GoldWest’s Environmental Mining Program
Benefiting Artisanal Miners throughout Colombia
For as long as the gold mining industry has existed, the use of mercury to amalgamate gold has been in use. As is commonly known, this has resulted in tremendous health consequences for those small miners exposed to mercury, as well as degradation in the water and soil well beyond where mercury is employed. In response to this concern, the Minamata Convention was created to eliminate the use of mercury and to help protect human health and the environment. The effort was ratified by 140 countries around the world. It has been estimated that around 20 million artisanal miners around the world still use mercury in mining.
Colombia is an example of the transitions taking place worldwide with attention to the devastating effects of mercury, and demonstrates how GoldWest’s programs can help. In mid-2018, after decades of negative impacts of mercury use in Colombia, the federal government banned the use of mercury for industrial applications in the precious metals industry. While this will have significant positive long term effects for the population and the environment, it has left the 8000 or more artisanal gold miners in Colombia without a means of income. In visits to local mines around the country, the GoldWest team has heard firsthand about the financial hardships the new regulations have created.
The GoldWest business model, buying ores and ore concentrates directly from the miners, offers an alternative source of income to these miners, and allows them to be paid quickly for their mined materials without having to recover the gold themselves. Not only are they paid a fair price for the material right from the mines, but they are able to receive better profits than they could using mercury due to the poor recovery rates unsophisticated miners typically get.
GoldWest and its partners on the ground in countries such as Colombia are encouraging small family miners to reject mercury recovery and benefit from direct purchases of their mining materials. GoldWest has relationships with many mines in Colombia and elsewhere in South America who are benefiting from the capital and expertise the company brings, and as a result miners are freed from the ravages of mercury usage and wasted unrecovered gold, and are earning a fair wage for their gold bearing ores and concentrates.