A mining cooperative is an association of persons that operates a mine. Mining cooperatives have been promoted as means to deal to unemployment and provide poverty alleviation. [1] [2] The formation of mining cooperates is recommended by the International Labour Organization as a step to eliminate child labour in artisanal mining. [3] Mining cooperatives have been found to have often problems in addressing environmental concerns, this being attributed to low levels of knowledge among its members, plausible impunity and little development in nearby local communities. [2]
In Bolivia the spread of mining cooperatives dates to the 1930s [1] while in Chile mining cooperatives became common in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a series of mines were reorganized as worker's cooperatives, including Dulcinea, El Morado and some mines in Andacollo. [4] In Bolivia, about 60,000 miners are organized into cooperatives. [1]