Demand for 'Green' Gold Fuels Company's Record Growth
BOGOTA, Sep 23 (OneWorld) - An environmental gold-mining initiative is set to double its production this year in an attempt to keep up with increasing national and global demand.
Founded in 2000 in western Colombia's Choco region, the Corporation seeks to generate higher earnings for artisanal -- or small-scale -- miners, while also protecting the rainforest in which they work. "The first years were about creating the demand for environmentally certified gold," Lina Villa, the Corporation's general coordinator, told OneWorld. "Now demand is exceeding supply." Particularly noteworthy, she said, is the growth of demand within Colombia, which now accounts for around 40 percent of the Corporation's sales. Artisanal mining provides an alternative to the large-scale mechanized extraction that has caused significant environmental degradation in the Choco, a heavily rainforested area that is home to more plant and animal species than almost any other region of the world. Nearly 200 Afro-Colombian mining families, totaling around 1,300 individuals, have joined the Green Gold initiative since its inception. The Corporation provides training in low-impact mining and forest management, and buys the gold its miners extract for 2 percent above market price. After being certified in line with the Corporation's 12 environmental criteria, the gold is sold in North America, Europe, and Colombia, with the profits reinvested in local community projects. An estimated 7,900 hectares (27 square miles) of rainforest have been protected by the Corporation's initiative to date. In larger-scale, mechanized mining operations, which have become common to the area over the past three decades, bulldozers are generally used to clear forest for mining, damaging local ecosystems and water sources. In addition, the use of mercury to help separate gold from other metals has presented threats to human health and aquatic life in the region. According to the mining watchdog group EARTHWORKS, modern mines are "enormous operations that leave behind scarred landscapes, polluted water, and damaged communities."
In other cases, the companies have paid individual inhabitants for access, an illegal transaction given that all decisions regarding communal property must be taken by local councils. Large-scale mining operations have also been charged with smuggling their gold findings out of the Choco region to sell in neighboring areas, thereby evading the royalty payments required by law. Artisanal mining, on the other hand, is practiced by 80-100 million people worldwide and accounts for up to 25 percent of the extraction of non-fuel minerals, including diamonds and other gemstones, according to the International Labor Organization. The Green Gold initiative -- together with the rise in the world gold price -- has encouraged a renewed emphasis on small-scale extraction in Colombia. "Artisanal techniques have been handed down for centuries," said Green Gold's Villa. "The Choco's isolation has helped to conserve [those techniques], and also the myths that surround them, which have been lost in other parts of Colombia." Although artisanal mining methods avoid most of the damage caused by mechanized mining, they can still be made more environmentally friendly. According to Villa, "one of the biggest changes [under the Green Gold scheme] has been the miners' replacement of the topsoil removed in the extractive process." This has allowed miners to complement their income by growing crops, as well as encouraging the return of various plant and bird species to the region. Gold mining in the Choco, located along Colombia's Pacific coast, dates back to indigenous activity before the Spanish Conquest in the early 1500s. Today about 90 percent of the region's population are Afro-Colombians, mostly descendants of slaves who mined the region between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The Choco's natural wealth, however, has not translated into material wealth. Some 75 percent of the population live on under $2 a day. It was this poverty, together with the global success of fair-trade tea and coffee initiatives, that inspired Catalina Cock Duque, a university student from Colombia's capital Bogota, to establish the Green Gold Corporation in 2000. In recognition of the Corporation's impact, Cock Duque was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of its Young Global Leaders for 2007. While the Green Gold Corporation remains a small initiative, it now plans to extend its influence. A national advocacy group, the Confederation of Artisanal and Small-Scale Miners of Colombia, has recently been established to incorporate the voice of small-scale miners into government policies. At the international level, the Corporation has helped to found the Association for Responsible Mining, a global organization that is currently developing fair-trade standards for gold, including pilot projects in Bolivia and Peru. ....................................................................................
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