In my work running a conflict diamond project in the Central African Republic, the above proverb is good advice. As a manager who spends too much time in suits not at all suitable to tropical climates, it describes an ethical imperative: don’t pretend to speak about artisanal miners unless you sleep in their villages. As a policy advisor, it describes a methodological imperative: make sure your recommendations come from a thorough understanding of motivations and contexts.
The same advice applies to addressing ASM in PACE. While identifying shared experiences and principles across the world is undoubtedly important, the real solutions must be locally articulated, and must arise from a textured and accurate understanding of that place and context. In other words, don’t assume that all straw houses are the same, but get to know the quirks—and the leaks—of each one.
Here’s a story from the Central African Republic. Maurice and Angel are from Ngoulo, a village in the province of Sangha-Mbaéré, not far from UNESCO World Heritage Site and exquisite forest elephant and great ape refuge Dzanga-Sangha. I met them while conducting a study last January on why a program to rehabilitate exhausted diamond pits was proving popular. Maurice spends several months each year at his mining site, 50 kilometers away, in the park’s buffer zone. During our discussion, he described how he had been harassed by park guards, who made him stare directly into the sun until he admitted hunting for bushmeat in the park. (Indeed, while direct impacts from digging are not particularly severe, the hunting associated with the incursion of miners is especially worrisome to conservationists.)
Why does he go so far and take such risks? Because closer by, all the good mining sites are either mined out or belong to someone else. His only option would be to work as a digger, and the only way to get beyond day labor is to have his own mine and hope to strike it big. Chances of that are slim, however, since while he’s lucky to get food and tools from his financier, his “patron” also has exclusive buying rights, and will set the price very low. Maurice was identified by his peers in this study as part of the community’s poorest group, which is also its most dependent on mining: Maurice and Angel get 65% of their income from mining. This is the same figure from a 2011 study on miners in the Sangha Trinational (TNS) Landscape, including Dzanga-Sangha, suggesting that miners who venture into those protected areas may be poorer than average. In this one case, at least, this appears to be true: Maurice recently had to kill a pig to pay for his son to get out of jail on a trumped up charge, and continues to live hand to mouth. “I try this and that but I can’t get out,” he said.
The above story points to a difficult fact: not only does ASM usually occur in the world’s poorest countries, but when it comes to critical ecosystems, it often involves the poorest of the poor within those countries. While this should not lead to giving them a free pass—since treating them as victims is just as unhelpful as vilifying them—it does present a conundrum. The program that I run—the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) project, financed by USAID and the U.S. State Department—takes a number of approaches to achieve its inter-related goals of increasing the volume of diamonds exported legally and improving the lives of mining communities. These include initiatives to strengthen property rights, increase miner formalization, diversify revenues, build financial independence, increase productivity, and mitigate environmental impact. Here are three key points relevant to ASM in PACE stemming from our experience during the last five years:
- Understanding incentives is fundamental, and economic ones are the most important. Whether one is talking about distress-push or demand-pull or any other configuration, knowing the realities of rural livelihoods and strengthening their resilience must be the pillar of any response. So-called “alternative livelihoods” are on the right track, but are sometimes piecemeal and ineffective. Distributing a few dozen piglets or bags of corn to villages, for example, will unlikely have much of an impact, since it’s short-term, more humanitarian than developmental, and will unlikely change the underlying framework for people’s behavior. In many cases, “complementary livelihoods” is a better approach. In other words, understand the full dynamics of the rural economy and identify viable opportunities. PRADD successfully got miners to voluntarily fill up 600 old pits, and it did so because it convinced the miners that it was in their economic interest, and more importantly, chose an activity that really filled their pockets. Some miners are now earning more from fish farming than mining, or are using income to break their dependence on financiers. The underlying assumption here is that ASM can be a poverty reduction strategy that is just as legitimate and effective as any other, and this is something with which not all conservationists agree (or development agents for that matter). Admittedly, things get tricky when dealing with zero extraction zones, but addressing ASM in PACE cannot just limit itself to those miners who venture that far. And while some justifiably worry that this approach sets up park agencies and conservation NGOs to be in charge of comprehensive rural development, PRADD’s experience shows otherwise. Through partnerships, smart choices, and long-term engagement, the underlying incentives can be influenced, and changed.
- Once agreed that supporting and not stigmatizing ASM is a better approach, getting miners formalized is next, since this is a precondition to accountability and respect of the rule of law, including protected area boundaries. Proper incentives are key, starting with things as basic as the price of a license. In CAR, PRADD successfully lobbied the government—with the help of a study by Estelle Levin Ltd—to decrease the cost of a mining license by 36%, and this has led to a doubling in registered miners in two years, not to mention an increase in government revenue. (See PRADD’s latest quarterly report.) Of course, just as elections don’t make democracy, handing out licenses doesn’t make good mining governance, but it is an important first step. Further incentives are needed, such as making access to certain services—such as advanced mining technology or financial capital—conditional on being registered, or instituting a return of diamond taxes to communities based on the number of legally registered miners. PRADD is experimenting with both of these ideas.
- The “property rights” in PRADD is not peripheral: without secure land tenure, miners won’t stay put, nor will they have much incentive to use their land well. In addition, the case of Maurice and Angel shows how lack of access to land can drive people to “virgin” areas like national parks. PRADD has issued nearly 3,000 certificates to miners that recognize customary tenure, signed by mining authorities and delivered after participatory validation by local village chiefs. While the effort is still a pilot, we’ve seen positive effects, including the rise of an active and more open land market (including sale of exhausted pits) and a dramatic reduction in conflict. In terms of protected areas, it’s not unreasonable to assume that some miners, if given the chance, would rather make a living on their own land closer to home than venture out. In addition, the georeferencing of every mining site before certificate issuance is allowing us to pilot production tracking. In other words, we’re gathering data that links every diamond to a site with GPS coordinates. Besides increasing traceability, PRADD is working with the U.S. Geological Survey on how to integrate this data with remote sensing information to develop accurate diamond deposit models. These types of efforts are essential to dealing with ASM in PACE, since accurate information paves the way for land-use planning at multiple scales, and allows actors to consider evidence-based zoning, including possible degazettement or park boundary modification.
A final transversal point has to do with trust and communication. The reality in CAR, and in many places, is that these are tough people with tough lives who have a tough attitude towards outsiders. It took nearly three years for PRADD to convince mining communities that the Americans weren’t there to steal their stones, and we only got to that point through a combination of demonstrable impact—like the aquaculture projects—but also tireless one-on-one communication by our field agents. This meant, quite literally, spending hundreds of nights sleeping in straw huts.
This trust can only come about from understanding miners’ interests and treating them with respect. And it can only be sustained if those with authority create rules that are clear and fair and then enforce them clearly and fairly. In terms of ASM in PACE, the hypothesis is that a less destitute rural economy with trustworthy authorities will increase the likelihood that miners will agree to the trade-offs that conservation depends upon.
The important point is that good management of ASM to protect critical ecosystems requires good management of ASM more broadly. There is growing recognition of the importance of holistic solutions, as evidenced for example by the Washington Declaration on ASM adopted at the Kimberley Process Plenary in November. But this progress on a policy level will not amount to much unless practitioners and policy-makers on the ground not only take these ideas to heart, but figure out how they apply it to their contexts. And this requires lots of sleeping in leaky straw huts.
Through its Guest Blog Series, the ASM-PACE Programme invites ASM experts to share their knowledge, experiences and opinions on issues pertaining to ASM, and particularly on ASM in protected areas and critical ecosystems, with the aim to foster continued dialogue, country-specific learning and share best practices on ASM interventions.
The blogs posted on this site do not represent the views of the ASM-PACE Programme, its donors or partners, or the author’s organization, unless otherwise specified.
