WA : gold panning and private lands

Hello,

I had a look on the 8 pages of the "Prospecting Rules and Regulation", but I don't found for what I was really looking for.

Thanks to GeoView I found a place (river/brook) witch looks like really great for panning

BUT, the river/brook cross private lands (in the bush/outback, without habitation) ...

So, in France it's simple : Farmers don't care about what you are doing in the river (if you respect the place), and the most often you can pan without any permission (but in the same time there it often no gold :awful: ).
And rivers are often public place (State owner).

In Australia it seems a little bit differerent

So : Do I absolutly check the cadastre and contact each private land owner (where the river run) , even lost in the middle of the bush ?? Or it's just the theory, but in practice it's more "flexible" ?

Thank you !

Ok, so it's looks like "Pastoral lease", but how can I be sure ?

No, in fact it looks like "Agricultural region" (according to the Western Australia Pastoral Land Tenure map) .........

Well, according to the "accessing creeks on private property" topic in this section, I definitly need a permission from the Land owner. This topic is about NSW rules, but I think it's the same un WA (?).

So, I MUST go to the Department of Mines to get each private owner contact and contact them before to do something. Am I right ??
It will be quite hard, especially without a phone number, email address, or if the owners live far away :argh:

Eveos, in WA gold hunting in a river by any method other than a detector is near impossible, as the laws & rules around protecting our few (mostly seasonal) rivers are complex, & governed by a couple of government departments, making it a complex issue.
ie;
Dept of Mines, Industry Regulation & Safety (DMIRS)
Dept of Water & Environmental Regulation
Water Corporation
& when in National Parks, there is some jurisdiction in the Dept of Parks & Wildlife (DPaW)
I assume you are aware you need a 'Miners Right' before you do anything.
You should be aware that you cannot prospect by any means in a National Park or Conservation Reserve.
You can only prospect in a State Forest if you have a Prospecting Lease or Mining Lease on an area.
If there is an Exploration Licence over an area of farmland (or any area), you still need to get a 40E permit from the DMIRS
Not all the rules are easy to find, or don't exist on the DMIRS website, so its a good idea to go into one of their offices & have a talk to the people there, to get a better understanding of where you can go & what you can do.

DED

Thank you Ded Driver

I got my permit and I'm aware that I can't prospect in National Park, reserve, forest ...
But at the mining department a guy told me it was "better" to ask for autorisation on private lands ... Just "better" ... And he told me nothing about forbidden rivers :awful: (I was asking for that !!!)

So ... Welcome to the 21 century : century of missing freedoms, vanished dreams and profit at any price ; The guy who sold me the gold pan saw that I was a beginner and foreigner, and I even asked him the name of an easy river to start : he did not warn me that the majority of them were impossible to prospect !! So he just sold to me an useless thing

Someone said : If you want make money, don't look for gold, sell shovels ...

So, according to the topic "rules ???" in "Alluvial Gold Prospecting", there is a huge list of forbidden river/brook/creeks (Edit : for VIC)

So, for someone who want just spend some time in nature, who want try to recover a little of the gold fever spirit :goldpan: but respecting its environment .... near Gingin/Perth it's hopeless ??? :/

Is there a list of exempted rivers, like for the Victoria, available for WA ??

Eveos said:

Thank you Ded Driver

I got my permit and I'm aware that I can't prospect in National Park, reserve, forest ...
But at the mining department a guy told me it was "better" to ask for autorisation on private lands ... Just "better" ... And he told me nothing about forbidden rivers :awful: (I was asking for that !!!)

So ... Welcome to the 21 century : century of missing freedoms, vanished dreams and profit at any price ; The guy who sold me the gold pan saw that I was a beginner and foreigner, and I even asked him the name of an easy river to start : he did not warn me that the majority of them were impossible to prospect !! So he just sold to me an useless thing

Someone said : If you want make money, don't look for gold, sell shovels ...

So, according to the topic "rules ???" in "Alluvial Gold Prospecting", there is a huge list of forbidden river/brook/creeks (Edit : for VIC)

So, for someone who want just spend some time in nature, who want try to recover a little of the gold fever spirit :goldpan: but respecting its environment .... near Gingin/Perth it's hopeless ??? :/

Is there a list of exempted rivers, like for the Victoria, available for WA ??

Click to expand...

Yep it is "better" if it is private land or under lease that you contact the land owner or lease holder, because if you don't that makes you a poacher (thief) and a trespasser.

Pans are not useless things, well not to me. I use one most days and find it an essential part of my tool kit, though you'd be hard pressed to find water in any WA creek worth looking for gold in.

All countries have rules we have to abide by, I'm sure France does to. Without them it would be chaos. If you don't like our rule I can highly recommend Qantas. Good food, comfy seats with a telly on the back and hot stewardesses.

What can happen if you choose to disobey the rules?
There was a French fellow here about 2 months ago prospecting where ever the hell he saw fit. When told he was on a private lease his exact words were "what can they do to me, nothing I am from France" Followed by laughter.

They took his detector off him, that what they did to him.

So true madtuna. If you want to roam the French countryside looking for Truffles (another form of Gold?), now there's a raft of complex rules and regulations on who owns what and who should be digging holes there :lol:

madtuna said:

Yep it is "better" if it is private land or under lease that you contact the land owner or lease holder, because if you don't that makes you a poacher (thief) and a trespasser.

Click to expand...

So, it's not "better" : it's an obligation and a duty

madtuna said:

Pans are not useless things, well not to me. I use one most days and find it an essential part of my tool kit, though you'd be hard pressed to find water in any WA creek worth looking for gold in.

Click to expand...

I spoke a little bit too fast, but I'm a little bit disapointed : the seller could advise newcomer of some special rules, no ? (maybe ??) Because without this forum and some curiosity, I could been in some wrong places (like in exempted rivers).

madtuna said:

All countries have rules we have to abide by, I'm sure France does to. Without them it would be chaos. If you don't like our rule I can highly recommend Qantas. Good food, comfy seats with a telly on the back and hot stewardesses.

Click to expand...

Mmm, I think if I'm there it's because I want to be sure to don't break your law, you don't think ? :Y:

madtuna said:

What can happen if you choose to disobey the rules?
There was a French fellow here about 2 months ago prospecting where ever the hell he saw fit. When told he was on a private lease his exact words were "what can they do to me, nothing I am from France" Followed by laughter.

Click to expand...

... and I'm quite sure this stupid guy don't came on this forum for asking about Australian's laws .................

Actually :

- I read a lot about NSW and VIC, but nothing about WA's exempted rivers (no list ; is there something ?)

- In WA, for private lands, you must : fist get a special permit for prospecting on private land (in addition of your miner right) AND obtain the owner autorisation (using the cadastre for get his adress).
So, now I have my answer ......

Eveos, mon ami - you seem to have skipped one of the key things that madtuna said:

madtuna said:

"you'd be hard pressed to find water in any WA creek worth looking for gold in"

Click to expand...

I don't think there is an "exempted rivers" list for WA - nobody does any panning/sluicing/high-banking/dredging, etc in our creeks and rivers, because gold and water are rarely found together in this state.

Im fairly sure there are no rivers in WA exempt from the rules. All rivers in WA are treated & regulated the same.
There is a bloke who has just been granted a Gold Prospecting Lease down near Donnybrook in the South West. In the early days there were a couple of small gold mines down there (shaft/underground dug by hand) but they weren't profitable. It is possible there may still be a tiny bit of gold in some of the streams around that way, but a couple of mining companies have either leases or EL's over most of the area (lithium, tin, tantalum & bauxite are the main ores), so permission &/or an E40 permit would be required.
The land in this region is predominantly private farmland, State Forest, & National Parks.