Participatory Analysis of Small-Scale Artisanal Gold Mining in the Santa Rita District, Municipality of Andes, Antioquia, Based on the PAIIO Methodology

Small-scale artisanal mining, MAPE (for its initials in Spanish), presents significant challenges and opportunities that must be analyzed systemically. To carry out the analysis, this paper proposes the PAIIO methodology (Participation, Actors, Impact, Idealized design, Opportunities), based on the Russell Ackoff Interactive Planning methodology. This proposed methodology propounds four steps to address environmental and common property management issues, where local communities must be the key player in decision-making, participating from the design of the solution in its implementation and monitoring. The PAIIO methodology was applied in the MAPE study in the Santa Rita village, Municipality of Andes. As a first step, for the development of the methodology in the case study, key actors in the community were identified, such as “barequeros” (gold miners) and scrap dealers, workers in the pitheads, workers of the “entables” (ranches); from their perceptions, impacts of the MAPE were identified; subsequently, together with them, the idealized design of the situation, the gaps between this design and the real situation were depicted; and finally, proposals and improvement opportunities were described to close the gaps between these scenarios. The community’s proposals go beyond good practices in mining, involving proposals related to their organization and investment in the territory.