JRI This Week #39: Into the Amazon
A few days into a week-long visit to Founder Metals' Antino Project deep in the Surinamese Amazon, I thought I would post a quick update.
This will be a quiet week for me in terms of published work, but that is not to say I am standing still. I am writing this update (quick though it will be) from the heart of the hot, humid, Surinamese Amazon jungle.
As the thumbnail suggests, I am down here conducting a site visit for the purposes of filming a documentary and travelogue for Founders Metals. This will be the second entry of my new “On-Site” series, where I travel to various projects to try to capture the stories of the place, people, and potential for people and investors who might otherwise never get the chance to visit there themselves.
Founders Metals holds the option for up to 75% (informally potentially more) of the Antino Gold Project in southern Suriname. Decades of alluvial and small-scale mining have already carved away large swaths of this area, and recovered at least half a million ounces of gold (with another couple million lurking in the tailings thanks to the simple, low-recovery processing methods employed).
But rather than literally undermining the potential of the project, it has instead served to unearth the true, and truly massive, size of Antino.
Because it is slowly being revealed the true prize of Antino lies beneath, deeper than even your most industrialised small-scale miner can reach, but still within only a few hundred meters of surface. Imagine conducting discovery drilling while being able to see the orientation and structure of the veins to aid in your targeting process. Think about the many benefits gained from having experts with decades of local exploration knowledge to help inform your understanding and interpretation. Every time the backhoe hits a new vein, it helps the local miners and Founders alike. The combination of mining and discovery here between two very different parties is unique.
I will keep my thoughts brief this morning - I have an airplane coming to take me to visit a local Maroon community - descendants of escaped African slaves who have lived in the same areas for centuries, scattered up and down the Lawa River. But look forward to a written trip report and some teaser trailers over the coming weeks, and the full-length documentary hopefully before summer.
This project would positively transform the economic prosperity of this region, in an area whose current lived reality would be totally alien to any North American or European visitor. With any luck, the incredible wealth Antino holds within it can be unlocked and give these people access to living standards that are currently utterly out of reach.
In the meantime, I want to sincerely thank you for reading. It is with a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation that I approach these opportunities. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to do this work, and I hope I can bring these stories to you in a much more real and impactful way than the words and graphs of news releases and slide decks are capable of doing.
Again, thank you for being here. Until next time.
-Matthew from JRI