Gold: A Journey With Idris Elba

20.64M views5774 WordsCopy TextShare

World Gold Council

This documentary film explores the varied and often surprising ways in which gold and the societies ...

Video Transcript:

I am gonna tell you a story. It's a story I thought I knew. Turns out.

. . it's far more incredible.

. . than I ever imagined.

It begins in one of the most remote places on Earth. There's something in these mountains that I have a special connection to, and so do you. I'm talking about gold.

There's nothing else like it. A miracle of nature. Oh, my God, that is heavy.

Since the first civilisations, it's been a part of us. . .

helping to build our modern world. . .

People were making fortunes. . .

. transforming entire communities. .

. . .

. and even the way they're powered. I'm on a journey to discover how our love of gold began.

. . This is the true meaning of the beginning of jewellery and hip-hop music.

. . .

what we're prepared to do to get it. . .

So we're going down? So there you go. .

. . and why we need it.

That is a lot of gold. I want to discover the human story of gold, how it shapes us and our world. So, Pascal, why are we out here in the middle of nowhere?

The area where we're on is one of the highest concentration of gold that we have in Canada, and probably in the world. Locals call this part of Quebec the Val-d'Or, or Valley of Gold. And I'm on my way to one of Canada's biggest mines, LaRonde.

LaRonde is one of the deepest and the most challenging mine in Canada. And how deep does it go down? This one is 3.

2 kilometres. It's one of the longest single shaft in the world. Look, I'm gonna tell you, I'm a little claustrophobic so I'm a little nervous about going three kilometres into the Earth, but I'm sort of really intrigued to see how it's done.

Deep in the Canadian wilderness, LaRonde Mine is one serious operation. To see how they get the gold out, I'm going into the sprawling underground world that lies far beneath. It's smaller than I thought.

I thought it was gonna be bigger. Actually, normally we fit 20 to 25 people in this deck. -Twenty-five?

-Yes. -In here? -Yeah, squeezed.

My guide is Pascal LaRouche. He's worked at LaRonde for over 17 years. -So we're going down now.

-We're going down. Yeah, so we're going down at the speed of 1,500 feet per minute. That's almost 30 kilometres an hour.

A little stress you're feeling? No, it's just the idea that we're going down into the. .

. centre of the Earth. Sometimes it's hard to swallow.

-It's hard to swallow. -Yeah. That's not a nice feeling.

We're on our way to the bottom of a hole in the ground, which is roughly as deep as six Empire State buildings stacked up on top of each other. I've done some crazy stuff in my life, but I've never been three kilometres down into the Earth before. -So, level 278.

Here we go. -We made it. Thanks, Mark.

Out at last, but our journey deep into the Earth is only just beginning. To get to the gold, we have to grab a ride and go even deeper. So we're going down.

Underground, the mine is connected by over 30 kilometres of roads, wide enough to handle huge, great trucks. -It's getting warmer. -Yes, it is.

I can actually feel the heat, you know? After that bumpy ride, I was hoping to see a bit of gold, but it looks, well. .

. a bit grey. Thankfully, we can do something about that.

Running through the rock is a seam, rich in zinc and copper with a bit of silver. . .

and tiny amounts of gold. But there's only one way to get at it. Once the rock, known as ore, is blasted, it's cut down to size.

So how do they send it to the surface? There's a conveyor, brings the ore all the way up to the. .

. All the way up? Yeah.

At the surface, the gold is separated from the ore through chemical extraction. It's then heated in a furnace to over 1,000 degrees Celsius. Wow, look at how hot that is.

Despite we're maybe 20 feet away, you can feel the heat. Yeah. I tell you what, it's so exciting.

This is so exciting. It's the first time I've ever seen gold being poured. I can see it's.

. . like you say, lava.

Yeah. -Expensive lava. -Expensive, yeah.

It's hard to comprehend what I'm seeing. How did this come from that grey, old rock? It's mind-blowing.

Once the gold has cooled, the bars are given a quick polish. -Is that for me? -That's for you.

Oh, my God. That is heavy. It's 21-kilo.

-Oh, my God. -Roughly 70% gold in it. -It's real.

-Yeah, it's real. And this is worth, like, what, $1 million? Yeah, it's worth $1 million US.

That is amazing. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I never really gave much thought to where gold comes from, how it's produced, and who benefits. So, my wedding ring.

. . To get this much gold, would've taken us several tons of rock.

So the thing I'm left wondering is, what is it about gold that's got us so hooked? Some of the gold that the bride wears has been passed down through the generations, bringing both good luck and financial security. The moment that Nripin ties the mangalsutra around her neck, they're married.

It's a moment we can understand and relate to. And there it is, at the heart of the occasion, gold. Nothing else would do, right?

There is no other metal like it. Its warmth, its feel, its unique yellow lustre. Cultures and faiths across the world have long revered it as sacred.

Gold, it's pretty powerful stuff, but there's another kind of power that gold symbolises. In the heart of modern-day Ghana is the cradle of a great kingdom built on gold. Preparations are underway for an important event, a display of how gold is still very much at the heart of their culture.

So, this is Kumasi, Ghana, home of the Ashanti tribe. My parents, my mom is from Ghana and part of the Ga tribe, so there's a very special meaning for me being here in Ghana. There's also a very, very deep gold story here, and I want to find out more about it.

The Ashanti kingdom emerged just over 300 years ago. And, thanks to its vast reserves of gold, became one of West Africa's most powerful dynasties. So today is the very special Ashanti Akwasidae Festival.

I've been honoured to be asked to be part of the procession, and it is an honour. So I have to wear something appropriate to meet the king, and I'm meeting someone who's going to help me. -Hello, Theresa.

-How are you? -Nice to meet you. Very good.

Wow. -Yeah. -So you have everything here.

-Wow, this is beautiful. -Yes. How long does it take to make something like this?

So I wear this across my skin? -Yes. -Okay.

So this is the jewellery that I should wear? -Yes. -Okay.

So who gets to wear the most gold? So Otumfuo is the king? Amanhene?

Okay, so nobody wears more gold than the king? -Come. .

. Come down. -Yes, yes.

Can I take a sword, or no swords? -They look good, though. -Yeah.

The Akwasidae Festival celebrates the lives and deeds of past rulers by bringing together all of the kingdom's tribes. I've heard it was a big deal, but this is something else. There must be thousands here, and the noise is deafening.

Now we're all assembled, it's time for the main event. The arrival of the Asantehene, King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. And his entrance leaves little doubt as to who the boss is around here.

The Ashanti have an old saying, that is, "Gold is king," and they're not kidding. In fact, I've never seen anyone wearing so much gold. But this isn't some crude display of wealth.

Each item of gold is laden with meaning. These gold staffs carried by the king's spokesmen represent old Ashanti fables. Elaborate gold swords symbolise the courage and strength of the Ashanti nation, while the king's solid gold bracelets signify his personal authority.

The Ashanti believe their king wields divine power, and the festival is an opportunity for his chiefs to show their loyalty and give their thanks for his dedication to improving the region's prosperity. One by one, they come forward and bow before the king. It's only a brief moment, but it feels almost sacred.

And then. . .

well, I'm called. Now look, I don't get stage fright, but this. .

. Well, this was kind of nerve-wracking. Yes.

Hello, hello. It's rare to be granted a personal audience with the king, so to meet the great man is a genuine honour. I can't honestly believe that I'm here, and the king greeted me, you know, like a prince.

You've got to understand, in Ashanti, gold isn't just to have gold and have money. It represents spiritual, it represents a deep history, and it's to be treated with respect. One thing's for sure, gold transformed the Ashanti kingdom and economy.

It's a story that has played out across the world. Sierra Nevada, California. In 1848, in the gravel of the American River, a sawmill worker spotted something incredible.

A glint. . .

of gold. Within a year, the news shot right around the world, triggering the Gold Rush. An event that was to transform California.

There was a small village on the coast of California, it was called Yerba Buena. It's now known as San Francisco. It was very different back then.

So let's start at the beginning, over 170 years ago. Hundreds of large ships arrive from across the Americas, Europe, and China. Most were abandoned as their crews leave for the gold fields.

The ships left behind are buried, creating foundations for a new settlement, the central hub for gold prospectors. Houses, churches, stores, and factories spring up across the bay. But fires and earthquakes mean the city is constantly rebuilt.

So barely any physical signs of the Gold Rush survive. . .

until a remarkable discovery. Off the Eastern Coast of the United States and a mile down on the seabed. .

. explorers discovered a shipwreck. TheSS Central America, which sank in 1857.

The ship was carrying more than $3 million in gold at the time. And you have to convert that to today's dollars, which is some monster number in hundreds of millions, maybe even into the billions. Nearly 600 gold ingots were recovered from the SS Central America, and they are remarkable.

The value of the gold on the ship is one thing, but there's an incalculable, unquestionable value that is priceless, and that's history. In a secret location, historian and geologist, Fred Holabird, has hundreds of precious artefacts recovered from the ship. From gold to everyday items, giving us a new insight into what it was like to be living through the Gold Rush.

These are well-used work pants. Today, you kind of call them jeans. But the thing that stands out the most is this five-button pattern, which is so standard on the pants made by Levi Strauss Company, today known as Levi's.

This could be the oldest surviving pair of Levi's. dating back to the Gold Rush. The miners needed tough-wearing clothes, and Levi's sold in their thousands.

MrStrauss became, what I consider, the most successful of all California Gold Rush businessmen by far. MrStrauss made his wealth from the Gold Rush without finding a single fleck of gold. A gold rush isn't just for the gold.

Imagine the lack of supplies. You're trying to get a shovel, you're trying to get a gold pan, you know, we have every type of merchant you can think of. People were making, often, fortunes.

Many of the passengers on board had grown wealthy through the boom of the Gold Rush. TheSS Central America had a fair bit of jewellery from the passengers. We've got a remarkable scene here, a specifically engraved gold watch case with a miner loaded with his mining supplies.

And with the help of gold pumping the equivalent of $2 billion a year into the region, the economy of California boomed. And at the centre of it all was the rapidly growing port of San Francisco. It's incredible to think that the entire city of San Francisco came about as a result of finding a few nuggets of gold at the bottom of a river.

The Gold Rush transformed California, they transformed America. I think it's fair to say it transformed the world. It marked a new era.

Prospectors travelled the globe. Now, gold mining became big business all over the world. And then, at the end of the 19th century, the mother of all gold finds.

It's lovely here, isn't it? It wasn't always like this, though. Two billion years ago, the biggest known meteor strike in Earth's history happened right here.

The only visible remnants of this catastrophic event are these hills. The impact shook the planet so violently that gold was pushed towards the surface. This is where the story of South African gold begins.

Fast forward a couple of billion years and on a site nearby, prospectors struck gold. Back then, it was open farmland. Today, we call it Johannesburg.

Mines sprang up all around. To turn a profit, the owners wanted a large but cheap labour force. So new regulations came in that pressurised Black workers to leave their farms and go down the mines.

I remember as a kid, growing up in the '80s, seeing images of miners from South Africa. You know, the strikes, apartheid, and I always wondered what their lives were actually like. So now, today, I'm going to actually find out.

One of the first gold mining companies in Johannesburg was Crown Mines, where I'm meeting Frans Baleni. A miner during the apartheid years, Frans eventually became General Secretary of the National Union of Mine Workers. So, Frans, is this the type of lift you used to go to work in?

No, no, the one we used was much bigger. -Bigger. Fifty people in one.

. . -A deck takes about 50 people.

In one deck, and there will be three decks, so that's 150 people at a time. How deep did you go? I was going 3.

6 kilometres underground, in seconds. It takes seconds to get underground. -Seconds?

-Not minutes, seconds. -It must have been warm. -It was very hot.

Sometimes it goes to 50 degrees Celsius. To my relief, this mine is just a bit cooler. -Hi.

-Hi, how are you? -Hello. -I'm very good.

How are you? Crown Mines is no longer active, but in its heyday, it employed thousands, including Nelson Mandela, who worked here as a security guard. Mind your head, low-hanging wall.

That's for me, not for you. So, Frans, what was the working conditions like? Were you looked after?

I mean, we're talking about the '70s, yeah? Yeah, the era of apartheid, we were not really looked after. We were almost like slaves, because what they needed is your labour, nothing else.

What time did you start work? We used to start at 4:00 am. -And you worked five days a week?

-We worked six days a week. You work for 12 hours, on condition that you finish your job. If it happens for some delays because of support system, you did not finish your job, it might be more than 12 hours.

-Really? -Yeah. And did you have breaks?

No, no, no, no, there's no breaks, there's no lunch. . .

underground, no, no. There's no hiding from the fact that gold mining played a major part in shaping South African society during the apartheid years. But with gold comes power.

And those gold miners, they knew that. In 1987, over 300,000 Black miners went on strike, over pay and conditions, bringing gold production to a standstill for three weeks. Frans was one of their leaders.

It shocked the industry 'cause it was the first time that Black workers in an organised form can take so many days on a strike. And then after the 21-day strike, did you feel, did you sense a difference? Could you feel that apartheid was on its way out?

After the strike, it sent a clear message to then national party that the clock is ticking. Remember the economy was lying around gold, so we actually touched the engine room of the economy of the apartheid government at that time. So, gold miners used their gold power to fight apartheid.

Wow, that's really powerful, eh? So deep mining for gold back then doesn't sound much fun. Nope.

Thirty years after the end of apartheid, it's a different world. So, I wonder what mining is like now. South Deep Mine, just outside Johannesburg, is one of the deepest in the world.

But it's what's not underground that makes this mine so unusual. This might look like a regular dump truck, until you realise. .

. there's no driver. You see, the really cool thing about South Deep.

. . Hello, hi.

. . .

is that unlike a traditional underground mine, much of its heavy machinery is operated remotely. Three kilometres up, on the surface. Hello, I'm Idris.

-I'm Matseleng. -Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

How long have you been a. . .

Can I call you a miner? -Are you a miner? -Yes, I'm a miner.

But. . .

this doesn't look like mining. This doesn't look like traditional mining. Have you ever been in traditional mining?

Yes, I did. I was an operator before. I was driving that big dump trucks.

-Really? -Yes. So, now I move to the control room to operate, which means I have moved with the technology.

These consoles look like something out of a gamers' paradise. So talk me through what you're doing exactly. This is a tele-remote, a rock breaker.

This joystick is controlling the boom, and then it's also controlling the hammer. This is like playing computer games, -right? -Yeah.

South Deep's owners began the switch to automated mining back in 2018. Since then, they have mined more gold, more safely. And that's not all.

There are Black South Africans in key positions, like the general manager and head of operations, and a lot more women. Mining industry was male-dominant. -Okay.

-So these days, it's a gender balance. There are ladies who are miners, and crew leaders, and then the production supervisors. -That's great.

-Yes. So, do you prefer being here or down there? I prefer to be here.

-Of course. -Yes. It's fascinating to see how skills have changed.

But there's something else gold mines can't do without. You see, a deep mine like this needs a lot of energy. Enough to power a small town.

But South Africa relies on old coal power stations that keep breaking down. Bad for business, and bad for the environment. So, South Deep lobbied the government to allow them to build the country's first large-scale industrial solar plant.

It provides about a quarter of the mine's needs, and it might even be the trigger for a step change in the way South Africa uses renewables. But what do you do when there's no mains power at all? Will it ever be possible to run a whole mine using just renewable energy?

In the heart of Africa. . .

is one of the continent's largest gold mines. . .

Kibali. Every day, a workforce of over 6,000 mine 20,000 tonnes of ore from above and below ground. So you're in the middle of the wilderness, nothing for hundreds of miles, and you need to find power.

Not just to charge your phone, but enough to power a small town. The answer was lying on their doorstep. Carving through the forest is the Kibali River.

Stretching for 1,000 kilometres. So they decided to harness the natural power of the river. They built three small hydroelectric dams.

The cascading water turns the turbines, which generate electricity. And this renewable energy is capable of providing more than 80% of the mine's power. But for many of the locals, that's not the best part.

Now you're talking. The Kibali mine has literally given power to the people. From the comforts of modern life to production lines.

This infrastructure, built to power the mine, will be here long after it's closed. But already, this gold mine has transformed the local economy and the lives of the people who live here. In just 11 years, the population of Kibali has jumped from 50,000 to half a million.

And who knows, maybe one day, Kibali will become known as the San Francisco of the DRC. That is some legacy. But I'm wondering, when the gold runs out, what happens to the mine itself?

One thing's for sure, there's gonna be an awful lot of tidy up. So, is it possible to turn back the clock? Well, it might just be.

New Zealand's South Island has some of the most dramatic and varied landscapes on Earth. Mountains, fjords, glaciers. One of its most beautiful spots is Victoria Forest Park, the largest conservation park in New Zealand.

A go-to destination for anyone who wants to get close to nature. But there's something else that's special about this landscape. Gold.

Reefton Mine, just next to the park, produced over 17 tonnes of gold in just nine years. But on opening this mine, a commitment was made, that when it eventually closed, the mining company would return the site back to nature. I'll be heading up the main access road.

As someone who loves fishing and hiking with the dog and just loves the environment, I never really thought I'd end up working on a mine on the West Coast. And I guess my perception was that it was always a bit of a damaging industry. Megan Williams is part of a team working to reverse any impact that mining at Reefton has had on the environment.

When the mine closed in 2016, their first task was to fill the main pit, to turn it into a lake. It's nice, but still looks like a mine to me. One of the really cool things that we've got going on-site at the moment is the hydro-seeding of the pit walls.

Hydro-seeding is a process used for rapidly planting large areas of inaccessible land. It can be done either from a truck, or a helicopter. It's a good day in the office, I'd say.

Oh, yeah, all that water's nice and blue in there. -Hanging from the helicopter. .

. -Here it comes. .

. . is a monsoon bucket.

. . which carries everything needed.

. . to recreate life on the cliff face.

-Climbing left. -Copy that. Thanks, Matt.

It's really just gardening. . .

but super-sized. Since the restoration project began, the landscape has been rapidly transformed. Vast new bodies of fresh water have been created, thousands of trees are now growing and will spread across the site.

Now, it's up to nature to take over. We're starting to see different bird life. So native pied stilt, different ducks, we're hearing frogs, we're seeing some snails in the water, and it's really awesome to see.

There you go. Reminds us we've only got one planet. But it's not just the environment the gold industry can have an impact on, it can also affect.

. . us.

This convoy is on a mission, to fight what is public enemy number one for roughly half the world's population. Malaria. Now, I know what you're thinking, "What's that got to do with gold?

" Well, these trucks have driven from the headquarters of the local gold mine. Its managers noticed how many of the mining community were coming down with malaria. One of the team's leaders is Isaac Kwakye-Appiah.

Out of the workforce of 8,000 employees, every month you had about 6,800 of these employees and their dependants reporting to the mine hospital for malaria. And so the mine decided to establish a malaria control programme. Today, the team is in the village of Adansi Domeabra.

Safety. It's our first value. They have one task.

. . to stop malaria in its tracks.

-Good morning, good morning. -Good morning. To combat the mosquitoes, the strategy is to target their resting places.

The team covers every wall with insecticide. Malaria cases peak during the rainy season, and with that just a few weeks away, the team works fast to treat as many homes and villages as possible. But they're not using any old insect spray.

Back at mine headquarters, in a specially built lab, scientists are developing new insecticides that target local strains of mosquito. The results have been impressive. Head of the project is Sam Asiedu.

When the programme started in 2006, the first two years, we were expecting about 50% reduction in malaria cases. But we went way beyond that. In two years, there was 74% reduction in malaria cases.

This local initiative, started and funded by the mine, has become so successful, it is now a country-wide programme, backed by international organisations. It protects over a million Ghanaians annually. The vast majority of them entirely unconnected to the gold industry.

I hope to see a world without malaria. Malaria elimination is possible, and it's possible within our lifetime. Who would have thought that one initiative from a local gold mine.

. . to tackle a disease that affects people all over the world might have the potential to eradicate it forever?

I feel like I'm starting to understand how our relationship with gold is evolving. How we mine it has changed dramatically. .

. but what about the way we actually use gold? What you may not have realised is that gold is already saving lives globally.

It may have even saved yours. Recognise these? Lateral flow tests aren't only used for COVID, they are also used to detect potentially life-threatening conditions from malaria to HIV.

And the secret ingredient? Minute nanoparticles of gold. .

. which are responsible for producing that telltale red colour in a positive test. And that's only one small part of gold's high-tech future.

So, here's how it breaks down. Every year, around 10% of gold demand is used in tech industries. Phones and computers all use gold wires and coatings, which improve reliability.

Gold's amazing reflectivity makes it perfect for space exploration. And looking into the future, super-fast quantum computers are going to need gold to keep them cool. And then, around half is used in jewellery.

So how about the rest? Where does it all end up? A stone's throw from where I grew up is the Square Mile, London's financial district.

They say the streets are paved with gold, and that isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. How you doing? Yes, I did just walk straight into the Bank of England.

The world's second largest depository of gold bullion. I've got an appointment with the bank's chief cashier. One of the very few people with access to its vaults.

. . Sarah John.

-Hi, Sarah. -Good morning, Idris. Welcome to the Bank of England.

Thanks for having me. I'm looking for some gold. All right, let's go this way.

Now, for obvious reasons, I can't reveal our route. What I can reveal is that I followed Sarah deep underground. .

. until we reached what is without doubt the thickest steel door I have ever seen. Okay, Sarah, don't worry, I do all my own stunts.

It's a pretty heavy door, isn't it? Nah, it's all right. Right, after you.

So, there you go. The first glimpse of the Bank of England's gold. That is a lot of gold.

This is really unreal. What do you think? It takes your breath away.

This is like Raiders of the Lost Ark. About 30% of the world's gold is held in professional vaults just like this. Okay, Sarah, I mean, how much gold is here?

This is one of nine gold vaults that we have here at the bank. And there's about 400,000 gold bars stored here, and collectively they're worth about £250 billion, something like that. -What?

-I know. It's a lot, isn't it? So I've got to ask the question, like, why do we have this here?

How did it turn into. . .

"Okay, the bank needs to hold this much gold"? What was the process like? Take me back.

So, obviously, gold's been used for quite a number of years as a form of money. -Right. -First of all, gold coins themselves.

But the problem with gold coins is they're actually quite heavy to carry around. -Can't flip it up. -Exactly.

So what people started to do was they would take their gold coins to a goldsmith and the goldsmith would issue them with an IOU. -Okay. -And over time, people realised that actually using those IOUs to pay for goods and services was actually easier than actually going and getting the gold and lugging it around.

Okay. And those IOUs eventually developed into what we now know as banknotes. That's fascinating, isn't it?

See this, just there? That's Sarah's signature. With the words, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £20.

" It's just an IOU. But these days, the Bank of England plays an even bigger role. Holding gold for the world.

So why do countries want to store their gold here? Countries have, what are called, reserves, so basically, savings, that they can draw on when they need to, because gold holds its value very well in a time of crisis. And it's really easy to buy and sell here in London and that supports financial stability.

And there was such a crisis, not so very long ago. On the 26th of December 2004, there was a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It devastated communities in Thailand and Banda Aceh in Indonesia.

But in Aceh, there was something unusual about the community that helped it to recover. You see, most people didn't have saving accounts. Instead, they had gold ingots and jewellery, which meant they could quickly use it as collateral.

. . and start putting their lives back together.

And it's a bit like that on the global scale too. Countries worldwide hold a lot of gold, so that when disaster strikes, they have reliable funds they can fall back on. Gold is still our safest store of value.

That's the thing about gold. It's real, you can touch it, and it holds its value. I mean.

. . there's no sticking one in your pocket and getting out of it, is there?

Your trousers would be down your ankles. But for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here, the best thing about gold is being able to wear it. Gold has always been a favourite for the world's most famous faces.

And today, we're still finding original ways of using it to express ourselves. Abtin Abbasi, or ABS for short, is part of a new wave in jewellery that began with hip-hop. So I'm keen to understand, like, do they call you ABS the jeweller?

'Cause I've heard that in rap verses everywhere. A Jewellers is the brand. I'm originally Iranian.

I came to UK when I was around two years old. Humble beginnings, and kind of went into what I really enjoyed doing from a young age. Hip-hop jewellery.

'Cause you're, like, basically the jeweller -that a lot of the rappers are into. -Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this piece, the rope chain, is famous.

Like, I remember being in the '80s and seeing Run-DMC rocking one of these. What does this mean to you, like, this chain? This is the true meaning of the beginning of jewellery in hip-hop music.

Gold rope chains were the jewellery item of choice for many hip-hop artists. And the bigger, the better. Sure, they were ostentatious, but that was also kind of the point.

It just looked insane and made me wanna have jewellery, have a big chain, have something intricate and design something for myself. It was kind of like a symbol of status kind of thing, showing power when you get to a certain point where you've made a bit of money you just, -you wanna-- -You wear something that shows that's what you've reached, like a goal. These things, even though they mean a lot to the artist, but they actually carry the weight of the money that they-- -100%.

-That, like, you know, it's not like it's ever gonna depreciate. 100%. It's the same thing.

Buying gold, they're investments. Now, look, I don't wanna worry you, but experts say we've already mined 80% of the world's gold that's accessible. So where is all the new gold gonna come from?

Centuries ago, many risked their lives to explore South America. . .

in search of El Dorado, the mythical city of gold. If only they knew what we do. Cajamarca is a bit of a modern-day El Dorado, lying at the centre of a gold-rich region in the magnificent Andes Mountains.

It's a mountain range that geologist Denisse Quispe knows well. That's thanks to new technology, which means that today Denisse is able to find gold hidden deep inside the rocks of these mountains. So while prospectors of old had to get on their mules and go panning in search of gold, today, we don't even have to touch the rock.

Satellites, a few hundred miles above the Earth, take infrared photographs that hold clues to the rock structure of the mountains and where the gold might be. Denisse and her team are travelling deep into the mountains to take core samples from the hotspot highlighted by the satellite. Just by zapping the samples with infrared and visible light, the gun is able to detect crucial minerals that strongly point to the presence of gold.

Gold is still hard to find, which I guess is why it holds its value. But by analysing hundreds of locations identified from space, Denisse can precisely pinpoint the most promising sites. Naturally, that's great news for the mining company, but it could also transform the prospects of the people living in this region.

What has really surprised me about this story is how we look to gold for so many different things. Meaning. .

. beauty. .

. community. .

. power. .

. health. .

. technology. .

. and of course, financial security. They're all part of our relationship with this beautiful, seductive metal.

So, the story of gold, to me, it's really a love story. Like all romances, it's had its ups and its downs. But just like the element itself, I have a hunch that our relationship with gold is going to be around for a long, long time.