sur les stocks de poissons et la santé ultérieure des populations locales qui mangent du poisson. Debout dans les champs Yuba est cependant pas, une certaine forme d'identification historique existentielle avec une histoire moins éclairée.

 

Il est l'éveil de l'héritage toxique jour présent très réel livré au nom de l'or. Les générations à venir en Amazonie, Congo, Mongolia, Ouganda, où la pauvreté et la politique de broyage du lecteur de pain quotidien des petits exploitants miniers pour l'exploitation de gisements d'or marginaux en utilisant du mercure à l'amalgame leurs petites quantités d'or avec leurs mains nues, récoltera le tourbillon toxique étant semé pour les écosystèmes de notre monde. Mercury usage in gold mining continues to be the most disturbing practice I witness in my work with impoverished gold mining communities. It was poignant as I gazed out over the sparse grass lands of Yuba, that the Californian Poppy danced in the light breeze. A reminder that on American fields, like their European counterparts from World War 1’s Somme and Flanders fields, the poppy remains a sign of pathos and hope in the midst of such great tragedy.

 

The challenge the Sierra Fund has set itself is not easy, in fact it is deeply complex, a truly unprecedented challenge in my experience. What started as an idea to restore the ancient salmon runs of the Sierra’s that had been blocked off by the building of dams across the rivers. Why build dams? Pour retenir les grandes quantités de déchets miniers qui ont été déversés dans les cours d'eau et les pâturages et les inondations et les polluants des terres agricoles plus en aval.

 

Cette restauration des montaisons de saumons a conduit à l'assainissement de l'environnement du mercure dans les bassins versants, compte tenu des quantités élevées de mercure qui avaient construit derrière les barrages. Je ne suis pas scientifique, ingénieur hydrologue ou d'un barrage, mais je hasarder une hypothèse que l'élimination du mercure des barrages envasés se révélera un processus impressionnant et complexe en lui-même. Un défi environnemental que les autorités californiennes reconnaissent maintenant comme un exemple de véritable citoyenneté. Il est scandaleux que, compte tenu de la preuve de la toxicité du mercure lessivage encore dans le système fluvial de vieilles mines d'or comme Malakoff Diggins, the authorities have done NOTHING. But I guess this is more reflection on our own societal failings, given we know politicians are impotent to change for the common good. In applauding the Sierra Fund for picking up the eco challenge of mercury remediation, they file themselves away in the archives of political impotency.

 

However the other visceral dynamic at work here is the genocidal history of the First Nations and their raw, traumatic and every present relationship with Coyote Piss. It was the gold that led to their particularly horrific removal from the landscape. How the Sierra Fund square this historical injustice with the clean up of toxicity and restoration of salmon runs is anyone’s guess. Le principe sous-produit de l'assainissement du mercure sera l'or. Fantastique que j'entends les mineurs avides d'or crient, mais une note de prudence. Si l'assainissement conduit à une autre ruée vers l'or de la mine en utilisant l'effet de halo vert à la revendication d'être une société minière d'or écologique, sans avoir recours à l'histoire sanglante et récompense étant accordée aux nations qui ont survécu, ils seront plus profonde humiliation et en ajoutant l'injustice sur les nations qui vivent déjà sous le dis-héritage constant de terre à cause de l'or. Quoi qu'il arrive à cet or, il doit être utilisé pour bénir et Bénéficier les Premières nations, avant d'enrichir les entreprises privées et les détenteurs d'actions. Ceci est la justice naturelle. Whether the First Nations will accept this remains to be seen and is part of the hard work the Sierra Fund are undertaking as they seek to create the worlds most powerful and desirable Origin of Denomination gold brand.

 

This is a gold I would be proud to use. A gold product that pays reparations to First Nations, cleans up the toxic stain of large-scale environmentally devastating gold mining and is used to create a redemptive story about gold that we can actually be proud of. To this end I have offered to design a jewellery collection that will not only use the gold from this source, but will also be used to support the work of the Sierra Fund in mercury remediation. If I can do anything with my Valerio Jewellery brand, this is it. Subvert the luxury jewellery narrative and introduce a more honest and truthful story. I think this is what jewellery should be about. Talisman’s telling the truth.

 

Greg Valerio

Written after the Sierra Fund Conference – Avril 2015

 

Footnote

 

To define gold in pure economic terms is facile and profoundly deceptive. It makes me realise that organisations like the politically constructed World Gold Council – the trade body that represents the world’s biggest gold mining corporations – is a morally and ethically shallow boat plagued with gold fever. WGC consider the mature stage of modern gold mining started with the 19 century gold rush in California (click here for more info). Little has changed in their ideology, I have personally witnessed large-scale mining’s devastation of entire mountains, crushing and leaching these mountains through cyanide, the rape of those eco-systems from which the financial wealth is used to enrich elite minorities. Their only reason for existence is to greedily accumulate money at the expense of everything else – this is apparently called civilization and economic development. LSM gold mining is the dark soul of capitalism. It’s rapacious greed is a manifestation of its corporate spirituality. The hydraulic mining that so devastated the Sierra’s in the 19 century, was the beginning of this modern type of mining and was guilty of the genocide of the First Nations people of California. A part of the modern-day gold mining story WGC and others wish to avoid at all costs. A very interesting foundation to modern gold mining techniques.

 

I appreciate that identifying with marginal voices and glossed over injustices, or coming out and saying that large-scale gold mining is socially irrelevant and no longer a required industrial activity, will be damaging to my reputation as a jeweller. It may have a detrimental effect on my income and may push me further into the bracket of radical activist who consistently backs the losing horse. But I cannot ignore the voices I heard in California, when they said ‘Coyote Piss killed us’. I stand as a witness to this truth.

---