Further to a thematic meeting organised in December 2008, the University of Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) jointly organised from December 1 to 3, 2010, in Tervuren (Belgium) an international conference on the theme of mineral resources in Central Africa, and more specifically in the DR Congo.

It aimed at presenting the results of research projects over several years (MIRECA, GECO, TRACE) and also new research guidelines and recent projects with focus on local governance and preservation of cultural heritage threatened by the artisanal mining. Two plenary sessions and three workshops were organised.

AEGOS was invited as part of workshop “Mineral resources and geology” to present a spatial data infrastructure to complement other presentations on mineral potential, source traceability, ore fingerprints, certifying trading chains in mineral production (coltan, diamonds). One AEGOS partner and one subcontractor also participated in this international scientific colloquium. Yves Vanbrabant (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) made a presentat ion on “Multdiscipl inary characterisat ion of heterogenite”; François Lubala (Department of Geology, University of Lubumbashi) presented the “Uranium potential in Southern Katanga”.

Based on the results presented during this workshop, a synthesis was prepared as follows.

Scientific and technical tools such as data sharing infrastructure and ore fingerprints are now operational and developed about a wide range of commodities (coltan, heterogenite, diamonds, etc.). There is still a strong need for characterising the mining districts over time in order to feed the databases with updated data sets for traceability of ore resources. Then, information systems such as AEGOS could facilitate data sharing for improving the regional approach of the certifying trading chains and be a key infrastructure to improve responsibility in mining for the sustainable and fair management of mineral resources.

More information:    http://www.gecoproject.org/?page=colloque                                                                                                           

M. URVOIS (BRGM, France)

AEGOS Project Coordinator