Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
inside their collective territory. Like municipal mayors, local councils charge a per-
centage of the monthly production, usually 1%. However, miners typically ignore
local Community Councils and only establish agreements with the landowners and
municipal Mayors directly. Community Councils may have made agreements with
the migrant mechanised miners to find financial compensation for the environmental
damage caused, but this is not enforced. Finally, illegal armed groups in the area will
charge approximately USD 700 for every excavator or 15% of the total production.
If miners do not comply, their lives are at risk.
Another cause of the conflict that occurs in the regions is derived from the fact that
collective land titles overlap with National Forest Reserves - where all mining, mecha-
nised and artisanal, is prohibited. These reserves contradict the right and the tradition
that black communities have to artisanal mining. Furthermore, despite the mining
prohibition established by the Ministry of Environment in these National Reserves,
the regional environmental authority has in the past taken measures that act as though
miners legally work in the Reserve. They required the mechanised miners to develop an
environmental compliance plan to decrease their negative environmental impact, and
also establish a procedure for the forfeiture of the machinery being used in case they
would not comply with the rules. This way, mining in the forest Reserve has become
legitimised, even when it is outside formal state law.
In sum, next to the de jure legislation, there is a whole set of de facto agreements
that organise small-scale mining in Chocó that ensures that artisanal and mechanised
miners and local communities can coexist. Miners and local communities engage with
different legal systems in such a way that a system of regulating norms for the mining
sector has emerged. These informal norms have legitimised mining practices through
agreements between the most important stakeholders, such as the municipal adminis-
trations, landowners, community councils, illegal armed groups, mechanised miners
and artisanal miners. The ensuing legal system provides some sort of social stability in
the absence of national governmental control, as well as economic resources to local
artisanal miners and panners who operate in the the mechanised miners' pits. These
informal arrangements are not, however, beneficial to local communities as a whole.
Mining rents go to some individual Afro-Colombian landowners, and to outsiders and
the local natural environment is heavily impacted by the mechanised approach.
The Chocó region abounds with latent and manifest conflicts. Municipal authori-
ties allowmechanised miners to operate within collective territories without consulting
Community Councils. Similarly, Afro-Colombian landowners who are part of Com-
munity Councils do not consult the traditional authorities of the collective title. In the
end, traditional authorities are not being recognised, which jeopardises their legitimacy
in the decision-making arena. The collective rights of the communities are violated in
the agreements set around small-scale gold mining.
8.5 The Case of Tapajós (Pará, Brazil)
Of our three cases, Brazil has the most elaborate set of laws and regulations for small-
scale gold mining. In addition to national and federal laws, environmental regulations
and the Pará state laws also define land use. On top of all that, there is a sophisticated
customary miners' law. Conflicts in this case are not caused by the confrontation
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