ANDRANOTSIMATY, Madagascar — On a recent August afternoon, a conspiracy of golden-crowned sifakas frolicked their way across Andranotsimaty, a settlement inside Loky Manambato Protected Area in Madagascar. There are other kinds of gold in this land. It’s here where Roméo Richard Mananjara hit pay dirt in 2017. Gold-rich soil he collected near his family’s well that day yielded 10 grams, or a third of an ounce, of the precious metal. Soon, miners from near and far poured in. Two years later, this corner of Madagascar became the focus of a gold-extraction project led by a player from far beyond Malagasy shores: the French luxury giant Chanel. The project involved buying gold from artisanal miners operating inside Loky Manambato. A 2019 report commissioned by Chanel called it an “innovative” approach to sourcing gold from “environmentally-delicate settings.” In this case, the environmentally delicate setting was a 500-square-kilometer (193-square-mile) chunk of Loky Manambato — a fifth of the protected area. Estelle Mariam from Daraina, 27, mother of two, pans soils in the dried up riverbank in Andranotsimaty. Image by Rivonala Razafison/Mongabay. This region is home to 10 species of lemurs (including golden-crowned sifakas, Propithecus tattersalli), primates found only in Madagascar that are teetering perilously close to extinction. Miners like Mananjara live alongside these rare animals; most humans will likely never set eyes on a lemur. Yet even in distant lands, they’re famous thanks to the Hollywood movie Madagascar. Chanel is also a household name in glitzier parts of the globe, but has little brand…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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