Our field staff get to know their local area and work with local authorities, land owners and mining communities to identify new mine sites. They then visit to check expected production levels, security and other conditions, and report to ITSCI management. If conditions are acceptable the sites are integrated into the traceability and monitoring system. These initial mine baseline reports are updated as necessary as the mine begins to produce and circumstance change, and since our field teams use the same transport routes to reach the mines they can look out for illegal activity on their travels.
Information on individual mine location and production is not made public since that is commercially valuable information that can affect price and competition. In the DRC, we participate in the official one-off ‘validation’ missions when they occur but do not use these as the sole basis for integrating sites.
Identifying mine areas and involved actors is a vital part of OECD Step 1
