Sichuan hills devastated by demand for stone (2)

Difficult to curb

Ma Yezhe, an officer with the Jiukou township police station in Meigu county, walked out of a hole with a handcart and some plastic dustpans in a cold morning last December.

"They [illegal agate diggers] have already left, and we only confiscated some mining tools," Ma was quoted by Sichuan Daily.

Nanhong agates have been found in 16 townships in Meigu county including Jiukou.

Jizi Muyi, a resident in Jiukou said that the increasing popularity of Nanhong agates broke the peace in his village.

The illegal mining diggers involving some organized crime groups severely affects local people's daily life, Jizi told the Sichuan Daily.

In 2014, the Meigu county government deployed 300 law enforcement officers urging 30,000 agate diggers to leave the hills and arresting 16 people. The government imposed a total of 280,000 yuan in fines for illegal mining.

The government and the diggers have been playing cat-and-mouse since the county established a special force to curb the illegal mining in 2010.

Nanhong agate, formed after volcanic eruptions, is scattered widely in mountainous region, which is too big for officers to patrol cover, Hu Kangshun, with the Meigu land and resource administration, told the CCTV.

During the rainy reasons, the government has to increase the number of patrolling officers in case of sudden landslides.

Turning point

Considering the booming agate market in China, banning the business would make little sense, so the Meigu county government decided to auction off agate mining rights, the Sichuan Daily reported.

The county government set up eight agate mines for auction in 2012, and will sell the mining rights early this year, Pan said.

After the auction, the government will arrange local villagers to find work in the mining enterprises, and develop tourism projects to raise local people's living standards.

"The bidders have to establish a foothold in Meigu, and invest in the Nanhong agate industry while exploiting agate," Pan said.

The Meigu county plans to build a Nanhong agate industrial park that will include agate exhibitions and an assessment center.

"We have started the construction of a hotel inside the park, and will open to tourists and agate collectors in 2015," Pan said.

Meanwhile, a trading market company was established last December for trading Nanhong agates, rare earths and agricultural products. The company manager, Hu Fei, said that the company would develop 100 enterprises with at least 5 million in registered capital as its members, and set a trading volume target of 400 billion yuan every year.