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Joint venture between UBC, SFU and Ecole Polyechnique de Montreal wins $25 million in federal funding
From Vancouver, academics in a new $25-million resource-sector research institute can see how training artisanal miners in Ecuador to use more sustainable practices can lead to better government policies and a more prosperous mining sector.
A pilot project to train small-scale miners in better techniques is one of the initial efforts of the just-launched Canadian International Institute for Resource Extraction and Development, but it is already gaining traction, and in a nutshell sums up what the institute’s job will be.
“Trying to formalize artisanal mining hasn’t worked well,” said Bern Klein, acting executive director of the institute. “You just give someone a piece of paper to do what they’ve always done. But education is transformational.”
Klein said the pilot project capitalizes on research done in the mining school at the University of B.C., which is one of three academic partners in the institute along with Simon Fraser University and Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.