Experts Address Sustainability In Gold Mining In The Amazon
Aexploration of gold, an ore with great demand in Brazil, can be done in a sustainable way, through transformations that start from the prospecting activity. This is what explains Carlos Henrique Xavier Araújo, Doctor of Science in the Graduate Program in Mineral Engineering at the Department of Mining and Petroleum Engineering and Mining Engineer from the Polytechnic School of USP, based on his doctoral thesis Analysis of Challenges social and technical aspects for transformations aimed at sustainability in gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon .
Inside the search
The main motivation of the research is to seek answers and opportunities for transformation, changing the image that one has of the prospecting activity: “Gold prospecting should not be treated only as a problem, because it involves thousands of people who depend on this activity and is made of legally before the competent bodies, with environmental licenses”, explains Araújo.
The field research explored two places: the first was the region of Lourenço, in Calçoene, in Amapá, which is centenary in the extraction of gold, has a cooperative of garimpeiros, and which addresses the importance of cooperativism in this region, and the second route it went from Sinop, in Mato Grosso, to Santarém, in Pará, where the relationship between the road and gold mining was observed.
local development
Understanding the situation of small prospectors aims to find solutions for the future, not just for the present. “It’s not just about having the mining right to work legally, but also emphasizing the improvement of people’s working conditions and also continuous training, because cooperativism can be that vector of transformation”, says Araújo.
He also emphasizes the costs and efforts that need to be made for an innovation to happen: “We have to think that, to carry out this transformation process, there is a cost. Someone has to pay the bill, so we have to manage this implementation of changes, have data analysis support, understand more about the characterization of this ore. What is the tenor? What is this information to be able to pass this on to the workers, to the owners of the mines, to the representatives of the cooperatives and for us to be able to think of a strategic plan to implement this change?”.
In addition to cooperatives, different actors can participate in this process, such as the government and NGOs that follow mining legislation. “The mineral good belongs to the Union. If the mineral asset belongs to the Union, the government can work with continuous inspection, the government can support the training of cooperatives, training to improve the living conditions of people who are involved in small-scale mining.” And the NGOs, playing their role in overseeing biodiversity in the Amazon, have a role in dialogue: Listening to all areas about how we can improve the environmental preservation of our Amazon”, he adds.