Diwalwal Gold Mining

MOUNT DIWATA, MINDAO ISLAND, PHILIPPINES - APRIL 14, 2009: A machine used in the process of extracting gold from rocks in the mining settlement of Barangay, on Mount Diwata (known as Diwalwal), Compostela Valley, on Mindao Island in the Southern Philippines. The mountain contains the largest gold deposit in the Philippines, and perhaps one of the largest in the world. The total area it covers is 8100 hectares, but the richest deposits lie in an area of just 729 hectares. There are over 40,000 people living in Barangay, a collection of huts, shops, brothels, and markets scattered around the sides of the mountain, intersected by roads of stone and mud flows, amongst the immense ferns of the forest. The 'destinos' are small-scale mines which form an interwoven network of tunnels in the mountain, in which men crawl like snakes ripping out tons of stone to be crushed, from which about 20 grams of gold are extracted per ton. Diwalwal is like an anthill. In the 1980s, after the discovery of gold there, it became the most dangerous place in the Philippines, and one of the most dangerous in the world. There was only the law of the jungle. Then came a sheriff, by the name of Franco Tito, who vaguely resembles Charles Bronson. He always carries his gun, and says: "I have two friends, my God and my gun." He managed to bring order to the community, by finding the common enemy: the multinationals who want to transform Diwalwal into an open mine, sweeping away the mountains, the forest and what, for men like Franco, has become a place to rebuild their lives. A life they risk every day in their 'destino'. (Photo by Andrea Pistolesi/Getty Images)