A gold mine that we can be proud to use!

Opulent Ethics are a bit behind the times in this post. Over the Christmas / New Year festive period news emerged of Cotapata, the worlds first Fair-trade, Fair-mined gold mine opening in Bolivia. So how fair is it? And does it sound too fair to be true?

On the negative side, the mine is placed in a National Park. The mine was in action before National Park status was awarded to the area but it must still be remembered that even with certified clean and fair practices, mining is still a destructive and dirty business.

  Road in the Yungas cloud forest

The Cotapata National Park is considered tiny at 583 sq-km and is situated near to La Paz where workers can commute from and where the gold is exported to for refining and deployment elsewhere. Laid across hills and mountains with elevations of almost 4,500m, the Cotapata National Park makes up part of the Yungas Cloud Forest. The hot, humid, rainy weather in the region makes this region full of flora and fauna which is still being discovered. More common vegetation includes avocado, coffee, guava and citrus fruits. It is also believed that the Yungas region also contains the last remaining evergreen forests which originated due to the Quaternary glaciers. It is, therefore, an area which requires protection.

The Cotapata mine is, currently, producing 3kg of gold per month. A quick search on the internet reveals that other, non-ethical, large scale mines can produce in the region of 2000kg per month. So the amount is small but everything has to start somewhere.

So what are the positive things about the mine? It produces 3kg of gold per month. Large-scale mines are able to produce the amount they do because of the more harmful processes they employ and destructive machinery they use. To have a mine which is not only Fair-trade (paying a fair wage to its workers and a premium to local communities) but Fair-mined (more environmentally friendly techniques are used) is amazing and all involved should be very proud.

Cotapata Fair-trade, Fair-mined gold mine workers

It is 3^rd party certified. This has to be the main positive point about this. Here is a decisive move towards having fully transparent supply chains in the ethical jewellery industry, something that we have been waiting a long time for.

As well as the certification there are numerous renowned organisations which have been involved in the development of the mine including; the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation and the Alliance for Responsible Mining, both of whom are big players in the world of ethical jewellery and, in this instance, are able to lend their support and, therefore, their members confidence in Cotapata.

And then of course, there are all the wonderful positives which are normally associated with Fair-trade; a fair price for the produce (for Cotapata there have been problems with the export taxes in Bolivia which will now be overcome), improvement in local communities (education is being improved in a neighbouring village), improved work standards (the mine accommodation and facilities are being improved) and work ethics (women and men are employed equally and all are paid well above the average Bolivian miners wage).

Also, by coming under the banner of Fair Trade, this gold has a market already existing for it. The miners or their representatives will not have to search very far to find ethically conscious jewellers who are willing to pay that little bit more for that clean, traceable supply chain and Opulent Ethics believe it won’t be very long until we see other small-scale mines following in Cotapata’s very wise footsteps!

That’s all for now….