- There are approximately 30 million ASM individuals throughout all developing countries involved in extracting over 30 different minerals that make their way to the global marketplace.
- The number of artisanal miners (especially gold miners) in rural areas of developing countries has been increasing due to progressively harsher living conditions.
- Artisanal mining is recognized as the largest environmental and social problem related to mining in developing countries.
- Governments are not usually prepared to train artisanal miners or to deal with problems related to the environment and formalization of artisanal miners.
- According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the mercury being released/emitted by the artisanal gold mining sector annually into air, land and water is now the world’s predominant source of mercury pollution.
- The social and environmental issues associated with ASM include tax evasion, invasion of corporate concessions, siltation of streams, landscape degradation, deforestation, increased drug use and spread of sexually transmitted infections, destruction of cultural and community fabric, destruction of arable land, accidents and fatalities, forced child labour, and about 1400 tonnes of mercury and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cyanide released into the environment annually.
- http://goxi.org/profiles/blogs/canadian-international-resource-development-institute-cirdi
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