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Photo report
Oyapock-Maroni" expedition
This crossing of the Guiana jungle from east to west is an extraordinary adventure. It is entirely done on foot over nearly 350 kilometres of forest in the middle of the rainy season. The aim is to collect information on illegal gold panning in French Guiana.
To do this, the members of the expedition set out to meet the "garimpeiros": illegal gold miners who have come from Brazil for the most part, and who are constantly hunted down by the armed forces of French Guiana, which are supporting the internal security forces within the framework of Operation HARPIE. François-Michel Le Tourneau, after several long expeditions and hundreds of encounters, has managed to gain acceptance within the "garimpo", a real informal society with vague and changing contours, based on mistrust and complex codes, where everything is exchanged for gold.
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