Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Bill Trott
CARACAS
Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:18pm EDT CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered troops to crack down on wildcat miners who use mercury, chain-saws and high-pressure hoses to strip gold from beneath the South American nation’s jungles. 
Venezuela’s southern forests contain some of Latin America’s largest deposits of gold. Industrial mining is scarce in the region, but hundreds of local miners have devastated tracts of forest in the past few decades. “This is a crime that we cannot keep on permitting. Look at how the jungle ends up,” Chavez said, pointing at a photograph of a treeless expanse of red earth. He deployed soldiers in the southern state of Bolivar to tackle the miners, who live in chaotic camps and villages known for prostitution and drunken machete fights. …
Army tackles wildcat gold mines in Venezuela jungle
