BEST MASTER THESIS WORK ACADEMIC YEAR 2021/2022 - CHAIR OF PHYSICS AND GEOLOGY

📕 ALLUVIAL ETHICAL GOLD: DEVELOPING A RESPONSIBLE PILOT MODEL FOR ETHICAL GOLD MINING (CAMEROON, AFRICA)

📍From my first day at the Department of Physics & Geology at the hashtag#UniversitàdegliStudidiPerugia I realized that for me, Geology has a fundamental role to play in this unbridled pursuit of profit that is characterizing modern society: to demonstrate that wealth is not a question of hashtag#money but of hashtag#opportunity.

It was December 2011 when I first set foot in a gold mine. I was then 15 years old and on the other side of the world, in Honduras, where my father was working at that time. A reality light year away from my everyday life. There at that precise moment I realized what I was going to do when “I grew up”. I would have become a hashtag#geologist.

✍️ The thesis work that I developed as a case study emphasizes that mining best practices, especially those implemented in hashtag#artisanal and hashtag#smallscale projects in developing countries, can serve as pilot examples to raise awareness and positively facilitate the transition to hashtag#sustainability in the sector by demonstrating that gold mined in harmony with nature, human dignity and sustainable development contributes to the transformation of lives in mining communities, as well as, of course, securing substantial profits with a longer-term business and moral perspective.

There is a need to remember that even and especially in hashtag#mining, hashtag#sustainability is thought of as a long-term goal, and hashtag#sustainabledevelopment refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it. This is why it is important to understand that a hashtag#mining company on its path toward hashtag#sustainability is committed to scientifically optimizing its available capital to ensure a targeted increase in production contextual to a responsible management of the natural resource aware that the standard levels of each capital at stake must be preserved to ensure the development of hashtag#futuregenerations.

📣 It was truly an honor to be able to bring such a sensitive topic as responsible supply of minerals and metals to the attention of the hashtag#Italian academic world; I would like to thank the Università degli Studi di Perugia for the award given to me.