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Bruno Mara Flórez,
“we want to leave a positive legacy for the future”.
Bruno Mara Flórez is a husband, father of four children and the legal representative of the small-scale mining cooperative Central de Cooperativas Mineras Nevados de Ananea – LTDA (CENCOMIN). He is a man with a great smile and a hard worker.
His way
Bruno was born 50 years ago in the district of Ananea, Peru, where he attended primary and secondary school. Later, he studied his bachelor at the University of Puno, specifically statistics and civil engineering, but due to lack of resources and other personal aspects, he could not complete his studies. Therefore, in 2003, he returned to Ananea where, years ago, the Ananeños (people from Ananea) had formed several mining cooperatives with legal status. Therefore, following his family and his region traditions, Bruno started working in one of the cooperatives of the region. However, his dream was “to have a concession of his own and to operate it directly”, for which he founded, together with other partners, CENCOMIN.
Since then, Bruno is one of the legal representative of CENCOMIN, which has four mining cooperatives and 73 partners, among which there are 15 women who work in different jobs, such as storage, [i]gold panning and cooking.
[i] Gold panning is the technique by which gold is selected by a gold panner.
His work
Bruno does not have a schedule for his work but, because he is the legal representative, he has to fulfill several obligations. For this reason, he says “sometimes I work all week, including Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes I do not take vacations, or I’m just with my partners”, Bruno explains. He adds that everyone “is willing to work at any time.” Being the representative of CENCOMIN, he is more dedicated to administrative responsibilities; processing documents before the Dirección Regional de Energía y Minas (DREM) of Puno, conducting trainings, managing legal issues, coordinating other partners’ work, attending visits and managing relations with the Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria (SUNAT), among others.
“As a father, I would like that at least one of my children studies a mining career, because it is very beautiful and [gold] is a raw material that we have here in Peru, in Ananea.”
His commitment
The mining organization CENCOMIN has shown an interest in certifying its low mineral production systems with the Fairmined Standard, because they are interested in being part of responsible supply chains. Bruno says that CENCOMIN would like to have access to a “decent market, with real prices and access to the international market”. He believes that the Fairmined initiative “is a firm that legalizes and makes us viable”. He adds that his mining organization is committed to the environment and that it is very important for them to improve their conditions over time. “We would like to remove mercury from the gold extraction process. To make it a purer gold. “
“There are fellow miners who are illegal and who practice mining in a bad way. But we want to be different. We want to leave a positive legacy for the future. That’s why we want to be formalized and responsible. We want to leave a teaching for taking care of the environment, for example of water.”
