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The Oro Verde program, located in Colombia’s poorest and conflict-affected region (Chocó), promotes responsible mining of precious metals through traditional extraction methods and technology transfer, with a view to commercialize the metals in specialized fair trade markets.

Certified material is sold by mining families (organized in 194 Productive Family Units) to an intermediary organization that sells it to an international trading company. In 2008, sales reached US$222.000 million, and over the last 5 years, 14.5% of the sales were reinvested in community projects. The project, which aims to break-even in 2013, is reducing the degradation of one of the richest yet most fragile ecosystems in the world, while preserving the culture of local communities and limiting their linkages with illicit cultivations and/or the armed conflict.