I beleive the informales, in our region anyway, are/were offered jobs with SLI. It has been said by Lori at the AGM that we employ some of these informales and local people. The informales in some regions are blamed for their pollution, the use of mercury. So, the government is trying to cut this unsafe practice out as much as they can, and recently there have been arrests made and riots.

The informales depend on this gold to feed their families, but where ever possible these informales will be giving the opportunities to work in mines and related activities, hence taken them away from the unfreindly environmental practices. Peru is in a transitional period and that has added to the wait time on permits, the Peruvian government trying to deal with these situations and make things better for the Peruvian people and miners going forward.

From some of the stories I have heard, SLI has worked well with the closest community and even helped out some of the locals by building a house for one family. It appears that our intentions toward the native people are genuine, and this type of compassion goes a long way.

Also, I have read that in some regions of South America, that informales are hired by drug lords to work for them. The government recognizes this as feeding the drug trade and are taking measures to diminish this. So, you have good informales and bad alike. The same where ever you go I guess, good people and bad people.

All in all, I beleive the local people will be well taken care of around the perceived rich Tesoro.