I have been mining for the Afro-Colombian communities in Colombia. It’s not a very positive world –the process of slavery that our ancestors went through was partly linked to mining. We know that the great golden crowns in different societies and the biggest, oldest museums are the products of our ancestors who were slaves. This is why mining for us as Afro-Colombian people does not have positive connotations. Mining was a legacy left behind by slavery and was one of the only ways to survive. We weren’t slaves anymore, but it was the only way of existing, so we were slaves to mining.
I was 6 years old when 80% of my family died because of mining; my mum died because of mining. The Afro-Colombian communities have been able to gain acknowledgement of the collective ownership of our territories. The people said that we were occupying land belonging to the nation, but we were able to gain landowner rights.
I represent a collective in a mining area of 7500 hectares. There’s immense richness in this area – environmental, cultural, and precious metals. So we had to prove to the Colombian government that our traditional practices were sustainable. That the area would not disappear but that we would be able to guarantee not just our own survival but that our future descendants would be able to live in that same area. This acknowledgement was not easy to get. While people were awarded for liberating slaves, the slaves were just left there with no way to work the land so we had to use subsistence methods to make do. With Oro Verde coming about, we saw that in order to be able to sustain our existence we had to depend on mining.
However, other actors – legal and illegal – arrived to carry out mining, which actually threatens the environmental sustainability and the cultural richness of the area. I think it is important that you’re aware that the big mining multinationals are not interested in the lives of the people in those areas. They just want to exploit.
We don’t use the word ‘exploitation’ for our own mining activities, because of the negative connotations. We use a different word, which means ‘to make the most of’. We use it in a sustainable way in order to guarantee the future existence of our people. We have been able to develop our own strategy to carry out mining activities that guarantees environmental and cultural sustainability. We can only sustain this with our strategic allies, like yourselves. To make this happen, we need awareness on the part of the consumer, and not just on mining but also on forestry. We are one of the most water-rich areas and there are some many different riches to be gained from our territory, not through exploitation but by making the most of those resources. This is why we ask each and every one of you to support us to get technology, which backs up our traditional systems and does not threaten our livelihood.
We can see that the Fairtrade gold movement started out from the centre of an area which is one of the world’s lungs. The area where we are from is such an important ecosystem, contributing also to the world, and also such an important cultural patrimony and heritage. This is why we want to tell you our story. For us, the premium is not a way to duplicate capital; it is a premium to conserve. By supporting the Fairtrade system you are not just supporting the miners and communities to get out of poverty but you address important global issues.
We want to protect this ecosystem, but we will not be able to do it with the continued onslaught of assassinations and forced disappearances of our community leaders who try to take on the fight on their own. Governments receive a lot of support, but let’s see if that support gets to the people who need it. We are supporting the Colombian government, but what does that actually mean? Is the government contributing to the betterment of people’s lives, strengthening their cultures and supporting conservation?
Why did the Coperacion Oro Verde programme even come about and why is it called Green Gold? The name is a combination of two words – yellow, which means the gold and the richness of precious metals, and verde, green, which means the offerings of nature and the richness of the culture. Which of the two has the most value? The gold? We have always asked ourselves that question, every time we are trying to protect our culture and environment in exchange for those resources.
A great leader once said that if people don’t tell their history, history will be repeated. You have to tell your history so that it does not repeat again. I’m not representing a company, I’m representing a group of people. We want people here in the UK and in the world to understand our situation. Our interest is not capitalistic, but we want to be able to survive and sustain ourselves as people so our future generations can continue to live as we do, but in better conditions. We do not want to be expropriated from our origins. We live together in much suffering, but we contribute to the world’s ecosystem.
When we started off with Oro Verde we had 10 collective territories; one was 7,300 hectares and the other was 54,500 hectares, but there was so much interest from mining companies and illegal miners who invaded our territory. In one of our units we had 90 family units, but the pressure has been so much that they have had to abandon their mining activity; they are no longer able to contribute to the Fairtrade initiative because a company now exploits this area.
In the case of Asocasan in our territory, there were 75 families and 35 of us were Fairtrade certified. Now there are only 12 families left, and we are trying to resist the pressure from mining companies. We’re threatened. If we don’t act and don’t act quickly, these actors will take advantage of the extreme poverty and vulnerability of our people and say we will give you the means to eat today if you let us use your territory. This is something immediate, something worrying. In the future we might only be able to speak to you about being the pioneers in Fairtrade, but we might have been left behind.
Felipe Arango, Oro Verde, Colombia
I want to complement briefly what Aristarco has said. Over the last year and a half we have met with the miners and they have decided that there are two paths for Oro Verde – the first is to increase margins significantly. We are the only producers of ecological-certified gold and ecological-certified platinum in the world; we should increase margins significantly and associate the value of biodiversity and social justice and peace-building to the metals we are selling.
The second is to increase productivity. At the current levels of production and with the difficulty the miners are facing, it won’t work. We are looking for partners and allies to help us access funds to purchase low environmental impact equipment such as water pumps to improve our efficiency and productivity. Right now, we have 12 heroes still committed to producing gold according to Fairtrade standards, with a possibility to expand to 60. We have accumulated 1 kg of gold and 500g of platinum, which we plan to auction at the end of the year. We would like to prove to the miners that their gold has more value than it really has and want to access more funds for building their technical capacity.
