Gold mining firms should cooperate more with artisanal miners, WGC says
The World Gold Council (WGC) called for greater cooperation between large mining companies and artisanal miners and set out recommendations on Thursday to help bring small-scale miners into the market.
Mainstream miners and refiners have typically avoided dealing with artisanal miners who use basic equipment, often work outside legal frameworks and can employ children and toxic materials such as mercury.
But artisanal mining provides a livelihood to millions of people in Africa, South America and elsewhere, and pressure has grown from governments and non-governmental organisations for more to be done to bring them into the market.
The miner-funded WGC published a report with 36 case studies on the experiences of companies including Calibre Mining, Newmont and B2Gold with artisanal miners working close to their operations.
These include collaboration with government to enable artisanal miners to work legally, providing training and equipment to make mining safer and less environmentally damaging and purchasing artisanally mined gold.
The WGC said mining firms should stop seeing artisanal and small scale miners (ASGM) primarily as a risk to the security of their mines.
“Instead,” it said, “where local circumstances make this practicable, responsibly conducted ASGM may have the potential to become a source of opportunity to improve local development outcomes.”
