In the small coastal town of Guapi, Colombia, Mary Luz Ante Orobio is meeting with a group she calls “the unstoppable women.”
They are gathered around a wooden chest filled with loose cash, a ledger and a calculator. Orobio flips through the ledger, eyes poring over tidy notes outlining a series of financial investments. She jots down some numbers before distributing cash among the group.
The women are members of one of 80 local savings and credit groups in Colombia formed with the help of planetGOLD, a programme led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). These groups provide rural communities dependent on small-scale gold mining with new financing opportunities, allowing them to invest in technology and tools to reduce reliance on mercury. This toxic chemical has been used in small-scale gold mining for more than 3,000 years and can cause irreversible brain damage.
“There is a lot of illegal mining around here. We want to counteract that, because it is polluting the environment,” says Orobio. “From the savings, women can [upgrade] their sluice boxes, can get their [sluice box] rugs... This group allows women to create their own small businesses and be [independent] from money or resources that the men bring home.”
Providing technical guidance, equipment and financial training are key tenets of planetGOLD’s work in mine sites across Colombia and 24 other countries. Funded by the Global Environment Facility, planetGOLD assists countries in implementing the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global accord designed to reduce the use, emissions and releases of the chemical. The seventh anniversary of the convention, which has 148 parties, falls on 16 August.
“The global community is taking strong early steps to address mercury use across sectors. But the work is far from over,” says Monika Stankiewicz, the Executive Secretary of the Minamata Convention Secretariat. “Creating new financial opportunities for those engaged in mining will accelerate the move away from mercury, leaving both people and the planet healthier.”
Supporting communities
Between 10 million and 20 million miners in more than 70 countries work in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, including up to 5 million women and children. These operations, which are often unregulated and unsafe, generate 37 per cent of global mercury pollution (838 tonnes a year) – more than any other sector. Miners use mercury, which binds to gold particles in ores, to create what are known as amalgams. These are then heated to evaporate the mercury, leaving behind gold but releasing toxic vapours. Studies indicate that up to 33 per cent of artisanal miners suffer from moderate metallic mercury vapor intoxication.
Most informal sites lack the funding and training needed to transition towards mercury-free mining. Despite accounting for 20 per cent of the global gold supply and generating approximately US$30 billion annually, artisanal miners typically sell gold at around 70 per cent of its global market value. Additionally, with many gold mines located in rural and remote areas, miners seeking loans are often restricted to predatory interest rates from illegal sources, pushing demand for mercury.
Local savings and credit groups, like Orobio’s, have been a boon to rural and remote communities. Providing women with greater financial agency can help them foster safe mining practices and lessen their reliance on the mining sector.
Mercury is a neurotoxin that accumulates in the food chain and can be particularly harmful to species at the top of the food web, such as fish-eating birds and large predators. The work of planetGold is supporting the aims of the Global Biodiversity Framework, a landmark agreement to protect and restore the natural world that includes specific targets for reducing pollution.
Formalizing mine sites
In the middle of a grassy field in south-eastern Burkina Faso, an example of mercury-free mining is playing out. A dozen women clad in bright orange safety vests, helmets and respiratory masks gather around a large drum-like apparatus. Chunks of ore rattle within the belly of the drum, known as a trommel, as it oscillates to process the ore.
The women are among the 160 artisanal miners in the country to benefit from planetGOLD technical training courses, which showed them how to mine without mercury. Many, like Angèle Délo, had been mining using mercury since childhood.
"We are very well-equipped to process ore without using mercury,” she says. “It's true: With mercury, it may be faster, but without mercury, it is more beneficial for us.”
The training programme, launched in June 2023, is among several outcomes of five years of work that planetGOLD has undertaken with government agencies and financial institutions in Burkina Faso to eliminate mercury use, promote safer mining and bolster financial independence.
An expanding programme
PlanetGOLD has prevented over 31 tonnes of mercury emissions and supported more than 17,200 miners. While those like Délo and Orobio are benefitting from these efforts, experts say more action is needed to reduce mercury in this and other industries.
The Minamata Convention, named after the Japanese city of Minamata – where decades of mercury exposure beginning in 1932 poisoned thousands – aims to phase out mercury use across all sectors, including in dental amalgam, skin-lightening products and cosmetics.
Parties to the convention are making good progress in developing national plans that reduce mercury use, protecting human health and the planet. Stankiewicz says the full engagement of Indigenous Peoples is key to these plans’ success.
Parties to the convention are making good progress in developing national plans that reduce mercury use, protecting human health and the planet. Stankiewicz says the full engagement of Indigenous Peoples is key to these plans’ success.
“The planetGOLD programme is doing pioneering work by reducing the reliance on mercury in gold mining,” she says. “This momentum serves as inspiration for all of us to continue to develop mercury-free technologies and create effective laws and markets that value mercury-free gold.”
