Precious metal and other valuable objects are an easy way of operating in shady corners, especially with lax law enforcement.

How do you tax something that doesn’t register in a tax return or on a bank statement?

Matters get seriously worse when people are desperate to find an income or improve their earnings and there are ready alternatives ‘just lying around’.

There are recent media reports that in the world’s previous biggest exporter of cacao, the African nation of Ghana, people are ripping up cocoa plants and forests to pan for the yellow shiny stuff.

Somebody said it is in the soil. Let’s dig and sift. Forget the cacao.

Now rivers are running with mud and mercury while people work hard to find that elusive gold.

Apparently they’re not finding much, but the environment is being quickly destroyed.

Local artists are now using the thick muddy water, once home to fish and crocodiles, to paint pictures.

The real source of this activity is those who want to buy the gold.

Reports are that Chinese gold traders are buying all they can get in direct competition while the traditional buyers in Europe and the USA.

India has also become a ready market as have some countries in South-East Asia.

As the value of paper money depreciates, and various local wars threaten to escalate, gold has been the method of preserving wealth from ancient times. Nations are following the trend.

So where does that put PNG and its local gold producing regions?

The Porgera mining area is a likely example. The unfettered destruction of the local environment is posing long-term problems.

So where is the yellow metal ending up?

That issue is as murky as a Ghanaian river.

Are sticky fingers involved which mysteriously make the gold disappear?

Is the PNG Treasury effectively taxing the artisanal miners?

People who are desperate for money don’t much care about the future of the environment.

Clean rivers and potential gardens that could feed future generations are not considered when people need the money to live today.

It’s a heck of big problem for any country to solve.

* According to some people, in 1849 from the steps of the Lumpkin County Courthouse in Georgia, Dr MF Stephenson, an assayer from the Mint, yelled to the townspeople, “There's gold in them thar hills!” He wanted to keep them looking for gold in Georgia rather than leaving for California.