INNOVATION January-February 2017

f ea t u r e s

collecting it for reuse. Retorts reduce mercury-gas exposure by as much as 90 percent. Unfortunately, this approach has had limited success. Many miners stop using retorts as soon as the practitioners leave, and return to methods they have used for generations. Minerales Córdoba, an indirect subsidiary of Canadian company Córdoba Minerals that operates the San Matias copper–gold project in Córdoba, northern Colombia, focuses on educating younger generations—a longer-term and less direct approach. Minerales Córdoba has created a colouring book for children in the area, where the ‘traditional’ El Alacran Mine has been operating for more than 40 years. The book warns the children of the dangers of swimming in mercury-contaminated rivers and of eating mercury- contaminated fish and animals. Taking an even longer-term approach, Veiga and his team are expanding the network of 39 training centres they have established to date in artisanal mining areas in Guyana, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru with funding from the UN and the US. “We propose to have training centres to teach artisanal miners small-scale cyanidation, using equipment from Canada,” says Veiga. The project’s seeks to eliminate mercury from the small- scale mining process altogether. At the international level, the Minamata Convention on Mercury drives global efforts to end mercury mining, trade and pollution. Canada signed the treaty in 2013 and, in May 2016, proposed adding mercury to the restricted exports list to ratify the treaty. As Canada’s centre of expertise in improving and strengthening resource governance, CIRDI helps government ministries of developing countries adhere to the treaty and legitimise artisanal mining through training and support. “The Minamata Convention on Mercury is the first global convention that differentiates artisanal mining from everything else,” Dales says. It is small part of addressing a much bigger problem. Organisation Leads to Formalisation “My a-ha! moment was when I realised that just ‘getting rid of these people’ is the wrong way of going about it,” CIRDI’s Stevens says. “This is how people are making their living.” By organising efforts and working together to identify, educate and support miners who want to continue mining, governments, companies, not-for-profit agencies, engineers, geoscientists and other individuals create the conditions for success in reducing mercury use and pollution from artisanal mining. For example, Canadian explorer Continental Gold partnered with Veiga to develop and implement a sustainable co-existence plan with local miners at their high-grade Buriticá gold project, in Antioquia, Colombia. Continental’s Chief Operating Officer Donald Gray says that soon after the company made their Buriticá discovery, thousands of informal miners came to and started working in the area, and national and local authorities had to intervene. The influx put enormous pressure on water resources and local health facilities.

Children in northern Colombia's El Alacran Mine area are learning that it is dangerous to swim in mercury-contaminated rivers and eat mercury- contaminated food. P hoto : Kylie Williams

Practitioners who work with artisanal miners are encouraging them to switch to retorts. The devices come in many designs, but the basic system involves heating the amalgam under a cover, capturing the mercury gas, and condensing and

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