UNDER the theme “Towards a Green Development Strategy, Ensuring Decent Work Environments for Artisanal and Small-Scale Miners,” stakeholders in the mining sector on Thursday commenced a two-day training to focus on good practices and progressive steps for successful health and environmental management in Guyana.

The workshop is a collaborative effort among the Australian High Commission, Australian Aid, Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Mining School and Training Center along with the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The workshop is being held at Cara Lodge, Quamina Street Georgetown.

In giving an overview of the programme, Dr. Muza Gondwe of the International Mining for Development Centre (IM4DC) said the workshop will provide miners with the capacity, tools, skills and knowledge to efficiently find gold and in doing such will reduce the damage to the environment.

She said stakeholders will learn improve methods of prospecting; reduce mercury methods, financing business models and the prospecting capacity in Guyana.
Dr. Gondwe said in day two miners will be introduced to a collection of presentations from around the world which will deal with the mining community and environmental impacts.

“I will also be giving a presentation looking at gender and gender policy and actual practice and experiences of artisanal miners on the ground, health, safety and the environment and we will end the day with a panel discussion with the aim of tying all the threads together with all the discussions in the workshop,” she said.

Professor Peter Williams of the Center for Exploration Targeting, University of Western Australia explained that the session will explore approaches to enable miners to access, understand and apply geological data to locate economically viable deposits in order to reduce trial and error mining.

He noted that Guyana signed the Minamata Convention to eliminate the use of mercury in 2013 and the use of mercury in gold mining puts the health of miners and their communities at risk while damaging the environment.

Adding that technological alternatives and environmentally friendly practices exist and must be applicable to Guyana’s context of geology and culture as well as being cost effective and increase the amount of gold recovered.
These, he said could include the use of borax, sluices and other gravity methods.