A report on gold mining in Colombia
A translation of an article published in NRC Handelsblad on 5-3-2011.
An expedition to find Colombian gold diggers looking for ‘green gold’: gold that is mined ecologically, without exploitation of the people or the environment. “It’s hard but rewarding work.” Written by Marcel Haenen. Photography by Kike Arnal
‘Green’ gold Golddiggers looking for gold in La Angostura.
A report on gold mining in Colombia
der to turn it into a drug traders’ paradise.
WRONG Large-scale illegal mining with the use of excavators near Tadó.
T
he Colombians call it Oro Verde, green gold, and mine worker Americo Mosquera is happy to show us what it looks like. He is standing barefoot in the sweltering heat with a spade in his hand as he digs for environmentally-friendly gold in his alluvial gold mine – a winding, stony creek in the hills of La Angostura, a village in the coastal province of Chocó. “It’s just like washing nappies,” jokes Mosquera (53) as he grabs a bucket to clean the mats that he has been using to sieve mud and stones for hours on end. He rinses the remaining sediment off in a series of dishes and uses the sap from a leaf to remove the last impurities from the precious metals. All he is left with is a few gold and platinum nuggets. “Here are the fruits of a long week’s work,” he comments, his spirits high. Chocó is one of the warmest, wettest and poorest regions on earth. The rainforest here is more or less impenetrable, isolating the AfroColombian community (approx. 12 million people) and a number of native tribes from the rest of the world. More than 90 percent of the population are descendants of African slaves who were brought here by the Spanish colo-
nisers. Over the past 25 years, guerrilla and paramilitary violence and the cocaine trade have pushed them even further into isolation. The guerrillas, rebels and smugglers continue to fight over territory in a battle to protect the trafficking routes that lead to the Colombian coast. The violence in this largely lawless region has forced one million people to flee. The capital city of Chocó, a department of Colombia, is Quibdo. It fails to get a mention in the most recent, fifth edition of the Lonely Planet Guide for Colombia, released in June 2009. According to the publisher of the guide, “the Colombian army is unable to guarantee the safety of foreign visitors and warns tourists not to visit the area.” Things have improved over the past year for the people in this ‘black’ coastal region, but this is all relative. In the local weekly newspaper, Chocó 7 días, dated 4th February 2011, an author from the chief editorial staff comments on the most recent attacks: “Why punish us when we live in such a deprived and isolated place? Why us?” He also writes on how gangsters are exploiting the region’s isolation and absence of any government authorities in or-
A new campaign In light of this, the Dutch development agency Solidaridad and a number of local partner organisations have targeted this region for the promotion of sustainable gold mining. They hope to develop the same standards for this yellow, precious metal as apply to cotton, bananas, soya and coffee. Gold should only be mined using environmentally-friendly, safe and responsible methods. An international standard will make all the difference. “Large-scale mining is responsible for 80 percent of the gold that is mined worldwide. They use toxic chemicals like cyanide and mercury that seep into the groundwater and rivers, polluting the forests and eventually, the sea. And once the mines are exhausted, the native inhabitants are left with nothing to show for it except pollution,” comments Solidaridad’s Irene Bosman. “But small-scale miners use mercury to help them mine the gold as well. In fact,” Bosman continues, “there are thirteen million people worldwide who work in these extremely difficult, unhealthy and dangerous conditions. They end up breathing in the mercury, only to be paid unfair prices for their gold and because they are illegal workers, they don’t have any rights either.” This kind of small-scale mining can be found in more than sixty different countries worldwide. Last year, the development agencies and mining organisations involved in this new campaign launched the Fairtrade-Fairmined (FTFM) standard. This is an international standard inspired by the ‘green’ gold miners of Colombia, Oro Verde, who have been mining gold in a sustainable way for a number of years. In order to be awarded this standard, miners have to comply with a number of organisational and environmental requirements, as well as working conditions. The alliance hopes that the first jewellery made from FT-FM gold will be available on the Dutch market later this year. The price of the fair-trade gold is approximately 10 percent higher than normal in order to encourage the producers to prospect for gold in a sustainable and responsible way. “It’s likely that sustainable gold mining will have a significant impact on regions such as Chocó, where mining is their main economic activity,” comments Sandra Hernández of AmiChocó Foundation (friends of Chocó) from her office in Medellín. Last month, the Colombian organisation Oro Verde was approved for FTFM certification. “80 percent of the people living in Chocó live in extreme poverty. The region is perfect for ecotourism but nobody dares go there because of all the domestic conflict. All
RIGHT Americo Mosquera (left) and Luis Armando are digging for gold in their creek in a sustainable way.
that’s there are schools, powerless institutions and a lot of corruption. But this FT-FM standard is going to open a lot of ‘golden’ doors to more social justice for the artisanal miners,” adds Hérnandez. The ‘green’ gold miner Americo Mosquera is pleased with the recognition he has received for how he works. “Life is difficult; it’ll never make me rich and it’s hard work; but it’s rewarding because I’m looking after the environment at the same time.” Mosquera has spent nine years slogging as a miner and in all those years, he estimates that he has collected a total of about two kilos of gold. That is just enough to support him and his ten children.
‘Once the mines are exhausted, the native inhabitants are left with nothing to show for it except pollution.’
As the price of gold continues to rise, so do the cases of gold fever. Yet the volume of green gold is still quite modest. The organisation Oro Verde currently only works with registered sustainable miners from two municipalities, Tadó and Condoto, in the Chocó province. This comprises 194 mining families (1300 people) who work in 7900 hectares of tropical rainforest. Annually, they produce somewhere between 6 and 12 kilos of gold. Solidaridad also supports responsible gold mining in Bolivia and Peru, where there are two and four times more gold miners and where two and four times more gold is produced, respectively. Irene Bosman, who visited Chocó last month, admits that these are relatively small amounts. “We are trying to make people more aware of these small-scale projects.” Run-ofthe-mill goldmines produce 2500 tonnes of gold every year. The new standard is intended to put production using fair-trade mining techniques up to 25 tonnes within the next fifteen years. Excavators The difference between ‘green’ mining and large-scale, illegal mining is easy to see if you
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‘People buying jewellery should be more aware of the consequences that buying gold can have.’ Nuggets
Jewellery designer Bibi van der Velden in the goldmine in La Angostura.
Jewellery made from green gold
The bracelet of Solidaridad’s campaign.
Pop singer Lady Gaga wears her wearable works of art; Princess Marilène and the model Frederique van der Wal buy her jewellery; and for the past few weeks, the gold prospectors in the Colombian rainforest in the province of Chocó have even been wearing bracelets designed by jewellery designer and sculptor from Amsterdam, Bibi van der Velden (31). Van der Velden is an ambassador for the ‘Op weg naar Goed Goud’ (Towards Good Gold) campaign that was launched by the development agency Solidaridad, based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in October. She trained as an artist in Italy and The Netherlands
and has designed a bracelet that people can order online at www. opwegnaargoedgoud.nl for 15 euros. The proceeds are destined for the gold campaign. Last month, she travelled to Colombia to see how Solidaridad in The Netherlands and Colombian development organisations have helped hundreds of miners produce gold using responsible and sustainable methods. “I never knew that gold mining had such an enormous social and environmental impact,” said Van der Velden after having spent a few days visiting the gold miners. With big grey wellington boots on and her long blonde hair tied up with a blue scarf, Van der Velden helped the miners sieve gravel in the river. When they had finished, she gave each of them one of her bracelets. “In addition to the large multinational mining firms, there are millions of miners worldwide who spend everyday trying to find gold and it’s gold fever that often leads to the devastation of their own surroundings. If the price of gold continues to rise as it is now, the problems will only get worse. It’s good that we are finally creating more awareness for this issue.” Bibi van der Velden is a seasoned traveller. As she puts it, she likes to be inspired by the materials she comes across en route: a marble stone from an Italian riverbed or a mammoth’s tooth from Siberia apparently do the job astonishingly well. As she returns from a walk in the Chocó jungle holding a blue duck’s feather in one hand, she has a triumphant look about her. The artist intends on making a piece of jewellery with the nugget
of ‘green gold’ she is taking with her from Colombia that will be put on exhibition in The Netherlands. Of the special bracelet she designed for the campaign, five thousand have already been sold. It has symbols cast into a bronze ring and an adjustable band. “I chose a ring because it’s a symbol of eternity,” comments Van der Velden. “The symbols on the ring represent freedom, peace, joy around the world, love and lastly, there is a star, which is my own personal symbol.” Van der Velden has been moved by the poverty in which the mine workers live as well as by their sense of pride that they feel when mining gold sustainably - just like the pride felt by Americo Mosquera. “I can understand why the miners didn’t want to have their photos taken in the illegal mines as they were embarrassed by the severity and dirtiness of their work. It’s a lot of hard work for just a little bit of powdered gold.” Van der Velden hopes that the people who buy gold jewellery in the future will be prepared to pay that little bit extra for sustainable gold than they would for ‘normal’ gold. “Even the smallest sign of change will make a big difference. Just like what happened with the introduction of Max Havelaar coffee.” The expedition to the gold mines in Colombia was organised by Solidaridad and the Colombian Amichoco Foundation.
Rinsing gravel in search of gold.
> take a good look at the rainforest. Brown bald patches and the odd broken-down excavator that has been left behind and is slowly being devoured by the undergrowth, litter the magnificent forest. Whilst just outside the town of Tadó, a large yellow excavator is trying to dig an enormous crater at the side of the road. As the hole fills with water, a group of people start panning along its edge with their wooden pans, looking for gold. The excavator digs up earth and stones and puts it onto a large conveyor belt, which works as a sieve. A number of the workers protect themselves from the sun with umbrellas. Occasionally, the wall of the crater gives way, with everyone managing to get out of the way just in time. Then they just carry on digging. A flake of gold is enough to buy a basket of food in town. One gram of gold will get these illegal diggers 23 euro whilst the global market value of this more or less pure gold, is 33 euros per gram. “At a site like this, the diggers excavate as much in one day as an artisanal miner can dig in an entire year,” comments Sandra Hernández as she watches the spectacle from a distance. “This is illegal mining. The landowner may well give them permission to be on his land, but they need a licence from the government to be allowed to dig. And those licences are never issued.” The owner of the land, the 60 year old AfroColombian Mauro Andrei Quintero, stands at the edge of the fast-expanding crater and explains how the men with the excavators pay him 20 percent of the gold that they find. He is quite happy with the situation as digging with machines has two advantages: he earns money from the gold and the resulting craters can be used for other enterprises: “I put tanks in the craters and farm fish in them: tilapia and cachama,” Quintero explains. In fact, he is not quite sure why the Oro Verde people are making such a fuss. “The soil here is so fertile that the vegetation will soon grow back,” he comments. Ten years ago, after a long battle, the people who live here finally became the legal owners of the land they live on. Fifty-one year old Aristarco Mosquera, the person voted as spokesperson for Tadó’s community council, is an advocate for the
Afro-Colombian community. “There are a lot of companies that want to take our land away from us, and it’s working. The problem is that even though our rights are acknowledged by the State, they won’t do anything to uphold them.” “The people here live from hand to mouth. They always need money to pay hospital bills, to pay for their children to go to school, or just to pay for food,” he adds. Mosquera understands that the quick cash from illegal mining can be very tempting, even if it does damage the environment, and he only really expects thing to change if European and American consumers actually start buying the ‘green gold’. Last month, the English jewellery maker Stephen Webster announced that he intended to start working with sustainable gold. Jewellery manufacturer Flamingo in Nieuwegein is going to be the first importer of ‘green’ gold in The Netherlands and Solidaridad hopes to expand
the availability of certified gold considerably. They expect the roughly twenty mining communities to produce approximately 300 kilos of Fairtrade-Fairmined gold in 2011 and are going to be working with Max Havelaar, the Dutch Fairtrade Labelling Initiative, to put this responsible gold on the Dutch market. Americo Mosquera, the ‘green’ gold miner, is pleased. “If nothing changes, we will continue to be the slaves in the current social order,” he adds. “It would be good if people buying jewellery were made more aware of the consequences that buying gold can have; that it’s worthwhile paying a little bit more if it leads to responsible gold mining.” As a matter of habit, Mosquera slides the golden nuggets into a re-sealable plastic pot and puts it into the pocket of his soaking-wet jeans. On Friday, he will be selling them. <
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Market at the Atrato river in Quibdo, capital of the region Chocó in Colombia.
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