Briefing Paper June 2017 BEYOND THE ‘WILD WEST’ The Gold Rush in Northern Niger Mathieu Pellerin Beyond the ‘Wild West’ 1 Credits and contributors Series editor: Matt Johnson About the author (
[email protected]) Mathieu Pellerin is an Associate Researcher for the Africa Programme at the Institut Copy-editor: Alex Potter français des relations internationales and an expert on political and security issues (
[email protected]) in the Sahel and Maghreb regions. As part of his research and consultancy for both Proofreader: Stephanie Huitson national and international organizations he regularly travels to Mali, Niger, Burkina (
[email protected]) Faso, and Mauritania, as well as Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco. Since June 2015 he has also been Special Adviser on religious dialogue for the Centre for Humanitarian Cartography: Jillian Luff Dialogue. He has two master’s degrees (in Political Science and Economic Sciences), (www.mapgrafix.com) and currently teaches on the crisis in the Sahel at Sciences Po in Lille. Design and layout: Rick Jones (
[email protected]) Acknowledgements The author would like to extend his sincere thanks to Dr Ines Kohl and Savannah de Tessières for their insightful peer reviews. Matt Johnson and Alex Potter also have to be thanked for their checking and editing work. Front cover photo A miner reaches for his metal detector in the Djado region, northern Niger. Source: Djibo Issifou, 2016. 2 SANA Briefing Paper June 2017 Overview Introduction One of the many stories recounting how This Briefing Paper examines how the gold rush in northern gold mining began in northern Niger in Niger has affected the security, political, and socio-economic April 2014 tells of a Tubu camel herder dynamics of this sensitive region.