Artisanal mining

An artisanal miner or small-scale miner (ASM) is a subsistence miner who is not officially employed by a mining company, but works independently, mining minerals using their own resources, usually by hand.

Small-scale mining includes enterprises or individuals that employ workers for mining, but generally still using manually-intensive methods, working with hand tools.

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: permanent artisanal mining, seasonal (annually migrating during idle agriculture periods), rush-type (massive migration, pulled often by commodity price jumps), and shock-push (poverty-drive, 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 ASM. There are an estimated 40.5 million men, women and children directly engaged in ASM, from over 80 countries in the global south. 20% of the global gold supply is produced by the ASM sector, as well as 80% of the global gemstone and 20% of global diamond supply, and 25% of global tin production. More than 150 million 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%.