Sotrami gold mine

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The Sotrami Gold Mine ( Sociedad de Trabajadores Mineros, SA ) is a mining cooperative in the Atacama Desert in the South American Andean state of Peru .

Fair trade

The FAIRTRADE seal of approval

In 2011, after the Cotapata gold mine, the Sotrami gold mining cooperative was the second gold production facility to be awarded the Fairtrade and Fairmined seal of approval as a Fairtrade organization. As "fair trade" ( English Fairtrade ) to controlled trade is called, in which the producers of the traded products at least a set of Fair Trade Organizations minimum price is paid, the above the world market priceis 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 Sotrami gold mine in Peru, only two other gold production sites are currently awarded the Fairtrade seal: the Cotapata gold mine in Bolivia and the Oro Verde project in Colombia .

Sociedad de Trabajadores Mineros, SA

The Sociedad de Trabajadores Mineros cooperative was founded in 1989 after unemployed miners started prospecting gold in abandoned mines in the Santa Filomena region in the 1980s , where they founded the cooperative and acquired mining licenses at the end of the decade. After two years of intensive testing by the certification organization FLO-Cert, Sotrami became the first Fairtrade-certified mine in Peru in May 2011.

The workers of the Sotrami cooperative receive regular medical checks and are trained in safety standards, including the responsible use of chemicals and safety in the tunnels. "The miners must always wear their safety equipment because it is very important that the workers can work in good health, calmly and with concentration," explains Benjamin Vasquez, one of the gold diggers.

Some women also work for Sotrami SA in Santa Filomena, but not directly in the tunnel, but as so-called 'Pallaqueras', who are responsible for pre-sorting the gold-bearing rock. The women are organized in a cooperative and at the end of each month they share their income among themselves. Child labor is generally prohibited in the Fairtrade-certified mines.

Location of the gold mine

The mining tunnels of the Sotrami gold mine are largely located in the overburden under the village of Santa Filomena in the province of Lucanas in the Ayacucho region . You can reach Santa Filomena via the village of Yauca on the coast road Ruta nacional PE-15 , from which the Carretera AR-103 leads north along the Río Yuca to Jaquí . From there, a dirt road branches off in a north-easterly direction, follows the course of the Quebarada Pampa to Laitaruma and then takes a winding route northwards to Santa Filomena.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ More than just a fair price FairTrade.de, accessed on December 6, 2011.
  2. ↑ Florian Harkort: Small-scale mining project Sotrami, Peru December 3, 2015 (accessed August 22, 2019)

Web links

Coordinates: 15 ° 21 ′ 40 ″  S , 74 ° 16 ′ 29 ″  W