One of the long-running conflicts in Colombia has been the
battle between Colombia’s “artisanal” gold miners and the Colombian government
and its allies, the large mining companies that operate in the country. For a
long time, largely overshadowed by the higher-priority armed conflicts in
Colombia, artisanal gold miners operated in the background. However, when gold prices
skyrocketed in the last decade, informal gold mining quickly followed suit.
Artisanal mining is incredibly controversial because of the
tremendous environmental devastation that unregulated mining can have on the
environment. However, simply declaring these activities illegal does not
resolve the problem. Solidarity organizations for artisanal miners in Colombia
have been working to formalize
and organize small-scale miners in the country. These new mining
cooperatives will hopefully give the individual miners a voice in the public
policy decision making process.
Nonetheless, not all of the news about artisanal mining is
positive. Individuals continue to subvert
the environmental regulations that have been put in place, polluting
rivers, ground water, and soil. The Colombian authorities are doing all
they can, but the allure of profit is a strong one.
We believe that the underlying problem is one of
communication: the government is not involving the artisanal mining communities
in the conversation about state policy on mining, and is not providing them
with the resources to continue mining, but in a manner that is less destructive
to the environment.
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