By Gabriela Mancero and Andres Felipe Gomez
Geological advantages of Colombia has made in recent years has triggered a boom in exploration and mining, where the absence of control and security operations have become some of the hot spots of the government’s agenda.
A quick look at the mining sector leaves vast concerns 233 municipalities with mining development of criminal activities, approximately 205 tons of mercury discharged into the soil and rivers in the country, 85 percent of the illegal production of minerals such as gold, 185 municipalities He identified with illicit extraction of the latter, involvement of armed groups operating outside the law and the almost total absence of an institution that controls the mining companies was the trigger to create a distinct public policy that special treatment be given to the existing mining activities, to large mining, medium, small and even subsistence.
For proper change to organize and solve the problem, it is necessary to adjust the regulations to the social and economic reality of Colombia. So from the 1753 Act of June 9, 2015, by which the National Development Plan 2014-2018 «All for a new country» this strategy is implemented to differentiate the informal mining regulating illegal mining is issued partially Article 21 of the law this way:
«Classification Mining. For purposes of implementing a specific public policy, mining activities will be classified as subsistence mining, small, medium and large. The national government define and establish the requirements taking into account the number of hectares and / or production of mining units by type of mineral. For exploration acreage only be taken into account …. «.
Facing the situation, the Ministry of Mines and Energy collected statistical and historical information sector in a technical report presented in October this year, along with expert panels made visits to regions to define which volumes are to classify stages exploitation and mining of subsistence.
As a result, the Ministry published for comment the draft decree to regulate that article, with regard to subsistence mining.
In Colombia artisanal mining, small-scale mining and subsistence play an important role in the mining sector, it is precisely this group who seeks benefit from the implementation of Policy Formulation and proper classification.
These guidelines will be the spearhead to advance the process of formalizing unsuccessful mining production units (PSUs). Meanwhile, its regularization required to have a mining title or a subcontract under the umbrella of one, and minimal environmental instrument.
However, the classification criterion used the decree to determine the type of mining was as follows:
1. Keep: according to monthly production peaks and only open air activities in the minerals of precious metals (gold, silver and platinum), river sand and gravel, clays and finally precious and semiprecious stones.
2. Mineral rights under exploration: for the exploration stage, construction and assembly took as a criterion the area of the mining title.
3. Exploitation and ore type: for the exploitation phase, was taken as criterion production, differentiating the work in open pit and underground; coal, building materials, metals, non-metals, precious metals and precious stones and classification, according to annual production values for six groups of minerals as well defined.
Thus, the decree defined in Article 3 and subsistence mining:
Mining operations are developed by individuals who are engaged in open pit mining of precious metals, precious and semiprecious stones, river sand and gravel (for the construction industry) and clays, for media and hand tools, without the use of any equipment and machinery.
Clarifies that this classification does not include only includes underground mining and minerals listed there because of security and a table specified in the maximum monthly production volumes by mineral.
Thus, some restrictions and obligations for subsistence miners, among which mention not exceed the volumes indicated in the table is also set; the payment of royalties for mining as well as performing some transformation to the mined ore, will require environmental permits and licenses.
The information required to be classified into one of these categories must be submitted to the Mayor of the municipal jurisdiction, who in 15 days will solve the subsistence mining registration and must also submit it in a period not exceeding one month before enrollment the ANM, this registration will be valid for one year and must be renewed under the same conditions stipulated in the decree.
3.Parágrafo Art. 1:
«The competent mayor, a term not exceeding one (1) month from the date of registration, it shall submit to the National Mining Agency the list of miners registered livelihood in his office, so that these are published for information by the authority on the platform of the Single Registry of Traders Minerals -. Rucom »
In addition, the decree gives a period of three months for the miners that are in the range of these volumes holding and still have not enrolled from the publication date of the decree.
Also mentions the barequeros (manual washing sands) defined by art. 155 of Law 685 of 2001, which should update their enrollment in a period of six months if they meet the above volumes.
Thus, the draft classification stipulated in its article 4. The classification of mining exploration stage, or construction and assembly as well:
«The mining titles that are in the exploration stage or construction and assembly are classified in small, medium and large mining based on the number of hectares given in the respective mining title (…)»
To this end, the decree establishes a leaderboard according to the number of hectares in this way:
| CLASIFICATION | N° HECTARES |
| Small | Less than or equal to 150 |
| Medium | High to 150 but less than or equal to 5,000 |
| Large | Higher than 5,000 but less than or equal to 10,000 |
The above classification only includes activity in the exploration phase, the operational phase classifies mining according to the amount of maximum annual mine production and discriminates the type of ore mined: it is coal, building materials, metals, non-metals, metal precious, precious and semiprecious on a table that provides the maximum tons per year and if the activity is open or underground sky stones.
However, these ceilings may not resemble reality and are easily overcome in activities such as small-scale mining, such as the precious metals in its underground form, which is defined to be small-scale mining should be removed annually to 15,000 tons of material. The reality is that many miners exceed this number a year in which average about can remove material volumes of up to 29,000 tons per year, a figure that doubles the proposal by Decree.
In addition, this number may vary taking into account the Special Reserve Areas (ERAs), which are areas where there are those defined traditional farms for mining communities that request, these areas could increase more tons per year.
However, measuring the volumes that raises the decree should not be solely by title, but by Productive Mining Unit. So a title can have multiple PSUs whose individual production would fall within the threshold set by the proposal.
Furthermore, the decree has no special regulations, differentiated for Special Reserve Areas (ERAs), and mining community organizations, cooperative and associative, allowing them to remain part of the target audience of government programs formalization without having sole criterion volumes of material removed.
The decree also includes within its classification to artisanal mining, pending regulation, which can more easily confused with illegal mining.
Faced with these guidelines, who favor a formalization of the sector, there are three alternatives according to the Ministry of Mines, the first is the voluntary execution, as there are specific cases where mining has environmental restrictions, or not reached an agreement with the mining company.
The second alternative is not viable productive reconversion when formally mining activity. And the last is not complying with the regulations and deal with the manner prescribed by law and judicial actions related policivas.
In short, the ultimate goal of this decree, which still has no specific release date, will prevent and avoid accidents like the one that occurred on March 7 this year that killed nine miners Angelópolis, basin Sinifaná, southeastern Antioquia. A tragedy that could be avoided if there were an effective policy to formalize the sector. Now this draft decree expects to reduce the list of similar events in the small mining, that cases such as Antioquia, turned to expose serious flaws job security and informality that occur in the mining sector.