Artisanal Gold Mining In Colombia Co-Creating A Sustainable Future
By Mike Angenent – Chairman of the Jeweltree Foundation
On Friday September 11 a small group of jewellers, myself and people from Amichocó took off to visit the Oro Verde program in the Chocó bioregion, an ecological hotspot west of Colombia along the Pacific coast.
The visit was arranged for us to see the benefits the program had brought to the mining families and to discuss what else could be done to create more opportunities for the program to expand.
Mining in Chocó is largely done by the Afro-Colombian communities that reside there. They are the descendants of the slaves that were brought in by the Spanish conquistadores to do the same work they do now: mining precious metals.
Chocó is one of the most bio-diverse regions on the planet with a very delicate eco system. And while it may be more efficient to harvest gold in mines using chemicals and heavy machinery, this place isn’t a mine. It’s a home to thousands. Every day, the gold from Chocó is hand-collected by families who have owned the land for generations.
Oro Verde then buys this gold from certified and controlled miners. This gold is passed on to jewellers and distributors like Open Source Minerals who pay a premium. Because artisanal and responsible gold has an inherent value intrinsically linked to where it comes from, Oro Verde reinvests that premium back into the communities in Chocó.
Nowadays two Community Councils, one in Tadó and one in Condoto have organized their miners and joined the Oro Verde program certification. This way the program is sustaining about 112 families with over 700 people, and more are waiting to join. The program also functions as a pilot project for similar initiatives worldwide and the millions of artisanal miners who wish to create a life and build a home. So we can truly say that Oro Verde is the most loved gold in the world.
Our first meeting would be with the mining communities in Tadó. Here we would meet the Mosquera family and other small scale artisanal miners who have been certified to sell their responsibly mined gold to Oro Verde. We’ve experienced first hand what incredibly hard work it is to mine gold in this fashion. The temperature of 40 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 70% didn’t help to make it much easier.
This brought to mind all the issues and difficulties we experienced trying to convince customers but even more so potential retailers into buying this gold. They were mostly taken aback by the fact that this gold was so much more expensive. However, after seeing not only the hard work but also the commitment these people give to the program and its environmental and social benefits, we could only conclude that it is remarkably cheap.
It is large scale uncontrolled mining that sets the price and we have come so far as to consider this normal value; while doing the same mining responsibly and with attention to people and environment is considered to be expensive.
In an economic system a mine is most profitable when you can get the minerals out as fast and as cheaply as possible. And while it may be more efficient to mine gold using chemicals and heavy machinery, this place isn’t a mine, it’s a home. The Mosquera family has been practicing artisanal mining for generations and was one of the first to be certified under the Oro Verde program.
For the last six years they have been working on a strip of land measuring approximately 700 square meters. They have carefully proceeded with their mining techniques, setting apart the top soil layer and replanting the excavated area after the mining was done.
By doing so they have minimized their impact on the environment and made an income for their families and a home for their children. It is quite humbling and at the same time motivating to learn that the average revenue of this artisanal mine is about 40 grams of fine gold a month. Meaning that a pair of wedding rings is sustaining a large family for over two weeks or one person for over half a year. How is that for economic value!
When flying over the Chocó region going from Medellín to Quibdó we could already see the devastation caused by the illegal large-scale mining. Large open pits the size of a few football fields that where once the property of a small family that had rented out their land for a few dollars to entrepreneurs looking for precious metals.
In less than three months time a piece of land that once was someone’s backyard and could be used for agriculture is turned into a large open pit. Since the excavation has to be done as quickly as possible the illegal miners don’t take the effort of setting apart the most fruitful top soil layer in order to restore the area after excavation.
Obviously they don’t recoil about the use of mercury or cyanide either. The specific spot we visited had been totally destroyed and had produced approximately 4kg of gold, a quantity you could easily carry in a small handbag.
It was hard to understand that so little was done about this kind of illegal mining but the local governments cannot do too much as long as they are not able to offer a reasonable alternative for making a living. Renting out your land to mining companies or entrepreneurs is for most people the only way to send their children to school in hope for a better future.
Forbidding this will obviously not help the sitting government get re-elected and without help and support from the main government there is very little they can do. In our meeting with the artisanal mining communities, we therefore did not so much want to look for problems to be solved, but discussed ways to expand the opportunities that are already there.
For instance, a better filtration system could offer a higher revenue and also diminish the silt load flowing to the river and we would also help to raise awareness for the program in Chocó by sharing our own experiences and making the miners and the rest of the community realize that we share the same dream.
A few months prior to our visit most miners had already received their premium and experienced the benefits of the program they had been supporting for so long now.
It is on the day of sale that the miners who have been certified and audited by Oro Verde get 2% extra on the London fix price for fine gold. Oro Verde sells this gold to the jewellers involved at a 15% premium. The resulting profits also fully benefits the community.
Together they have to decide how to reinvest the premium and then issue a plan to Oro Verde. The premium will be used accordingly. In the case of the Tadó community, the miners had mutually agreed to put a percentage of the total premium into a pension fund for the older miners to enjoy their old age, should they wish to stop or hand over their mine to a new generation. Other uses for it included investments in light machinery to help in the daily mining activities, and community buildings.
Oro Verde grants the premium in the form of bricks and mortar or buys the machinery for the miners. They do not grant cash directly, just to make sure it is money well spent and according to the plans issued. This way the mining communities have been able to adapt their lives and focus on other areas such as agriculture, better housing facilities and slowly improve their quality of life.
To persuade people who live on an average of one dollar a day to look at the long term benefits, wait for the premium to accumulate and issue a plan for reinvestment obviously involves a lot of negotiations, hard work and trust. Therefore it was extremely rewarding to see that our involvement and even the little effort of buying one pair of wedding rings is really making a difference.
And so our journey came to an end. The last mine we visited was Maria Cilse’s. A female miner applying to be certified under the Oro Verde criteria. After a walk through the jungle, six extremely sweaty
Europeans stood there watching, photographing and filming a 55 year old women working in her mine, looking for a bit of gold. None of us were physically able to move and yet here she was, digging her way through and throwing rocks aside.
On asking if she worked alone she replied “No, withthree.” Obviously we wondered, so we asked who the other two were that worked in her mine and left her here all by herself. She replied: “it is me, my dog, and God.”
