Dear Dr. Tay,

the major commodities exploited by artisanal mining are high-unit value commodities (opposite to high place-value commodities) encompassing gemstones and precious metals, mainly gold. The processing and disintegration of the ore needs often huge amounts of water (hydro-mining) and the liberation of the ore and gem minerals in sluice boxes is not better either. As far as the chemical processing is concerned it is mainly the amalgamation and cyanidation of placer gold that may cause us raise the eye-brows and let us frown. While large companies used to be under surveillance of mining authorities small-scale mining frequently escape from this surveillance and mercury and cyanide spills often are not anything out of the ordinary. To be honest, larger companies are no angels either in this job.

There is a constant conflict of interest between miners and farmers in the neigborhood who need water for irrigation and their livestock. Even if they take care of the chemicals and prevent them from getting washed into the creeks and ponds there is a lot of fine-grained material which raises the turbidity of streams and ponds a problem which impacts negatively on the fishery and oxygen content of the water and cleaining of water used in the households.

Locally, veins and ore-bearing structures may (by change) be opened up bearing arsenides, e.g., arsenopyrite or its oxidation product scorodite, both of which are harmful when released in aquatic systems. This is also the case with Cd-enriched sulfides such as greenockite or sphalerite.

To make mining profitable and competitive with bulk-mining conducted by large-scale mining operations you have to trim down the safety standards and handle the environmental protection measures a bit more sloppily and monitoring is done more leniently.

It is often a hard nut to crack to meticulously abide by the mining regulations on one hand and make enough money for the family in a safe way on the other. You have to look at this operations always from different angles and to avoid to hand down prematurely verdicts from a high morale pedestal as a person living in a comfortable housing area of a highly industrialized country. In some of my foreign assignments I have tried to mitigate the problems a bit. I hope, it was of help to these persons forced to making their living from small-scale mining

I wish you much success.

H.G.Dill

Thanks very much Prof for the indepth analysis of the subject. I am grateful for the invaluable education. Thanks again.

Best Regards.

Collins

Large scale mining (in most areas) is under strict environmental laws before they get a licence to proceed.

On the other hand, individual prospectors and miners (in some areas) can proceed without restrictions.

There should be health and environmental rules that apply to everyone.

Thank you for your interest:

There are advantages of the practice in my view once an abandoned mining shaft been re-used, however the desadvantages of some artisanal practices are: usage of mercury (level of toxicity of the soil & water/river) in the area will increase. And degradation of soil structure due to un-planned and non-rehabilitated mining sites which are sometimes caused an erosion of soil as minerals are very much part of the earth's structure.

Health Concerns: Depending on the type of mineral/ore being mined there is potential for harmful dust exposure. Mining of some ores or quarrying are potential sources of silica dust. Prolonged exposure to this dust may result in one developing silicosis.

Environmental Concerns: Artisanal/small scale mining in most developing countries is poorly regulated. This results in non -adherence to environmental regulations leading to land degradation and water bodies contamination.