The Minister of Energy and Mines (MEM), Antonio Almonte, revealed that according to studies that have been carried out, in the Dominican Republic there is alluvial gold in rivers and basins of some regions, which if exploited would contribute to strengthening the local economy. .
Artisanal mining is a rudimentary way of extracting minerals from nature, often gold, which occurs in its native state and can be easily concentrated with various processes, and is generally highly polluting due to the use of cyanide or mercury. On the other hand, it is common to find the work of women and children due to the simplicity of the methods and the lack of opportunities in the territories.
During the opening remarks of the workshop “Policies and instruments for the formalization of artisanal alluvial gold mining in the Dominican Republic”, sponsored by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Minister Almonte pointed out that, for the Dominican State, the formalization of artisanal alluvial gold mining is of the utmost importance.
He indicated that the Ministry of Energy and Mines, in cooperation with ECLAC, is preparing a project that integrates different alternatives to organize artisanal alluvial gold mining so that this activity is more orderly, transparent and sustainable.
“We have rivers, we have basins and we have alluvial gold, so the Dominican Republic pays attention to this growing rumor, to these data, to this information,” Almonte explained in the Julio Sauri Club room of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
He welcomed ECLAC’s spirit of collaboration in coming to the Dominican Republic to participate in this workshop, which addresses the experience and challenges of member countries with regard to alluvial gold and, particularly, on this phenomenon in the country.
“One of the needs we have is precisely to know what the experience has been in this regard, including the aspect related to informality and formalization in nations that have much more experience than us in the practice of exploiting alluvial gold; the economic, institutional, fiscal, social, etc. implications,” he said.
He highlighted the contribution of responsible mining to the Dominican economy, a sector that, he added, has been fundamental from the fiscal point of view of the Dominican economy and that at critical moments of the pandemic was the item that sustained the stability of the country, since that generated the foreign currency that the tourism sector stopped receiving due to the closure of the country.
“What happened to sustain the exchange and economic stability of the country were the income from mineral exports, especially gold, copper and ferronickel; these items had a very large impact on the fiscal maintenance of the Dominican Republic”, he expressed.
The official pointed out that, given the above, the Dominican Government has been strengthening and making clear its interest in the development of projects in an environmentally sustainable manner.
The person in charge of the Department of Mining Promotion of the MEM, Golye Latoufe, explained that the three mountain ranges of the country: Central, Eastern and Northern, constitute the source where the alluvial gold comes from.
He added that the riverbeds that are born in these mountain ranges have formed various terraces with gravel and sand deposits that sometimes contain the aforementioned gold.
Minister Almonte was accompanied by Rolando Muñoz, Director of Mining; Golye Latoufe, in charge of the Department of Mining Promotion and Gustavo Mejía-Ricart, in charge of International Relations of the MEM.
José Luis Lewinsohn, Economic Affairs Officer of the Non-Renewable Natural Resources Unit of ECLAC, and Hugo Domínguez, ECLAC external consultant, also participated in the workshop.
One of the strategic objectives of the Non-Renewable Resources Unit of the Natural Resources Division (DRN) of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is to support the governments of the region in the governance of natural resources, with emphasis on extractive resources and the effects that their exploitation causes on the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development.