Artisanal mining

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) 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 bulldozers. 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 (such as working with hand tools). In addition, ASM can be characterized as distinct from large-scale mining (LSM) 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 (annually migrating during idle agriculture periods)
  3. Rush-type (massive migration, pulled often by commodity price jumps)
  4. Shock-push (poverty-driven, following conflict or natural disasters).

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%.

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