Cotapata gold mine
The Cotapata Gold Mine ( Cooperativa Minera Aurífera COTAPATA ) is a mining cooperative in the highlands of Bolivia .
Fair trade
In 2011, the cooperative was the first gold production facility to be awarded the Fairtrade and Fairmined seal of approval as a Fairtrade organization. As "fair trade" ( English Fair Trade ) is a controlled trade referred to in which at least a set of Fair Trade Organizations minimum price is paid to producers for the products traded, the above the world market price is set. This is intended to enable producers to earn a higher and more reliable income than in conventional retail. To this end, attempts are also made to build long-term “partnership” relationships between traders and producers. International environmental and social standards as well as those prescribed by the organizations should also be complied with in production.
In addition to the Cotapata gold mine in Bolivia, only two other gold production sites are currently awarded the Fairtrade seal: the Sotrami gold mine in Peru and the Oro Verde project in Colombia .
Cooperativa Minera Aurífera Cotapata
The Minera Aurífera Cotapata cooperative was founded in 1991 and today has 88 shareholders, including ten women. The members of the cooperative have the same rights regardless of their gender, they have a share in the profit generated by the mining cooperative and are insured. The cooperative's accommodation and workplaces are protected from frequent rainfall by fixed roofs, and sturdy protective clothing and respiratory masks are part of the fixed equipment.
location
The gold mine is located in the Cotapata National Park (Parque nacional y área natural de manejo integrado Cotapata (PN y ANMI Cotapata) ), which was founded in 1993 and covers an area of 650 km².
The mine is located near the mine tunnels on the Río Huarinilla, a tributary to the Río Coroico that flows over the Río Kaka to the Río Beni . Down the river from the cooperative camp, at an altitude of 1296 m, is the village of Korisamaña / Chairo , to which the camp administratively belongs. Chairo is located in the canton of Pacollo in the district ( Bolivian : Municipio ) Coroico , one of two municipalities in the Nor Yungas province in the La Paz department .
Environmental standards
The mining cooperative was founded two years before the Cotapata National Park was founded, so the mine did not have to be closed when it was founded, but its production is subject to strict environmental standards. The cooperative can not do without the use of the environmental toxin mercury in the amalgam process to increase the purity of the gold extracted. However , the mercury used is repeatedly recovered for the production process in a complex distillation process. The cooperative's monthly production is between 2.5 and 3 kilograms of gold, with a purity of 93 to 94 percent. The river water, which is muddy due to the production process, is dammed up by a dam and fed back into the river as residue-free water through a pipe system.
Web links
- Cooperativa Minera Aurífera COTAPATA ( Spanish )
- World's first Fairtrade and Fairmined certified gold to tackle poverty faced by miners and their families Fairtrade Foundation February 14, 2011 ( English )
- The pilot communities of artisanal fair trade gold miners Patrick Schein ( English )
- FAIRMINED pilot projects: Cotapata, Bolivia Alliance for Responsible Mining. In: YouTube ( Spanish / English )
Individual evidence
- ↑ More than just a fair price FairTrade.de, accessed on December 6, 2011.
Coordinates: 16 ° 12 ′ 10 ″ S , 67 ° 50 ′ 15 ″ W