Gold mining in a green way

Thousands of people around the world (try to) make a living by producing gold in the mountains, rivers and other areas where the valuable mineral has been found. Many of them do this in Colombia, a country which is very rich in minerals. Larger companies of course produce the majority of the gold, but there are also many so-called artesanal miners. Some of them are formal small businesses mostly organized through local assocations. They have the land & exploration rights and they had some form of trades training, even though they still mostly work under very unsafe circumstances. Then there are informal miners who might have land-rights but seldom have the required training. The last group are unfortunately illegal miners, without land rights and without permits. And probably none of them have any form of training. Organized crime sometimes finances their exploration especially when they do their illegal work in protected natural forest areas. The negative impact they have on the eco-systems is potentially devastating because of the frequent use of mercury and other dangerous chemicals.

The good news is that there are ways to avoid the use of mercury. In some areas of northern Colombia and in Suriname local miners have recently experimented with the use of plants which absorb mercury and in other parts of the world such as Senegal appropriate technology has been developed for reasonably cheap and effective alternatives to separate the gold from the rocks. However, none of these methods have proven to be "universal" yet. More research will be needed.

Gold mining is of crucial importance for hundreds of thousands of families in mostly small rural communities for their income generation. If we can find ways to facilitate heir work in a "green way", in a way that does not so badly impact their natural environment and their community's public health, we will have made their way of life more sustainable and with more dignity.

Preparations

One can never prepare enough of course. But on the other hand "over preparation" can also block the mind which needs to be open for the "active listening" required to get a project of this size going with an appropriate community based participatory process. One of my first activities in Colombia will be to visit our two pilot communities (as I already described in one of the blog entries of yesterday). At the moment I am preparing those visits with one of my colleagues in Colombia. Bibiana is a coordinator of the SENA training center for mining & agriculture in Cartagena, the capital city of the province ("departamento") of Bolivar where our two pilot communities are located. We need to agree on the best dates for these visits and then Bibiana will get things organized with the local authorities. So I described to Bibiana with whom I hope to meet (together with Bibiana) and why. That will give her the required information to start the planning in January as soon as everybody starts the work again in Colombia where it is common to take a 3-4 week break from mid December to mid January.

When I took off to Mozambique in late 1988 with MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders), I had only one week preparation. However, I did survive my two years there and I learned more than I could ever have imagined. But that was then. Colombia is now, 24 years later. I hope that I will be able to put into practice the life and work lessons I learned in between these two placements.

I will fly to Bogota on January 8 and I will then spend the first few days finding an apartment and getting settled with other logistical practicalities. I have already met many of my colleagues at SENA during my two week stay in Colombia in November, so it will be easy to get started with them and start planning concrete activities based on our (draft) Project Implementation Plan.

During the coming days I will be working in Ottawa with some of the ACCC staff as well as with my colleague technical advisors who will be based in La Paz, Bolivia and Lima, Peru. Then we will all try to relax over the holiday season and re-charge the batteries. I will be back with some blogs in early January before I leave to Bogota and then with weekly blog entries from there.

Explaining the title of this blog

Your best friend can also be your best critic. My wife Mary's first reaction on the title of my blog was one of surprise; she siad: ".. digging for gold?.... that does not sound much like a development project...". So why did I choose that name? It was the first thing that came to my mind when Cassie asked me what title I had in mind for my blog when she set it up for me a few days ago. The EFE project in Colombia will most likely focus on two trades areas: gold mining training for artesanal miners and training for small scale farmers. I will be able to give more details in February and March when I will have visted the two isolated communities of Santa Rosa del Sur and Barranco de Loba again. There is a significant increase on gold mining in Colombia, and a fair amount of this increase is caused by informal small scale mining, or also called artesanal mining. These miners are in most cases under-educated and in need of training on safety and sustainable practices, for example finding alternatives for the use of mercury which has direct negative impact on their own health but which has also a devastating negative impact on the natural environment, including the drinking water of their own communities.

So "digging for gold" plays on the fact that an important part of my work in Colombia will be to reach out to people who dig for gold for a living. I hope it makes more sense now?

Technology and distance

When I was at university in the seventies a computer was a "monster" and you had to make punch cards to make it work. Now..... well you know. Blogging will be a new adventure for me. The past years I chased students and interns at Niagara College to have them make weekly blog entries while being on placements abroad.... now it is my turn....

I will work on a bilateral program called "Education for Employment" (EFE) between the Colombian and Canadian governments. My role as "Technical Advisor" is to get this new program started with SENA (see www.sena.edu.co if your Spanish is OK). If you would like to know more about the EFE program go to www.accc.ca and look under "International Partnerships".

In November I spend a few weeks in Bogota, Cartagena, Santa Rosa del Sur and Barranco de Loba, places which I will call my "home away from home" as of January 2013 for a full year. Through this blog I will update you about my observations and experiences. Hope you will enjoy reading...

Saludos y abrazos (greetings and hugs)

Tim Hortons

December 17 in a Tim Hortons in Welland with Cassandra Musungayi, commerce graduate from Niagara College and expert blogger, to start this new virtual experience for me. I will be living and working for a year in Colombia and look forward to sharing stories with you. 

Cassandra & me