A group of men and women miners in Paipa reforest an area of approximately 2500 square meters, with the company of Alliance for Responsible Mining and Gensa, participating in the project “Somos Tesoro” (We are a Treasure).

A group of coal miners that work at small scale in Paipa, Boyacá (Colombia), has reforested an area of approximately 2.500 square meters with 300 native plants among trees, bushes, and grass species, thus making a recovery of the organic soil in areas deteriorated by sterile material disposal.

COAGROMIN, the cooperative of these miners, takes part in the project “We are a Treasure” as a part of its activities for environmental recovery, which along with the Alliance for Responsible Mining and Gensa, made the decision to recover areas formerly affected by sterile material disposal with native trees such as Ciro, Hayuelo, Mortiño, Chicalá, Garrocho, Aliso, and Cerezo, and also grassing some zones, intending to improve the landscape and favor natural regeneration processes.

In small scale subterranean coal mining, apart from extracting this mineral, men and women miners also extract sterile material that is accumulated in “dumps” and that they can use later for filling again the tunnels or can be used for landscape rehabilitation, looking forward to the recovery or improvement of initial ecosystem conditions.

With the encouragement of the campaign: “En camino de la minería responsable, RESTAURAMOS, REFORESTAMOS Y CONSERVAMOS” (On the path towards responsible mining, WE RESTORE, REFOREST AND PRESERVE), approximately 70 people took part in these tasks, making land preparation and adaptation for 8 days, which ended up in a greener mining zone and with the conditions to keep showing a natural restoration process.

Somos Tesoro “We are a Treasure” is a leading project for child labor reduction in Colombian mining zones, carried out by the consortium made by Pacty, Alliance for Responsible Mining, and funded by the United States Department of Labor.