Supporting Women Miners: Sustainable Livelihoods, Restored Environments
Women’s ASGM Network of Madre de Dios
In Peru, Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) follows global trends by being both an important source of income for many Peruvians as well as a driver of mercury emissions and deforestation. The Amazonian department of Madre de Dios, in the southeastern part of Peru, accounts for 70% of Peru’s ASGM gold production. In Madre de Dios, the uncontrolled spread of ASGM has led to the release of approximately 180 tons of mercury per year and the deforestation of wide swatches of Amazon rainforest. Between 1984–2017, 100,000 ha of rainforest were deforested in Madre de Dios, most of which was attributed to ASGM.
Protecting and restoring the Peruvian Amazon rainforest is crucial. Madre de Dios is considered a global biodiversity hotspot and designated the official Peruvian “capital of biodiversity,” with 500+ reported freshwater fish species, 200+ mammal species, and 160+ amphibian species. In addition, recent research in Madre de Dios highlights the potential role that the rainforest can have in capturing and retaining both particulate and atmospheric mercury.
Women miners form an overlooked but important portion of the ASGM workforce and can have an outsized impact on moving towards important change:
In Madre de Dios, 30% of formalized mining concessions are owned by women. Women also participate in Peru’s formal gold trade, as defined by the Peruvian Registry for Gold Processors and Commercializers (RECPO). According to RECPO, 33% of participants in the category of buying and selling gold, 14% in selling gold only, and 22% in buying, selling, and refining of gold are women. However, women’s contributions in this male-dominated sector are overlooked, and there is a general lack of support for women miners. This situation is exacerbated by women’s traditional roles in society and in the family, and unequal access to educational opportunities. In Madre de Dios, 7.8% of women are illiterate compared to 1.6% of men, and 60% have completed only primary education without moving on to secondary education compared to 40% of men.
Expansion to the Women’s ASGM Network of Madre de Dios:
Building on the success with AMATAF, Pure Earth seeks to expand to a new community of miners, the Women’s ASGM Network of Madre de Dios. This Network is a group of women miners from Madre de Dios who share experiences and work together to improve their mining practices. The Network, a local chapter of the National Women’s ASGM Network, was established in May 2022 with support from USAID’s Prevent/Prevenir Activity and legally registered in May 2023. Members must be a woman and either a concessionaire, a concessionaire’s daughter, a legal representative of a mining concession, and/or possess a document guaranteeing a connection with a concession that is formalized or in the process of formalization. There are currently 11 members and 10 more pending. Each of these members is connected to additional personnel who work at each of their concessions as miners or in support roles. In this way, the project will impact additional lives beyond the Network members.
The mission of the Women’s ASGM Network of Madre de Dios is to promote responsible ASGM practices in Madre de Dios; bolster the leadership of women as agents of change; incorporate and promote environmental and social best practices backed by national and international regulations, laws, and standards; and work with private and public actors, civil society organizations, and international organizations. Upon its formation in 2022, the Network created a roadmap comprising seven focus areas in which to strengthen its capacities: institutional capacity building; experiential exchange; environmental mitigation and restoration practices; legislation and laws; gold commercialization; campaigns for positioning; and mercury-free technologies. With a clear vision for the future, they seek financial and technical support to reach their goals, support which Brilliant Earth and Pure Earth can provide.
Building on the focus areas identified by the Women’s Mining Network, Pure Earth’s proposal is to support the network in four of its focus areas: 1) mercury-free technologies, 2) environmental mitigation and restoration practices, 3) gold commercialization, and 4) institutional capacity building.
Through this project, Pure Earth will work with the Network to raise awareness of the harmful effects of mercury and train its members on mercury-free gold mining technologies. The miners will learn reforestation techniques (essential for fulfilling the requirements for responsible mine closure) including the production of plants, soil amendments, selection of native species, planting the saplings, and monitoring plant growth. Miners will learn these skills through the reforestation of 3 ha over 3 demonstration plots and learn about marketing and jewelry fabrication to add value to their product and to better tap into local and international markets. The project’s communications component will enable miners to generate content for social and other forms of media and to present their work to different audiences.