Within about ten years, gold dredging has replaced traditional artisanal gold panning in the bed of the Niger River upstream of Bamako. In Banco Coura, in the rural commune of Sanankoroba, artisanal and mechanised dredges suck up river sediments every day, even though the 2019 and 2023 mining codes prohibit the practice. We sought to understand what this activity changes for the environment and for riverside communities. The study combines a literature review, direct observations of the river and its banks, and a survey conducted in August–September 2025 among thirty purposively selected people: housewives, farmers, fishers, artisanal gold miners and dredge operators, supplemented by key informants (town hall, National Directorate of Geology and Mines, an ecologist). Quantitative data were processed in Excel and interviews through content analysis. Four out of five respondents (80%) note that the river has changed: murkier water, collapsing banks, scarcer fish. Six out of ten say they have been personally affected, through the loss of farmland or difficulties in accessing drinking water, and 70% report waterborne diseases. Conflicts between gold miners, farmers, fishers and herders are reported by 73% of respondents. Yet 40% oppose a halt to dredging, for lack of any other source of income, and all call for job creation. Dredging thus appears as a paradox: it provides a living for part of the village while destroying the very resources on which that village depends. Rather than yet another ban, the way forward lies in the economic reconversion of young people, regular environmental monitoring of the sites, and genuine enforcement of mining regulations.