f In-Gall maintain and harvest
from evaporation ponds here, sending laborers from the local clans to work the
salt and transport it back to In-Gall at the end of the season. In-Gall is near
enough that, unlike the oasis town of
Fachi
where plots are owned by
Agadez
based Tuareg clans and worked by a
permanent population, the workers at Teguidda return to In-Gall for the
remainder of the year. Teguidda also lacks a stable oasis, which provides
In-Gall with market gardens and date palm farming on a year round basis. Prior
to its decline in the 20th century—because of the smaller scale of the In-Gall
salt markets as well as its easy access by road—In-Gall was once a destination
of the
Azalai
salt caravans in which Tuareg
merchants transported salt from the markets here across the
Sahel
for agricultural and medicinal uses.
In 2004, a Canadian corporation was
granted a government license to mine for uranium in the area. Northwestern
Mineral Ventures was awarded the Irhazer and Ingall concessions, each
2,000 km². (772 square miles) in size. Mines will reportedly be "open
pit" strip mines. More than
100 uranium exploration licenses have been granted int the Azawagh area since 2004 to foreign firms from
China (over 40%), Canada, and India
