Artisanal mining


Artisanal and small-scale mining is a blanket term for a wide variety of types of small mining that range from manual subsistence mining using simple tools to vocational mining that is semi-mechanised involving light machinery such as generators, water pumps, and small motorized mills, through to organised mechanised mining that employs industrial equipment such as excavators and bull dozers. ASM involves miners who may or may not be officially employed. Although there can be large numbers of miners working at a mining site, they typically work in small teams according to a customary system of organisation that includes a manager, skilled and unskilled labour.
While the terms are generally used interchangeably or synonymously, by definition 'artisanal mining' refers to purely manual labor while 'small-scale mining' typically involves larger operations and some use of mechanical or industrial tools. While there is no completely coherent definition for ASM, artisanal mining generally includes miners who are not officially employed by a mining company and use their own resources to mine. As such, they are part of an informal economy. ASM also includes, in small-scale mining, enterprises or individuals that employ workers for mining, but who generally still use similar manually-intensive methods as artisanal miners. In addition, ASM can be characterized as distinct from large-scale mining by less efficient extraction of pure minerals from the ore, lower wages, decreased occupational safety, benefits, and health standards for miners, and a lack of environmental protection measures. ASM has on occasion been evaluated positively in terms of negligible capital outflow, the employment it generates and the connection it has with local society and economy in contrast with the enclave economies of some LSM.
Artisanal miners often undertake the activity of mining seasonally. For example, crops are planted in the rainy season, and mining is pursued in the dry season. However, they also frequently travel to mining areas and work year-round. There are four broad types of ASM:
  1. Permanent artisanal mining
  2. Seasonal
  3. Rush-type
  4. Shock-push.
ASM is an important socio-economic sector for the rural poor in many developing nations, many of whom have few other options for supporting their families. Over 90% of the world's mining workforce are engaged in ASM, with an estimated 40.5 million people directly engaged in ASM, from over 80 countries in the global south. More than 150 million people indirectly depend on ASM for their livelihood. 70–80% of small-scale miners are informal, and approximately 30% are women, although this ranges in certain countries and commodities from 5% to 80%.

Economic output

Artisanal mining can include activities as simple as panning for gold in rivers, to as complex as development of underground workings and small-scale processing plants. Miners use a variety of methods to locate minerals, including historical knowledge, the observation of other minerals or rocks, or technology such as mineral detectors and audio-based reflection seismology surveys. In addition, ASM targets a variety of minerals in addition to metals, including bauxite, coltan, cobalt, coal, sand, gravel, and dimension stones.

International market

The rise in the price of certain minerals, such as precious stones or precious metals, has driven rural residents in the global south to increasingly turn to artisanal mining as supplementary income, as higher mineral prices yield better returns for those engaged in ASM. This is reflected in the growth of the ASM industry. For instance, the 400% rise in the price of gold from 2002 to 2012 appears to be reflected as an increase in the number of miners engaged in ASM. Similarly, an increase in demand for lithium-ion battery-powered products has led to increased demand for cobalt, leading to a corresponding boom in ASM for minerals containing cobalt.
Globally, artisanal mining contributes 17% to 20%, or between 380 and 450, metric tonnes of annual gold production. This gold input is equally a significant contribution to both the international gold industry and the economy for a given community.
The ASM sector produces 80% of the global sapphire supply, 20% of global diamond supply, 26% of the global tantalum supply, and 25% of global tin production.

Domestic market

ASM also supplies development minerals for domestic markets. Instead of being exported abroad, these minerals are used for construction, energy production, and other purposes in the home country of the ASM operation.
ASM serves as additional supplemental income for rural communities in many parts of the global south, with miners either establishing mutually beneficial relationships with farmers, or being farmers themselves. This is particularly the case for individuals in rural communities who lack urban economic opportunities. As part of seasonal ASM, for instance, farmers may use income they gained from ASM in the dry season to finance the purchasing of agricultural equipment or seed in the rainy season, or might also sell surplus crops to those already engaged in ASM.

Economic opportunities

ASM, if properly regulated, has the capacity to lift people out of poverty, improve health and environmental conditions, and create better economic conditions for entire regions through job creation and supplementary income.
ASM is particularly relevant for people in rural communities. Many poor populations in rural areas of the global south lack the employment opportunities that urban areas include, which ASM can supplement. Furthermore, neoliberal structural adjustment programs have disproportionately targeted urban centers as opposed to rural areas. Such programs are intended to help multinational corporations invest in developing countries with fewer trade and regulatory barriers, such as the reforms implemented by the IMF in over 70 countries following the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. Here, the IMF's goal was to promote economic growth in the private sector, reducing reliance on state sponsorship. Under these types of neoliberal structural adjustment programs, reports of child labor violations, insufficient safety standards, and environmental violations are commonplace. For many in mineral-rich areas, artisanal mining is the only source of income immediately available, despite hazardous conditions, in informally organized areas where rules can vary based on legal means, corruption, violence, or cultural norms, weakened worker protections can exacerbate existing tensions. For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa, each of the 8 million people seasonally or permanently employed in ASM is estimated to use income gained from ASM to support an average of 5–6 other people. ASM also includes ancillary industries such as shipping and processing ore not directly related to the act of mining that can provide additional jobs.
Although there are large industrial mines worldwide, artisanal mines employ many more people. In 2017, while 7 million people worldwide were employed in large-scale mining, around 40 million people were employed in ASM, typically workers who are not eligible for employment in industrial mining due to a lack of formal education and experience. Bringing ASM into the formal economy through legalization could theoretically benefit governments in that they reduce illicit financial transactions, can collect taxes on ASM income, and often see a subsequent reduction in crime in these regions. However, ASM is by nature dispersed and tends to be located in more remote areas that make it difficult to completely formalize. Formalization is made more difficult by the control that armed groups, from militants to criminal organizations, have over many ASM operations.

Issues around ASM

Formalization and unionization

The majority of miners engaged in ASM miners worldwide do not have legal title, and oftentimes the regulatory frameworks for national mining policy work to exclude or restrict ASM practices. Currently, the informal nature of ASM in many places prevents the state from taxing income gained from ASM, as well as from setting tariff rates on exported minerals.
In addition, even if ASM is legal, it is often still very difficult for ASM workers to obtain licenses. The license process might be very long, limited to citizens of the state in which it is located, or very costly. As a result, even when licenses are technically available, many ASM operators will choose to remain informal. The informal nature of ASM contributes to ASM's vulnerability to being controlled by armed actors such as organized crime, its environmental pollution, and poor safety standards for miners.

Health and safety

ASM presents a wide range of physical hazards to workers including the use of hazardous materials such as mercury, lead, uranium, and cyanide, poorly constructed pits/shafts/tunnels prone to collapses/landslides/flooding/lack of ventilation, poor waste management leading to water contamination and diseases, lack of PPE or training in proper use leading to silicosis and other health risks, impacts related to dust/noise/exhaustive labor, lack of potable water/latrines/sanitation facilities leading to gastrointestinal and other diseases, and physical risks from inappropriate use and maintenance of mechanical equipment. As a result, child labor and a large number of fatal accidents have been reported in artisanal mines.
Improving monitoring and reporting on occupational health and safety is an important first step, as well as training on standards and skills. A recent project of the tin working group of IDH addressed these challenges in the Indonesian tin ASM sector. Key results included sector dialogue and alignment, improved regulatory framework, awareness-raising to improve supply chain practices and training guidelines for more responsible ASM techniques.