August 2011
Cumbre del Sajama, ARM´s partner organization in Bolivia, organized an exchange visit between miners from Bolivia and Peru, as a part of their producer support activities within the Fairtrade and Fairmined expansion programme.
On 16th of July a group of eight Bolivian miners from “Cotapata Cooperative” and “15 de Agosto Cooperative” were received by their colleagues from the MACDESA small-scale mining company in Peru. The aim of this meeting was to compare experiences of how each organization has been preparing to comply with the Fairtrade and Fairmined standard and to learn about MACDESA´s extraction and processing methods. The Bolivians were especially interested in exploring the cyanidation plant, which they considered a good alternative to the use of mercury amalgamation in gold recovery.
The event proved to be an excellent learning experience and the miners from Bolivia returned home well motivated to implement some of the practices observed at MACDESA´s mine and processing plant.
The Peruvian miners are now invited to return the visit, in order to tighten the cooperation between the Bolivian and Peruvian organizations in the future.
Read the trip report (in Spanish)