AS COLOMBIA heralds in a new era of mining, one of the government’s biggest challenges is to formalise the status of traditional miners who operate without licenses, while simultaneously cracking down on those which serve rebels and criminal gangs. The government hopes that its new mining code, which will be submitted for congressional approval early next year, will do the trick. But miners are not convinced.
At least 40% of the 55.9 tonnes of gold produced in 2011 were extracted from unlicensed mines, according to Mauricio Cárdenas, Colombia’s mines minister. Some estimates put the figure at 60%. Miners say successive governments continuously change the rules of the game, making it impossible to obtain a legal title. “When we have the answers ready, they change the questions,” says Luz Stella Ramírez, who heads a confederation of small-scale miners.
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