Sichuan hills devastated by demand for stone

The small hill in Meigu county, Southwest China's Sichuan Province is pitted with dozens of deep holes, and villagers-turned miners swing hoes desperately.

Local people call this "hole theft," referring to the illegal mining of agate, according to China Central Television (CCTV).

The Meigu county government banned illegal agate mining years ago, and those seized would face fines and prison terms, the report said.

But many local villagers still risk their lives in the illegal business, driven by the skyrocketing price for the traditionally previous stone.

Nanhong agate, a rare source agate in dark red, is mainly produced in Meigu county and Baoshan in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. It is considered conducive to people's digestive system, intestines and stomach, and is popular among Buddhists.

A small Nanhong agate bead used to cost only several yuan back in 2000. But prices soared to hundreds of yuan in 2005, and collectors continued to push the price to tens of thousands of yuan after 2011, according to news portal gmw.cn.

The price of Nanhong agate can be sold at up to over 10,000 yuan ($62,535) a gram.

Rampant illegal agate mining can easily trigger landslides, which can damage the local ecosystem and threaten the lives of residents residing downhill from the slides, local officials said.

Prospering illegal business

Several 10-year-old children were searching for Nanhong agate with hoes outside the holes in the cold winter when CCTV reporters visited the illegal mining sites earlier this month.

Instead of going to school, a lot of local children help their families to mine.

Agate stones are sold immediately after they are found in the hills with, over 2,000 diggers and buyers involved in the business every day.

"I started digging [agate] since last April, and I've earned over 170,000 yuan," a local villager was quoted as saying by CCTV.

A little girl who bought a bunch of agate stones from local diggers in 700 yuan said she would sell those stones for double the price she paid to other buyers.

Most of the agate found by local residents is sold at the Nanhong agate trading market in Xichang, a city 100 kilometers away from Meigu county.

Collectors have elbowed their way into the market at 6 am every day since the market opened in 2013.

After processing, the Nanhong agate products are sold for a range of prices. The best cherry red agate can be sold at over 10,000 yuan for each gram, according to Zeng Chaozhi, a major dealer.

Collectors face huge risks in buying high quality Nanhong agate, and even for Nanhong agate dealers like Zeng, the risk can be high.

"Business is slow in recent days, and I can turn over about 300,000 yuan every day," Zeng told the Sichuan Daily. He added that normally he could make 600,000 yuan daily.

The trade volume for the whole market is about 1 million yuan every day, according to the manager of the market, Li Zhongwen.

Zhang Bowei, deputy president of the Nanhong agate association, said that the original price for agate was only several dozen yuan for each 500 grams, but the price has increased thousands of times since early 2000.

Xichang market is just one of the many Nanhong agate trading markets. The average daily trade of Nanhong agate in China is about 40 million yuan, according to Pan Lin, deputy head of Meigu county, with other markets for the agate in Chengdu, Guangzhou and Beijing.