One of Guyana’s smallest Amerindian villages is waging a monumental battle to retain ancestral land they say miners have raided in their quest for gold. Chinese Landing villagers, descendants of Caribs, have seen their land shrink as mining concessionaires excavate for gold. A local businessman, Wayne Vieira and a Canadian company Alerio Gold Corp, have dueling claims of ownership of the mid-scale mining operation spanning 3,400 acres. Meanwhile, local villagers, who secured their land title in 1976, say they have been banned from the area and are facing the consequences of mercury contamination. “It’s like a part of us has been taken away” Orin Fernandes, the village's Toshao said. “We will never get back whatever has been removed and whatever poisonous substance been left there, we will have to deal with it. It's hard, really, really hard." Despite the country’s Amerindian Act states that permission is needed from an Indigenous community before mining can take place on their land, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled in 2017 that the Amerindian Act did not give any authority to stop work and granted mining permits.