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Juan Camilo Nariño, president of the Colombian Mining Association (ACM), visited on March 29th the cradle of the most beautiful emeralds in the world, The Muzo Companies’ mine, Puerto Arturo. The visit is part of the tour with which the ACM team is showing to the mining municipalities of Colombia the balance of the extractive union and the contributions that the communities will receive in the coming years. “I never imagined knowing such a modern, advanced and highly technical emerald mining operation. The human and professional quality of the entire team is extraordinary,” Nariño assured the EMS directors.
This is the first time that Nariño has visited the EMS facilities, where he toured the main production fronts and saw first-hand the operations that combine the highest mining technology with the ancestral methods of gem extraction. “It’s incredible how they take out the little stones one by one,” he said at the deepest level of the mine, more than a hundred meters underground. The tour also included a previous meeting with the communities, mayors and union representatives where the president assured that by the year 2022, the department of Boyacá will receive COP $358,000 million in royalties corresponding to emeralds and coal.
The end of the tour took place at the facilities of the Muzo Foundation and its most important social project, El Mirador de los Abuelos, where more than three hundred elderly people in need receive daily free food. There, he highlighted the work of The Muzo Companies in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility, recalling, in turn, that Muzo are the only representatives of the emerald industry to be part of the Sustainable Mining Standard, signed in 2021 with the support of the Embassy from Canada.
The standard evaluates nine critical points of the industry in social and environmental matters, such as: climate change, tailings management, water administration, relations with indigenous and local communities, safety and health at work, biodiversity conservation, management of crisis and prevention of child and forced labor. “This commitment is the result of the compromise that we have as a sector towards sustainability, where we not only produce the minerals that are needed for the energy transition and a greener world, but we do so under a strict program recognized worldwide, which allows communities and other interest groups to learn about the commitments and progresses of the country’s mining companies regarding these nine points,” Nariño said.
