The Northern Cape Artisanal Small Scale Miners organization is assisting illegal diamond miners in the Namaqualand region to obtain mining permits. The move will eventually assist miners in Port Nolloth and Springbok in managing their cooperatives and legally buying and selling diamonds.
Artisanal miners in Kimberley obtained their mining permits from the Department of Mineral Resources in June.
The organization’s Chelle Goliath says that the same can be done for Namaqualand’s current illegal miners:
“We get the names of people that are busy mining; we get all their documents. There are usually 10 people per cooperative, so we can end up with 40 cooperatives, 50 cooperatives, depending on the number of people. The first cooperative was submitted already for Namaqualand. What we’re now doing is having a look at the GIS system to see what land different people are mining on, so we can determine ownership of the land.”
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