Who is the artisanal miner and what next?

I am trying, gradually and unrushed, to embark on a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding artisanal mining, and as with any complex subject and problem, to do so takes a lot of discussion, reading, and no small investment of time. It is a journey that is never complete. It has been one growing in discussion with those involved on the scene first hand over many decades – unlike myself – an admitted newcomer to the subject.

What is clear is that there is a huge spectrum of situations and players, that we know involves millions of people around the world. Probably approaching something like 50 million directly. Many more indirectly. The complexity of the problem is one that renders it firmly in the realm of the so called “wicked” problem: 

https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wicked-problem/about/What-is-a-wicked-problem

Stereotypes abound, but for the most part these are people recognising an opportunity to make a living in places where such opportunities do not necessarily abound. Often in places where the norm is for families to help collectively in whatever the mode of making a living is.

These are not people that are stupid, or totally unaware of the risks and environmental issues surrounding many aspects of mining, not least the use of mercury in gold extraction. They try to protect their loved ones and themselves as much as is possible, and those around. As with so much of life though for any of us, there are calculated risks involved of reward and danger. Every time we hop in a car for example.  There are places in the world, where the risks and rewards of being involved in artisanal mining compete very easily with the risks and absence of opportunity of not being involved. 

The issue is that because of some of the inherent problems, such activities, which frequently though not always cluster around bigger mines, are often (again, not always) classed as illegal, or are legally ambiguous at best. That's not without reason given some of the players and some of the consequences. This though is also a handicap to help. However widespread an activity might be, help is compromised when to do so is technically illegal, or ambiguous. Hence formalisation is a term routinely used to capture processes that are seen as helping break this stalemate, by removing the illegality or legal ambiguity of improved artisanal mining practices and “formalising” them into a more legitimate and “helpable” space.

Yet it is fundamentally chicken and egg. You can't help make formalisation happen without engaging with the technically illegal or ambiguous. Insisting on whole swathes of pre-conditions before engaging with favoured micro-sites looks good on paper but limits what can be achieved at any scale. It takes a realpolitik of willingness to help those that are doing "technically" illegal stuff, or inhabiting a legal netherworld of ambiguity and conflicting rules or practices.

That takes courage for individuals and organisations. It is not an option to wait for it to be good to start helping it become good. Thought is also required to include and not isolate all those involved in the process now. We can’t help just one end of the existing supply chain and also expect those in the middle or at the other end to quietly become redundant.  There needs to be something in improving a system for everyone, for it to truly gain traction.

What can help? It's not a case of stopping something that will happen whether we like it or not. It's a case of empowering it to happen productively, safer, better, kinder to the environment. That is often a story of equipment. Equipment that is designed specifically for this currently "illegal" or "legally ambiguous" market, and for the idiosyncrasies of culture and geography and infrastructure in each location. Equipment that is robust, easy to maintain, small enough for artisanal miners to move, and cheap enough for them to afford, whether individually or in small collectives. A tough business proposition for any player perhaps, but also a huge market. A HUGE market.

People are working on just this, often with the theoretical sanction of lawmakers in the countries involved - but it takes equipment designers intimate with each mineral process and location, investors with no small amount of bravery, and astuteness on the part of administrations in countries & districts where it happens, to take it to the next level. Above all perhaps, a recognition that the situation isn't going to be squeaky clean before engagement happens. Not if it is to work.

Laws and constitutions can sound great, but practices on the ground can be very different.  Some of the most despotic regimes on the planet have constitutions that sound positively angelic.  Different countries around the world have different levels of disparity between what is sanctioned on paper and what is practised on the ground, and furthermore, in how the populace at large regard certain “legalities”.  

If our concern is with what happens on the ground, we need to recognise these differences and adjust actions accordingly. Not to be constantly paralysed by how the law works in some northern European country, applying it in the same way in some remote rural province of Asia, Africa, or South America, and expecting magic to happen. 

Instead, the need is a kind of pragmatism that is rare.  We need to make it less so.  Fundamental to doing so is an astute recognition of trustable personalities and people on the ground who “get it” and are mobilised to invoke change.  People can be on the wrong side of an “on paper” law somewhere and still be trustable for goals that help a community. The ones that know those potential “agents” of change are the community itself, and its pillars in any one culture.  Recognising and engaging them is key to whatever happens next.

Concentrating on the equipments that can help make the problematic for everyone less so, is also a key route to breaking the log-jam.  Not the only one, but a key one.  But insisting all artisanal miners operate totally legally now before distributing that equipment for sale to them would be a route to guaranteeing it never happens. 

A tricky issue and no-one is pretending it is easy, but recognising these things is a start, and that is happening increasingly.  Key to it is asking the question and understanding - who is the artisanal miner and what help do they want?  And knowing that, knowing who is placed to give it.