agosto, 2018 | Intrafeca | Industria de Transformación Ferrosa

SOLIDARIDAD and GĚRENS Post-Graduate School Join Forces to Boost Small-Scale and Artisanal Mining in Perú

August 16 2018 saw the signing of a mutual cooperation agreement between Solidaridad and GĚRENS Post-Graduate School, with the aim of creating awareness of artisanal and small-scale mining (or MAPE, its Spanish acronym), as well as collaborating by providing relevant information and connecting different groups of interest.

Present during the act were Solidaridad’s Country Manager Ada Lis Rossel; Solidaridad’s Gold Program’s Program Manager Franco Arista; GĚRENS Post-Graduate School principal, Dr. Armando Gallegos, and GĚRENS General Manager Dr. Rodrigo Prialé.

This alliance hopes to join both institution’s available resources in order to generate and spread knowledge about MAPE’s managing processes in other countries, as well as the celebration of activities, projects and collaborative investigations.

Solidaridad is part of Solidaridad’s Latin America’s Regional Center (Stichting Interkerkelijke Aktie voor Latijns Amerika), which boasts of a long history of research into making small-scale mining more efficient, resilient and responsible. It has a specialized program called “Gold Program” which researches sustainable development of the MAPEs, and whose aim is for small gold producers to become part of “sustainable commerce” through certification programs.

On the other hand, GĚRENS Post-Graduate School, in an effort to offer its innovative and relevant educational services for the country’s development, has identified the formalization and improvement of artisanal mining’s competitiveness as one of Peru’s greatest mining challenges, reason why it decided to join this alliance with Solidaridad.

Along that line, the Solidaridad-GĚRENS alliance will try to boost capacitation programs that will allow for the study of profitable and sustainable business models for the MAPEs so that both public and private sector professionals will have the best tools available to support the formalization of the MAPEs.

José Manuel Mustafá: Metallurgy and Humankind, Two Old Friends

Metallurgy, the art of obtaining and treating metals for the creation of alloys. Without a doubt, it is one of the most documented industrial activities, with importance historical precedent dating back to old age. Who hasn’t heard of the bronze wars, or the iron revolution? When we talk about metallurgy, its uses go from the simplest to the most complex ones.

When we speak about metallurgy, we speak of a highly complex discipline in which there is an important number of variables to consider, requiring the support of sciences such as physics, chemistry and practices such as engineering. Metallurgy is an applied science, reason why it must be studied beyond the theories, as historic problems such as the solidification or re-crystallization of metals remain unsolved.

Still, technological advances have allowed for great strides in this field, offering promising solutions. Many experts consider that the art of metalworking started in the Near East, near the Nile; the belief is that it was during the “Age of Metals” that the main historical knowledge of metals and the way to work them into household items started to form. Historically, the Age of Metals was divided into three different stages depending on the most-used metal at the time:

Copper Age: One of the first metals man used in its natural state. Dating back to the Neolithic. At the beginning, it was mixed with arsenic but later started being mixed with tin, which led to the creation of bronze.
Bronze Age: Started by mixing copper and tin. It was divided into several ages, believed to predate Christ by at least 4.000 years.
Iron Age: Was first recorded in the twelfth century before Christ. At the time, it was the most advanced known form of metalwork. Its strength and abundance made it more desirable than bronze, which it ended up replacing.