What is Mining Integration?

The Mining Integration program is the path that the Soto Norte Project has traced so that mining pride vibrates in the families of the region, giving traditional California (Santander) miners the possibility of extracting minerals under the protection of a title, complying with the Colombian legal framework, hand-in-hand with the industry, improving all production processes in a sustainable way.

The first group of miners formalized with the support of the Soto Norte Project is Calimineros, a company that is the result of the participatory and active construction of 160 miners, generating a very important social impact for their region, their families and their activities. In April 2023, this model was praised by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for being an example of mining formalization and coexistence between small and large mining.

In this program, we have worked participatively with the authorities, the academy, and other entities for more than six years, hand-in-hand with long-standing miners who seek their formalization to maintain the tradition in the territory and continue to exercise mining as the main economic activity in this municipality.

Our target population

Long-standing miners. Miners who have developed all their activity in tunnels and sheds within their properties as a family activity for many years.

Informal miners. Called Galafardos (opportunist, lazy, freeloader), who carry out itinerant mining activities in different tunnels, on different properties, depending on the opportunity.