In Suriname, there is one large-scale gold mine in operation, the GrosRosebel mine, and another large-scale gold mine is in the process of being developed, the Merian Gold Project. There are many small-scale miners in Suriname.
Most of the small-scale gold miners in Suriname work with hydraulic methods on land. Nowadays they typically rely on excavators to remove the topsoil and gather the gold bearing ore. Next, the ore is treated using gravity techniques. In cases where the gold is found in rock formations, gold miners use crushers (mills) to grind the stones and thus release the gold. There are also some people mining on rafts in the river.
Some (more part-time or occasional) miners, living near or in mining areas, mine the rejects of the full-time miners. They use a long narrow sluice box to wash the material. They may use a small pump to wash the material, or just set up their installation behind the sluice box (local name: daal) of a larger, professional operation. Mining the rejects of another operation may be a profitable business, because professional miners are estimated to lose between 40 to 60 percent of the gold in the materials they mine. Also, the investment costs are small. Locally this work is referred to as bakadaal (behind the sluice box) or bakasanti (behind the mine tailings).