Colombia has more miners entering formalization. In Santander, 160 miners from the municipality of California signed the formalization subcontract with the Minesa company.
Bucaramanga, June 22, 2021. After three years of dialogue and agreement, Minesa and Calimineros signed the formalization subcontract within the framework of the National Government's mining policy, which will allow 160 miners to carry out legal mining, thus preserving more than 450 years of tradition in the municipality of California where mining is the main source of income.
It is a milestone for the mining formalization of Santander, this subcontract is one of the most representative that adds to the process of mining formalization that the National Government has proposed, at the head of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, to reach 27,000 formalized miners at the end of the current government.
“We are proud of this process and of the progress that we saw in Calimineros for three years and in the push of the partners to become part of the formality. It is a case of success for the mining sector, we walked together in this step by step, which began with house-to-house conversations so that 160 families who had an interest in operating legally in their territory, managed to form a company that today will allow them carry out its mining activity in a formal and safe manner ”, said Mauricio Cuesta, Executive Vice President and Legal of Minesa.
For his part, Jorge Abad Maldonado, manager of Calimineros pointed out that “it is the greatest achievement of the California miners in history because we have made our formalization a reality. There are 160 families who become legal under the protection of a subcontract that ensures our permanence in the territory, and gives us the possibility of preserving the mining ancestry. These projects are not achieved without the support of private companies and even less, without the support of the National Government through its ministries. We fulfilled the dream of staying in the territory without fleeing, and now from the legal sphere ”.
Now begins the work plan for Calimineros to present its Environmental Impact Study to the Regional Autonomous Corporation (CDMB) to obtain its environmental license and start the operation process.
In this work, Minesa and Calimineros had the direction of the Ministry of Mines; as well as the inter-institutional support of the National Mining Agency (ANM), the USAID Legal Gold program, the Universidad del Rosario, the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga (Unab), the University of Santander (Udes), Fedemunicipios and the Sena. As well as regional leaders like the California priest.
About the Formalization Subcontract and the joint work with Calimineros:
- In a participatory approach, Calimineros and Minesa jointly built the conditions that govern the development of formal mining in California, under the scheme of a mining formalization subcontract.
- The subcontract includes a technical and administrative support that will be permanent to ensure that the project is developed in compliance with the laws, and especially, environmental and health and safety regulations at work.
- The mineral resources identified in the area of the subcontract, guarantee that the mining work will have continuity over time.
- The Subcontract will directly benefit the families of its 160 partners , with direct and indirect jobs and the creation of the solidarity fund to carry out social responsibility initiatives and programs in the municipality.
- Calimineros becomes a strategic ally for the development of the formal economy in the municipality of California, which already reports concrete actions with the provision of services.
About Calimineros
The Calimineros company is the result of a participatory construction process to preserve the mining tradition, where the 160 mining partners recognize the advantages of being able to carry out their work legally that will bring them better living conditions, economic and social development and that they decided to associate since December 2018, to benefit from the formalization policy promoted by the National Government.
Minesa has been accompanying the institutional strengthening of Calimineros in order to ensure compliance with high standards of environmental management, mining, industrial, social and administrative safety.
About the mining formalization in Colombia
- To date, there are 1,132 subcontracts authorized by the National Mining Agency (ANM), although still with significant challenges in terms of technical, environmental and administrative matters because of that number only 121 are registered in the national mining registry and only 111 are active.
- Since the start of the formalization program, the Ministry of Mines and Energy has monitored 1,694 PSUs, all of them with approved work plans and works, and an environmental instrument; the Secretariat of Mines of Antioquia assisted 828 UPM (mining production units). This benefited a total of 10,378 miners, who were accompanied through the formalization program, and who today carry out their activity legally, with better mining, environmental and labor techniques, have social security, have access to credits, assistance for the elimination of the use of mercury in the case of gold mining and pay royalties. Source: Eiti Colombia.
- To date, of the 12,000 miners who are in the process of becoming legal, about 2,200 who are engaged in informal extractive work under the legal status of coexistence with other projects are on the way to formalization. Likewise, there are another 2,000 who already have their environmental and mining authorizations up to date, of which 1,000 can already work in an integrated manner. Source: Ministry of Mines and Energy, 2020.