Satoshi Murao
Geological
Survey of Japan, AIST
CASM-Asia: a new initiative for artisanal mining in Asia
A new
international initiative for artisanal mining, “CASM-Asia“, was inaugurated as
a subgroup of the Community And Small Scale Mining initiative (CASM). The project is funded by the World Bank and
is coordinated by the Geological Survey of Japan, AIST.
The mission of
CASM is "to reduce poverty by supporting integrated sustainable
development of communities affected by or involved in artisanal and small-scale
mining in developing countries" and the CASM-Asia will follow this
concept. The aim of the project is to (i) identify, map and characterize
artisanal mining in Asia, (ii) share experiences and best practices to address
artisanal mining issues within the regional context, (iii) facilitate
partnerships for the implementation of improved development practices, (iv)
promote the formalization of the activities and a better contribution and
integration to local communities development and (v) aim at the sustainability
of the network through cooperation.
Since
artisanal mining issues include moral/ethics component, the CASM-Asia should
envisage whether it can contribute to the establishment of ethical principles
in addition to other protocols for management of artisanal mining.
Introduction
Artisanal
mining is an activity where poor people recover minerals as subsistence
activity with rudimentary tools and methods. It is often practiced in rural
areas of developing countries by those who lack the requisite education,
training, management skills and finance. The mining is often done in haphazard
manner with severe consequences to the environment, communities and miners
themselves. According to ILO (1999), there are about 6.7 to 7.2 million miners
in Asia and the Pacific region but not many information is available and
consequently not many cooperation among stakeholders are known in the region.
However the artisanal mining shows negative aspect as stated below, and its
approrpiate management is a pressing need of the region.
Artisanal/small-scale mining has a wide spectrum in
the kind of commodity, volume of production, number of engaged people, size of
business and social dimension. In some countries, indigenous people practices
artisanal mining as a part of their culture and such type of mining is called
“tradtional mining“. While artisanal mining without such cultural base can be
called “rush-type mining“. But whether a mining in a district belongs to the
concept of small, medium or large depends on the kind of commodity, deposit
type and other factors. Also sometimes both rush-type mining and traditional
mining are coexisting in the same area. Thus it is not easy to distinguish
artisanal, small-scale and medium-scale mining or rush-type and traditional
type of mining, and the definition of terms does not give practical convenience
to the discussion. In this paper, the word artisanal/small-scale mining is used
as an inclusive term to indicate mining conducted mainly by individuals or by
groups of individuals in developing countries. Junior mining companies are
excluded.
Problems
Artisanal mining has caused various kinds of problems in environmental,
accidental, health and social dimensions. Typical environmental issues are
deforestation, loss of vegetation cover, loss of soil, siltation of river,
heavy metal contamination of soil and sediments, water pollution, leak of
cyanide solution and industrial waste left on site. Geo-hazards are also often
observed like landslide after rain, flash flood/landslides, inundation by
water, gas explosion, earthquake, cave-in and mudslide after rain. Hazards in
the working environment are also known as dust, fume, noise, vibration, heat
and ergonomic problem. Health issue is another important category and HIV/Aids,
pneumoconiosis (silicosis) and heavy metal poisoning are examples. Accidents
often happen such as explosion of dynamite, elevator fall, man fall, oxygen
shortage, flooding after dynamite explosion and injury. Social issues are
complex and it is beyond the author’s ability but child labor, conflict between
local people and mining company, increase in crime and civil war to seize power
on mineral-rich land are well known to the public.
Fig. 1 Typical scene of artisanal mining with adits
(white arrows) opened on steep slope of mountain in the Philipines
CASM-Asia
In Asia, information on artisanal mining is very
scarce and mostly no cooperational network among stakeholders is known either
in national, regional or international scale. However it is an important
economic activity and is at the same time serious burden to the environment.
Thus the present author proposed a regional framework that designates
“CASM-Asia“. This is a subgroup of the “Community and Small Scale Mining
initiative (CASM)“ and is funded by the World Bank‘s Development Grant
Facility. The fund is deposited in the Coordinating Committee for Geoscience
Programmes for South and Southeast Asia (CCOP) and is coordinated by the
Geological Survey of Japan, AIST. The possible duration of the project is three
years.
The mission of CASM is "to reduce poverty by
supporting integrated sustainable development of communities affected by or
involved in artisanal and small-scale mining in developing countries (http://www.casmsite.org/about.html)"
and the CASM-Asia will follow this concept. The aim of CASM-Asia is to
(i) identify, map and characterize artisanal mining
in Asia,
(ii) share experiences and best practices to address
artisanal mining issues within the regional context,
(iii) facilitate partnerships for the implementation
of improved development practices,
(iv) promote the formalization of the activities and
a better contribution and integration to local communities development and
(v) aim at the sustainability of the network through
cooperation.
CCOP is an intergovernmental organization based on
Bangkok, and the mission is coordination between the member countries and
cooperating countries for the purpose of
(i) sharing information, knowledge, and best
practices,
(ii) coordinating and managing multi-national
projects on behalf of appropriate member countries, and
(iii) facilitating the partnership of projects
between cooperating countries and member countries and advising on
implementation strategies.
The specific
role of CCOP in fulfilling the objectives outlined above includes the
following.
Database construction on artisanal mining in Asia. The database archives
both technical and social information on artisanal mining, i.e., mineral
deposit geology, mineralization, target mineral, type of mining, environmental
degradation, incidents, related laws, rules and policy, and social issues.
Mapping each country to elucidate what commodity is recovered by whom and
where.
Goal Oriented Project Planning (GOPP) to understand important themes in
Asia. GOPP is an innovative tool for project management in which interactive
workshops involving all stakeholders in a project together with an external
moderator are held at different points in the project life cycle. GOPP aimsto
improve the quality of the analysis made by the group of partners in the design
phase of a project; o make the project more coherent and transparent by
clarifying the responsibilities of each partner; to provide trust and
self-confidence to project partners so to reduce the risk of lack of commitment
or failure during the implementation of the intervention; and to improve the
capacity of the group of partners to achieve more results in a limited time (http://www.gopp.org/gma/gmagopp.htm).
After completing the database, a GOPP workshop will be held in Bangkok in
order to know what themes should be prioritized in CASM-Asia project.
Setting-up web site and the link to
that of CASM and CASM-China.
Summarizing accumulated wisdom as “CASM-Asia vision“.
In the earlier stage, the project focuses on the
Member Countries except for China, Singapore and Japan (i.e., Cambodia,
Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, PNG, Thailand, Vietnam), and at later
stage, it will be expanded to countries outside of the CCOP region. Since the
artisanal mining issue in China shows a wide spectrum, it is hadled by another
subgroup CASM-China.
Guidlines of ASM
Since 1990s, a lot of endevour
has been done towards solutions of the artisanal mining issue, and best
practices have been observed and guidlines have been proposed. Since geoethical
code is a part of practical aspect of geoethics (Nemcova and Nemec, 2001), in
this chapter, previous guidelines related to artisanal/small-scale mining are
examined to see whether any ethic component is included and to consider how
CASM-Asia can reflect ethics in the activity.
One of the pioneering guides is
“Berlin Guidelines“ that includes proposals both for large-scale and
artisanal/small-scale mining (Mining Journal Books, 1992). The guidelines tries
to find assistance to better develope the small-scale mining and considers
(i) environmental issues,
(ii) regional beneficiation and purchasing,
(iii) co-operatives and private sector initiatives,
(iv) financial incentives,
(v) international and regional policies,
(vi) human resources development and technical co-operation. In the
discussion on the environment, the following statement is seen which shows
conditions for the environmental protection.
(On the environmental
protection) First, it will in most case be inevitable that adequate
preproduction environmental management plans for micro- and small-scale mining
are developed by the regional or national authorities or promotional agencies
related to the subsector (=artisanal/small-scale mining). Secondly, it
will be necessary to enhance awareness among small operators regarding their
responsibility towards the natural environment. Thridly, in
artisanal/microscale mining districts, the creation of legalized organizational
entities in the form of co-operatives, small operator associations or small
mining enterprises will be a pre-condition for a successful environmental
programme.
Unfortunately after the Berlin
Guidelines not many statements on morals are noticed among documents. For
example, a compedium on best practices of artisanal/small-scale mining
published by the UN Economic Comission for Africa (Economic Commission for
Africa, 2002) lists up the following items but not a concept of ethical
category.
Rationalization of artisanal and small-scale mining
Legal and regulatory framework
Financial services
Establishing formal marketing systems
Environmental management
Health and safety
Women and children issues
Institutional framework
Another standard is the Harare Guidlines by the
United Nations published in 1993 (see Labonne, 2002) to provide a framework for
encouraging development of small- and medium-scale mining as a legal and
sustainable activity in order to optimise its contribution to social and
economic development. Included are proposals for governments and their agencies
in the following six areas.
Legal
Financial
Commercial
Technical
Environmental
Social
The social area shows five guidelines as indicated below
that are in a sense related to ethics of mining activity. But they are
recommended to the governmental agencies and are not directly addressing to the
moral of people.
Governments and their agencies should endevour to the
best of their ability to:
a) While acknowledging the
realties of the small- and medium-scale mining sector in many countries, ensure
that employment and working conditions of miners do not fall below the
standards and norms set nationally and locally;
b) Ensure that health and safety for small-
and medium-scale mines do not fall below the standards and norms set nationally
and locally for all mines;
c) Ensure that medical, educational and other
services supplied to the bulk of the population are also made available to
small- and medium-scale miners;
d) Ensure that women working in the small-
and medium-scale mining secotr enjoy the same status, conditions and facilities
as their male counterparts and are not subject to indignities. Additionally
their earning capacity should not be disadvantaged by their added domestic
responsibilities;
e) The rights of exisiting groups are not
compromised by small- and medium-scale mining sector activity.
One of the latest discussion on the issue was held at
so-called “Yaounde seminor“ (UN ECA and UN DESA, 2002). It was a seminar on
artisanal and small-scale mining in Africa to identify best practices and to
build the sustainable livelihoods of communities held in Yaounde of Cameroon
(19-22 November, 2002). The meeting regarded artisanal/small-scale mining an
issue of poverty and recommended governments to integrate the policy for
artisanal/small-scale mining into the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process.
It offered a forum for debate between mining experts
and poverty reduction specialists to promote viable policies and realistic
implementation mechanisms. However it did not bring ethics to the agenda.
When it is focused on
artisanal diamond mining, the “Kimberley
Process“ (World Diamond Council, 2003) is well known as a scheme to stop
diamond revenues being used to fund wars and political violence across Africa.
The establishment of this scheme was motivated by people’s deep concern on
tragedic situation of some of the diamond-producing countries but the scheme
itself is a technical guidline and does not include ethic component.
Case study in the Philippines
From previous protocols and
guidelines, it is impossible to find clear provisions that contribute to the
geoethics. Thus the present author conducted some field survey as a precursor
to the CASM-Asia in order to understand the sentiment of artisanal and
small-scale miners. The projects were conducted in a mining area in northern
Luzon Island of the Philippines by an interdisciplinary team that includes
geologists and social scientists. The study area is a place of gold-rush type
mining and is known that it is already contaminated with mercury (Ministry of
the Environment, 2003). And it is very difficult to identify the wrongdoers for
the contamination because the study area has long been mined by large mining
company, artisanal miners (rush-type mining) and indigenous persons
(traditional mining).
In this area
a set of questionnaire sheets were distributed to local people (n=228) to ask
about their sentiment on mining and perception of risk. The sheets included
questions about risks and liablity on the on-going mercury contamination. The
questionnaire survey revealed that local people are hostile to large-scale
mining but not to artisanal mining; they regard mercury as dangerous material;
and they place artisanal mining neutral compared to other human activities such
as nuclear power plant. In other words, artisanal/small-scale mining is
acceptable to the local people. As for the liability on the mercury
contamination, the governmental
information dissemination to prevent the contamination was the most supported
idea, and local people’s action ranked only at 6th from the top among the
answers about countermeasures (Murao et al., 2003).
After the questionnaire survey, a meeting on
entrepreneurship (* International
Symposium, 2004) was conducted in Benguet,
Philippines, in March, 2004 to seek a
possibility to place ethical attitude as a part of their business moral. In the
meeting of entrepreneurship, a heated discussion was done on miner’s business
affairs such as gold buying program and insuarance but not a word was heard
about moral of mining . Main points in the meeting were as follows:
Micro-finance and insurance
Contract mine operation
Barangay microbusiness enterprises
Gold buying program by bank
Requirments of registration of mining cooperatives
Traditional mining in the Philippines
In the Philippines, contrasting to the gold-rush type
mining, traditional mining by indigenous people is seen as a part of their
culture. Typical case is seen in northern part of Luzon Island. The traditional
mining has been practiced by indigenous groups “Kankana-ey“ and “Ibaloy“ for
nearly 400 years (Liyo, 2002). Miners have a practice called “ngilin“ where
whole community abstains from working in the tunnels to ward off sickness and
to avert bad luck while mining (Caballero, 1996). Also they have traditional
sharing system “sagaok“ and “makilinang“ in which children, women and old persons
can get share of ore and the tailings respectively. Taboos with them are
stealing ore; eating the meat of dogs, cows and goat before working in the
mines; eating foods with fishy smell; eating foods containing ginger; and other
foods that are offered in canao or ngilin; being drunk inside the mines;
flirting; laughing; singing; shouting; crying or showing of other hysterical
emotions inside the mines; burning of clothes inside the abucay; not consulting
the elders about bad dreams; wearing indecent clothes; entering tunnels when
there is canao, ngilin, death in the family and other traditional events in the
community (Domalsin, 2002). These codes are considered to maintain the peace
and order of the local community but they seem to be applied only within the
community and are not extended towards the world outside.
Conclusion
Artisanal and
small-scale mining is typically practiced in the poorest and most remote rural
areas by a largely itinerant, poorly educated populace, men, and women with few
employment alternatives. In such
circumstance, it is very difficult to draw people’s attention to the moral
issues. Consequently little attention has
been paid for the moral norm although tremendous amount of efforts were done to
protect the environment and people. Artisanal miners themselves do not pay much
attention to the moral either.
It is necessary to establish geoethics applicable to the artisanal mining
and to bring them down to the public. It is also necessary to establish
influential frameworks to achieve the goal. Such framework can be
international, national, regional, or local depending on issue and problem. The
CASM-Asia can be an option to introduce geoethics to the stakeholders of
artisanal/small-scale mining.
For the specification of the work, indigenous
people’s wisdome mentioned above can be a seed to introduce ethical components
to the protocols of artisanal mining.
But for the moment, it lacks
sense of global partnership that is becoming common in the world and is
typically stated in the preamble of the “Earth Charter“ (http://www.earthcharter.org): “We must decide to live with a sense
of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth
community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different
nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone
shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family
and the larger living world.“
In conclusion, linkage between local wisdom and global experience seems
to be vital in finding solutions of the artisanal mining issue.
Acknowledgements
The following
organizations provided research fund to the author for artisanal mining study:
former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Japan, presently METI),
Ministry of the Environment (Japan), Research Institute of Economy, Trade and
Industry (Japan), and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
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* * * * *
Dr Satoshi Murao
Scientific Director, Geological Survey of Japan, AIST
Higashi 1-1, AIST No.7, Tsukuba, Japan 305-8567
TEL:+81-298-61-2402; FAX:+81-298-56-4989, E-mail: s.murao@aist.go.jp