With the aim to provide technical support to the General Agency of Specialized Inspection (GASI) in their operations towards identifying the location of illegal miners and entities, documenting the violations the Sustainable Artisanal Mining project, which is jointly implemented with the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry, has handed over drones, software and GPS on June 26th, 2018. The event was attended by the Chairman of GASI, N.Tsagaankhuu, Head of the Environment, Tourism, Geology and Mining Department, N.Batbayar, Consultant of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Markus Waldvogel, SAM project coordinator, B.Altanbagana and other officials.
The Government Resolution number 151 on “Mineral extraction of artisanal and small-scale mining” renewed in 2017 has been a substantial step towards the improvement of the legal situation around artisanal mining.
According to the resolution the Chairman of GASI has been assigned the duty to control the implementation of this regulation. Thus, in the framework of project implementation, SDC and GASI have signed a cooperation agreement on March 22, 2018 to provide assistance to GASI state inspectors on geology and mining control to enhance their technical and professional capacity on supervising and monitoring the implementation of the artisanal mining regulation.
Within the agreement the parties have agreed to cooperate on following issues:
- Produce and disseminate knowledge, information, advertisement and warning on ASM to the public
- Organize 3 regional capacity building training events on ASM legal requirements for local geology, mining and environmental inspectors
- Promote actions on control measures towards ASM and provide legal information and knowledge to individuals and entities doing illegal mining.
The parties hope that the hand-over of the drones, software and GPS to GASI state inspectors in 3 aimags will provide a significant contribution in monitoring and control of the implementation of artisanal mining legal environment, improving the results of monitoring activities, exposing illegal mining, documenting the information and intercepting those actions.
These devices will be used at the specialized inspection agencies in ASM density aimags to stop illegal mining.
