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Mozambique: Ban On Trade in Precious Stones in Manica
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
3 December 2007
Posted to the web 3 December 2007
Chimoio
The presence of large numbers of foreigners illegally buying precious stones, after deposits of tourmalines and rubelite were discovered in Barue district, in the central province of Manica, led the Mozambican government to ban any sale of these minerals.
Speaking to reporters in the provincial capital, Chimoio, during celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), the provincial governor, Mauricio Vieira, said dealers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Senegal and other countries had enticed Mozambicans to dig for the stones.
The Mozambicans clearly had no idea of the worth of tourmalines and accepted a pittance for their back-breaking work extracting the stones from the Barue soil.
Vieira said he had travelled personally to Barue last week, where he found that illegal mining was continuing, with the miners "extracting stones of great value".
He added that a study is now under way to ascertain the true extent of the Barue deposit and the types of precious stones found there. The report from that study, and the recommendations of geologists would determine the government's decisions on how to exploit this resource.
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A team of geologists arrived in Barue last week to gather information about the deposit. So far the government has demarcated an area of 500 hectares in the locality of Nhampassa.
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| Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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