perhaps yes and perhaps no. Not entirely the same, but when you look at the contamination caused by chevron in the Ecuadorian amazon, billions upon billions of

perhaps yes and perhaps no. Not entirely the same, but when you look at the contamination caused by chevron in the Ecuadorian amazon, billions upon billions of waste knowingly dumped into the land and the rivers due to the power of the company and lack of power of the state back then. It was simple more profitable to do this, so they did. A problem for most developing countries, especially when the company is backed by a much more powerful country. Compare that to small scale illegal miners. The scale at which they can pollute is a lot less and localised. Yes they damage, but do not have the potential to damage as the large corporations. Ideally, legal mining / oil extraction would be heavily regulated and monitored to avoid (minimise) contamination. But in remote areas of developing countries, the profit at stake is too corrupting to "both" sides. It is all too easy to see the developing country as being the corrupt partner (which it is) but many forget the corruption of the powerful side who set up the corruption in the first place. A chicken and egg situation. Was the country corrupted before, or was it made corrupt by the offer of money to chase bigger profit