SITUATION ANALYSIS OF THE SMALL-SCALE GOLD ... - WWF

Finally, the concession holder who manages a zone under customary law does not invest
in security of the mining areas, nor do they provide other services to miners. They do
nothing to improve the infrastructure of the mining zones. So miners are not motivated to
pay the prescribed fee because they see no benefits from the resources they hand over to
the tribal authorities.
4.9 Occupied Zones
The fifth situation is that of occupied zones; concession areas or State land that has been
squatted by smaller mine operators in the physical absence of a concession holder or
mine inspectors. This is a common scenario, as many concession holders do not have the
will or resources to control these vast tracts of land in the rugged and remote interior.
Most concession holders are in fact absentee holders and make no effort to establish a
permanent presence in their concession. The problem of maintaining a government
presence in the vast, remote and rugged interior has already been alluded to in Chapter I
and will be further analyzed in Chapter V. Miners in occupied zones usually obey
customary rules about stakes and rights, but conflicts do occur, and easily lead to
violence. It also happens that a powerful miner takes (temporary) control over an area,
and demands a payment from the other occupants in exchange for „protection‟.
4.10 Lessons Learned
The results of the analysis suggest that the simple dual classification scheme in the
mining code of 1986 needs to be refined. The LSM operations are under international
pressure to be good corporate citizens, and are more likely to try to keep pollution under
control. Pollution caused by the manual small-scale miner is negligible, but in large
numbers partially mechanized operations can seriously pollute creeks. Hydraulic
operations are very large silt producers and need to be classified in a category that sets
this activity apart from the smaller operations. It has been suggested that artisanal mining
be defined as a gold mining activity that processes less that 2,500 tpy run of mill ore. In a
four-tier system, artisanal mining would be classified as V-SSM, and hydraulic mining as
SSM. In a three tiered system artisanal mining would be anything below 2,500 tons- per
year run of mill ore and operations above that limit would be classified as medium-scale
mining, which includes hydraulic mining.
Earnings of SSM operations are unpredictable and subject to fluctuations in cost price
associated with factors under control and beyond the control of miners. For example, at
the end of last year a severe drought brought river transportation at the Lawa River to a
halt and prices of fuel almost doubled. Miners began to operate at a loss and the owners
either shut down altogether or reduced production by 50 to 75%. Breakdowns of secondhand
machinery are endemic. Miners do not conduct extensive prospecting and have no
way to estimate and anticipate future production. After each mining cycle, cash or gold
reserves must be kept, if possible, in anticipation of sub-standard results during the next
cycle. But miners rarely have the opportunity to do so.
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