A French soldier climbs out of a yellow, polluted illegal gold-mining pond in French Guiana, rusted fuel barrels floating behind him

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Gold War in French Guiana

In the rainforest of French Guiana, gold is a war. Up the rivers from Brazil come the garimpeiros, the illegal miners, cutting hidden pits into the jungle and poisoning the creeks with fuel and mercury.

Against them France sends soldiers. Operation Harpie is fought by pirogue and on foot, in chest-deep water and red mud: sluices smashed with sledgehammers, pumps destroyed, camps dismantled. It is a war without front lines, waged in the half-light of the canopy — and it begins again with every rainy season.

French soldiers apply camouflage face paint at barracks sinks before dawn, French Guiana — Before dawn. Camouflage, applied like a rite.

A silhouetted French patrol column moves through scrub at dusk in French Guiana — The patrol moves out in the blue hour.

A camouflaged French soldier raises a finger for silence on a dense rainforest trail in French Guiana — Silence. The jungle listens back.

Three French soldiers wade chest-deep through a flooded creek carrying their rifles, French Guiana — The road is a river; the river is the road.

Three mud-soaked French soldiers pause in the jungle to smoke and share water — A pause between two mining sites.

An iridescent sheen of fuel on polluted creek water over dead leaves, French Guiana — What the mines leave in the water: mercury is poisoning the fish and the local residents.

A French soldier stands over a dismantled sluice ramp at a flooded illegal gold-mining site — A dismantled sluice at an illegal mine.

A French soldier destroys a seized motor-pump with a sledgehammer on a riverbank in French Guiana — Destruction of the garimpeiros’ equipment.

A young woman who worked as a prostitute at an illegal gold-mining camp, surrounded by French soldiers — The mines have their own economy. A young woman who worked as a prostitute at the camp, intercepted during the raid.

View from a gear-laden pirogue speeding on the Maroni river at misty morning, French Guiana — On the Maroni, the morning mist travels with the pirogues.

A French Army paratrooper in a red beret watches a troop-filled pirogue cross the river — The detachment featured in our report consists of paratroopers from the French Army.

French soldiers decant fuel into a jerrycan beside a stilt house at a forward base — Fuel, the other gold of the forest.

French soldiers rest among mosquito nets and hammocks in a jungle forward camp — Forward camp. Hammocks, mosquito nets, a phone call home.