Artisanal mining
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) encompasses mineral extraction activities performed by individuals, families, or cooperatives using basic hand tools, minimal machinery, and limited capital investment, often in informal or unregulated operations that prioritize subsistence livelihoods over industrial efficiency.[1][2][3] This form of mining sustains an estimated 40 to 50 million direct participants across more than 80 countries, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Asia, where it serves as a critical income source amid scarce formal employment options and contributes up to 20% of global gold output alongside significant shares of cobalt, tin, and gemstones essential for electronics and batteries.[4][5][6] Defining traits include high labor intensity, rudimentary extraction techniques such as panning, digging, and sluicing, and frequent encroachment on concessions or protected lands, yielding variable yields dependent on site geology and operator skill rather than mechanized scale.[7][8] Prominent controversies arise from acute safety hazards—manifesting in frequent collapses, poisonings, and fatalities without protective gear or oversight—widespread environmental harms like deforestation, soil erosion, and mercury contamination from gold amalgamation, which bioaccumulates in ecosystems and human populations, and the exploitation of marginalized groups including women and children comprising up to 30% of the workforce in some locales.[9][10][11] Despite these perils, ASM's persistence stems from its low entry barriers and responsiveness to commodity price fluctuations, prompting international initiatives for formalization to enhance traceability, reduce illicit trade, and integrate operators into sustainable supply chains without eradicating the sector's role in poverty alleviation.[12][13]Definition and Characteristics
Definition and Scope
Artisanal mining, commonly termed artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), refers to mineral extraction operations carried out by individuals, families, cooperatives, or small enterprises using basic manual tools, with limited or no mechanization and low capital investment. These activities are typically informal, relying on human labor for digging, panning, and processing, and often occur in areas lacking formal regulatory oversight or industrial infrastructure.[1][14][2] The scope of artisanal mining includes a broad spectrum of scales, from subsistence-level individual efforts to semi-organized groups employing dozens of workers, but generally excluding large mechanized operations. It targets diverse resources such as gold, diamonds, gemstones, base metals, coal, and construction aggregates, often in alluvial deposits, placer formations, or shallow veins accessible without heavy equipment. While no universal legal threshold defines "small-scale," operations are distinguished by their reliance on simple technologies like picks, shovels, and sluices, producing outputs that support local economies rather than national industrial supply chains.[15][16] Globally, ASM engages an estimated 40 to 45 million direct participants across more than 80 countries, primarily in low- and middle-income regions of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where it sustains livelihoods for rural populations facing limited alternatives. The sector contributes 12 to 20 percent of worldwide gold output—equating to 380 to 450 metric tons annually—and significant shares of other commodities like tantalum and cassiterite, underscoring its role in global mineral supply despite its decentralized and unregulated nature.[4][17][18]Distinction from Industrial Mining
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is distinguished from industrial or large-scale mining (LSM) by its smaller operational scale, reliance on manual labor, and limited use of mechanized equipment, often involving individuals, families, or cooperatives with minimal capital investment.[19][3] In contrast, LSM requires substantial upfront capital for heavy machinery, infrastructure, and processing facilities, enabling extraction volumes that dwarf ASM outputs, such as annual productions exceeding millions of tons per site in LSM operations versus tens to hundreds of tons in typical ASM sites.[20] This scale disparity arises from ASM's focus on subsistence or poverty-driven extraction in resource-poor regions, while LSM targets economically viable deposits through geological surveys and corporate investment.[21] Technologically, ASM employs rudimentary methods like hand tools, panning, sluicing, or basic shaft digging, resulting in lower ore recovery rates—often below 50% for gold compared to over 90% in LSM due to advanced crushing, flotation, and chemical processing.[3][19] LSM integrates mechanized drilling, blasting, conveyor systems, and automated refineries, which demand skilled engineers and technicians but reduce labor intensity per unit of output.[20] These differences stem from capital constraints in ASM, where operators cannot afford equipment costing millions, leading to higher physical labor demands and injury risks, as evidenced by ILO estimates of over 1,000 annual fatalities in ASM from collapses or falls absent in regulated LSM sites. Organizationally and regulatorily, ASM operates predominantly in the informal sector, frequently without licenses or environmental permits, fostering illegality in up to 80% of cases in mineral-rich developing countries as of 2020.[1] LSM, by comparison, adheres to national mining codes, international standards like those from the ICMM, and mandatory environmental impact assessments, incurring compliance costs that exclude small operators.[21] This informality in ASM enables rapid entry into deposits but exposes workers to unregulated hazards, including child labor in 10-20% of sites per UN reports, whereas LSM enforces age restrictions and safety protocols under labor laws. Economically, ASM sustains local communities through direct, albeit low-wage, employment—contributing up to 20% of global gold production but with per-worker earnings often under $2 daily—while LSM generates formal jobs with benefits, royalties, and taxes funding infrastructure, though it may displace ASM via land concessions.[22] Conflicts arise as both vie for overlapping concessions, with ASM incursions onto LSM claims reported in 70% of World Bank-studied cases, exacerbating tensions over resource access.[20] Environmentally, ASM's inefficiencies amplify per-ton impacts, such as mercury emissions from gold amalgamation—responsible for 37% of global anthropogenic mercury releases per UNEP 2018 data—due to unlined tailings and open-pit methods without remediation. LSM, despite larger footprints (e.g., open pits spanning kilometers), mitigates via engineered tailings dams and reclamation, though violations occur; comparative studies show ASM's unregulated practices cause more acute local pollution, like river siltation from unchecked erosion.[23][20] These distinctions underscore ASM's role as a poverty trap versus LSM's capacity for scalable, sustainable extraction when regulated.Global Scale and Demographics
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) directly employs an estimated 45 million people across at least 80 countries, with figures from comprehensive inventories suggesting up to 49.5 million direct participants (ranging from 42.9 to 64.3 million based on data from 86 countries).[4][5] Including indirect dependents such as family members reliant on mining income, the sector supports livelihoods for over 315 million individuals globally as of 2024, predominantly in low-income regions where formal employment opportunities are scarce.[24] These estimates reflect growth from earlier figures, such as 40.5 million direct engagements in 2017, driven by poverty, population pressures, and resource booms in minerals like gold and cobalt.[13] The sector's footprint is concentrated in developing regions, with Sub-Saharan Africa hosting the largest concentrations—estimated at around 10 million direct workers—followed by South and Southeast Asia and Latin America.[25] Countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Tanzania, Indonesia, and Peru account for significant shares, where ASM contributes substantially to national mineral outputs, such as 15-20% of global gold production annually.[26] Participation is often informal and poverty-driven, with miners frequently operating in remote or conflict-affected areas lacking industrial alternatives, leading to variable scales from individual diggers to cooperatives of hundreds.[13] Demographically, ASM attracts a diverse workforce skewed toward rural, low-education adults, with socio-demographic factors like age, gender, and experience influencing role assignments—younger or less experienced individuals often handle labor-intensive extraction, while women predominate in processing and support tasks.[27] Female participation is highest in Africa at 40-50% of the workforce, though globally women face constraints in accessing extraction roles due to cultural norms and physical demands, limiting their involvement to ancillary activities like ore crushing and trading.[28] Age profiles vary by site but commonly include working adults from late teens to middle age, with limited data disaggregation highlighting gaps in formal tracking; for instance, surveyed female miners in some African operations ranged from 29 to 40 years old.[29] Overall, the sector's demographics underscore its role as a subsistence fallback for marginalized groups, including migrants and indigenous communities, amid sparse quantitative data on ethnicity or education levels.[30]Historical Context
Pre-Modern Origins
The earliest evidence of mining activity dates to approximately 43,000 years ago at the Ngwenya Mine (also known as Lion Cave) in present-day Eswatini, where Middle Stone Age humans extracted red ochre using simple stone tools for pigment in rituals or body adornment.[31] This rudimentary extraction involved shallow surface workings by small groups, marking the onset of organized resource gathering from the earth beyond mere surface collection. By the Neolithic period, around 5000 BCE, flint mining emerged in Europe, as seen at sites like Spiennes in Belgium, where communities dug pits up to 16 meters deep using antler picks and wooden levers to procure high-quality flint for tools and weapons. These operations relied on manual labor, fire for hardening tools, and communal effort, embodying the low-technology, small-scale nature characteristic of pre-modern artisanal practices. With the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages around 3500–3000 BCE, mining expanded to metals, initially through placer deposits and shallow shafts worked by individuals or families using pans, baskets, and basic digging implements.[32] In ancient Egypt, gold extraction in Nubia from circa 2000 BCE involved labor-intensive methods such as panning alluvial deposits, fire-setting to fracture quartz veins, and grinding ores with stone mortars, often conducted by teams of workers under pharaonic oversight but with techniques accessible to small groups.[33] Similar practices prevailed in Mesopotamia and the Levant for copper and tin, where surface outcrops were exploited seasonally, supporting early metallurgy without large infrastructure.[34] Pre-colonial Africa featured widespread artisanal gold mining, with operations in regions like the Akan gold fields of modern Ghana dating back to at least the 13th century, involving pit digging, washing, and smelting by local ethnic groups such as the Lobi and Gonja using wooden tools and mercury-free amalgamation precursors.[35] [36] In the Americas, pre-Columbian societies conducted small-scale extraction, such as copper mining by the Old Copper Complex around Lake Superior from 6000 years ago, employing stone hammers and wooden wedges for native copper nodules, and gold working in the Andes via panning and simple smelting from the 1st millennium BCE.[37] These methods persisted as the dominant form of mining until the Industrial Revolution, limited by technology to low-volume, localized efforts dependent on human and animal power.[38]Colonial Influences and Expansion
European colonial expansion from the 16th century onward profoundly shaped artisanal mining by integrating indigenous practices into global commodity chains, driven by metropolitan demands for precious metals to finance wars, trade, and industrialization. In the Spanish Americas, conquests beginning in 1492 rapidly escalated gold and silver extraction through placer techniques—rudimentary panning and sluicing akin to modern artisanal methods—employing indigenous, African, and mestizo laborers. By the mid-16th century, these operations underpinned colonial economies; for instance, in Nueva Granada (modern Colombia), gold mining from riverbeds and shallow deposits fueled urban founding and economic growth, with production peaking as cities like Santa Fe de Bogotá emerged around extraction sites.[39] Similarly, Spanish American silver output, much from initial small-scale vein workings before mechanization, reached ten times Europe's volume by 1600, expanding artisanal labor pools despite coercive systems like the mita draft.[40] In Africa, colonial powers amplified pre-existing artisanal gold mining through trade networks and administrative controls, particularly in West Africa where alluvial and shallow-pit methods had long supplied trans-Saharan routes. British rule in the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) from the late 19th century spurred a concession rush, with 11 companies operating in Tarkwa by the 1880s and leases proliferating between 1897 and 1900, yet small-scale African mining persisted via regulated prospecting licenses under the Concessions Ordinance of 1900, which confined locals to "indigenous technology" to prioritize European firms.[41] This era saw expanded output as colonial infrastructure, including railways, linked interior deposits to ports, though Africans were largely relegated to labor roles or informal "galamsey" activities after restrictions like Regulation No. 15 of 1926 limited access to concessions.[41] French colonialism in West Africa formalized distinctions between industrial and small-scale mining, originating the regulatory precursor to modern artisanal categories. Established with the Afrique Occidentale Française federation in 1904, policies evolved to grant African subjects seasonal "customary" rights to gold and salt extraction in designated native reserves, formalized by a federation-wide decree on October 22, 1924, which delineated these from stable titles for European citizens and reflected technological primitivism rather than authentic traditions.[42] Examples included goldfields in Hiré (Côte d'Ivoire) and Poura (Upper Volta), where such provisions prevented conflicts over concessions while enabling limited expansion of local operations to supplement colonial revenues. These frameworks, prioritizing resource control and racial hierarchies, laid causal foundations for postcolonial artisanal persistence, as they institutionalized small-scale mining's marginal yet enduring role amid large-scale dominance.[42]Post-Independence Growth and Modernization
Following decolonization in the mid-20th century, artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) experienced significant expansion across sub-Saharan Africa, driven by population pressures, rural unemployment, and limited formal sector opportunities in newly independent states. In Ghana, after independence in 1957, initial nationalization efforts under the Ghana State Mining Corporation focused on large-scale operations, yet ASM persisted and proliferated informally, particularly for gold extraction, as economic stagnation and structural adjustment programs in the 1980s liberalized markets and encouraged smallholder participation.[43][44] By the 1990s, ASM had become a dominant feature, with estimates indicating that small-scale gold production accounted for a substantial portion of the country's output, often exceeding formal mining in volume due to informal networks evading regulation.[45] In Tanzania, independence in 1961 initially led to state-led mining policies under President Julius Nyerere, which suppressed ASM activities deemed illegal, but rural poverty and high commodity prices fueled underground expansion, particularly in gold-rich regions like Geita.[46] The sector surged in the late 1980s and 1990s amid economic liberalization, displacing around 30,000 artisanal miners when foreign-backed large-scale mines were established at sites like Geita and Nzega in 1998–1999, yet prompting further migration and settlement in peripheral areas.[47] Across the region, ASM grew from niche pre-independence practices to a poverty-driven mainstay, employing millions and contributing up to 20% of Africa's gold supply by the early 21st century, though much production remained unrecorded due to smuggling and informality.[48][49] Modernization initiatives emerged in the 1990s and intensified post-2000, aiming to formalize ASM through licensing, cooperatives, and technological upgrades to enhance safety, reduce environmental harm, and integrate operators into national economies. In sub-Saharan Africa, international support spanning four decades—via organizations like the World Bank and Intergovernmental Forum on Mining—has promoted mechanized tools, mercury-free processing, and regulatory frameworks, yet implementation has faltered due to weak governance, corruption, and miners' resistance to costs associated with compliance.[50][51] For instance, Ghana's efforts to license small-scale miners under the Minerals and Mining Act of 2006 have registered thousands, but illegal "galamsey" operations persist, often reclaiming tailings from large mines with rudimentary pumps and crushers adapted from agricultural equipment.[52] Similarly, Tanzania's 1998 Mining Act facilitated primary mining licenses for ASM, enabling some cooperatives to adopt semi-mechanized methods, though enforcement gaps allow ongoing informality amid urban migration to mining frontiers.[49] These reforms have yielded mixed results, with formalized ASM boosting local revenues in select areas but failing to curb hazards like child labor and toxic exposures, as empirical data shows persistent reliance on manual labor over scalable innovations.[9]Methods and Practices
Extraction Techniques and Tools
Artisanal mining extraction predominantly employs manual labor and rudimentary tools to access and liberate minerals from ore deposits. Common excavation implements include picks, shovels, chisels, axes, hoes, and hammers, which miners use to break rock, dig pits, or construct underground workings.[53] In open-pit operations, such as those in Guinea, workers excavate shallow trenches or pits, often wider than deep, to sample and extract ore bodies.[53] For underground extraction, prevalent in regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo, miners manually sink vertical shafts using chisels and hammers, reaching depths up to 35 meters with minimal structural support like timber props.[53] Alluvial deposits, particularly for gold and diamonds, are processed via gravity-based concentration methods. Panning involves swirling sediment and water in a shallow metal or wooden pan, allowing denser minerals to settle while lighter materials are washed away; this technique, using tools like metal pans or calabashes, is widespread in Mali and Sierra Leone for riverine gravels.[53] [54] Sluicing employs long troughs or boxes fitted with riffles to channel water over ore, trapping heavy particles; homemade sluice boxes enhance recovery over panning alone and are common in gold-bearing streams across Africa and South America.[53] [54] Hard rock ores require initial comminution before concentration. Miners crush larger rocks manually with hammers on anvils or in mortars and pestles to achieve liberation sizes suitable for further processing, often operating in open circuits without screening for efficiency.[54] Grinding follows using similar hand tools or basic querns to reduce particles finer, facilitating gravity separation.[54] While some sites incorporate low-level mechanization like hand pumps for water in sluicing or basic winches for hoisting from shafts, core techniques remain labor-intensive to minimize capital outlay.[53] These methods prioritize accessibility over scale, enabling operations in remote areas with limited infrastructure.[1]Targeted Minerals and Resources
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) predominantly targets high-value minerals amenable to extraction using manual labor and basic equipment, such as alluvial deposits. Gold constitutes the primary commodity, with ASM accounting for approximately 20% of global production, equivalent to around 330 tonnes annually across roughly 70 countries.[55] This dominance reflects gold's economic viability for low-capital operations, employing about 50% of all ASM workers worldwide.[55] Gemstones, including diamonds and sapphires, represent another key focus. ASM supplies about 20% of the world's diamonds, primarily from alluvial sources in Africa and South America, involving an estimated 1.5 million operators in 18 countries.[55] Sapphires from ASM contribute up to 80% of global supply, with significant production in Madagascar where hundreds of thousands of miners operate.[55] In regions affected by conflict or resource scarcity, such as Central Africa, ASM extracts critical minerals like tantalum (from coltan), tin (from cassiterite), and cobalt. Tantalum from ASM comprises 26% of global supply, largely from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while tin accounts for 25%.[55] Cobalt extraction in the DRC, often alongside copper, supports global battery production but raises concerns over labor conditions.[24] Other resources include semiprecious stones, base metals like copper, and industrial materials such as gravel, salt, and quarry rock, though these are less central to ASM's global profile compared to precious commodities.[24]| Mineral | Approximate % of Global Supply from ASM | Primary Regions |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 20% | Africa, South America, Asia |
| Diamonds | 20% | Africa, South America |
| Sapphires | 80% | Madagascar, Africa |
| Tantalum | 26% | Central Africa (e.g., DRC) |
| Tin | 25% | Global, including Africa |