Global Mercury Project

Removal of Barriers to the Introduction of Cleaner Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining and Extraction Technologies

2002–2007 · GEF / UNDP / UNIDO · International Research & Intervention Project · Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining · Mercury · Brazil / Tapajós

Gold Mining · Mercury · Mining Communities · Cleaner Technologies · Socioeconomic Research · Environmental Governance · Technological Change · Amazonia

Project Overview

The Global Mercury Project (GMP) — Removal of Barriers to the Introduction of Cleaner Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining and Extraction Technologies — was an international research and intervention programme addressing mercury use and environmental and health risks associated with artisanal and small-scale gold mining.

Implemented through an international framework involving the Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the project worked in six pilot countries: Brazil, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Its objective was not only to identify environmental and health problems associated with mercury use, but also to address barriers to the adoption of cleaner mining and processing technologies.

The Global Mercury Project operated from 2002 to 2007. My documented involvement in its Brazilian component dates from 2003.

In Brazil, the project concentrated on the Tapajós gold-mining region in Pará, one of the historically most important areas of artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Amazonia. My research focused on the social, economic and institutional conditions within which technological and environmental interventions would have to operate.

Research Context

Mercury has historically played a central role in artisanal gold processing because amalgamation provides a relatively accessible means of recovering gold. At the same time, mercury use creates substantial environmental and health risks.

The Global Mercury Project approached this problem as more than a question of replacing one technology with another. Cleaner technologies had to be introduced within existing mining systems characterized by particular forms of labour organization, economic incentives, knowledge, mobility, institutional regulation and social organization.

The Brazilian component therefore combined different forms of expertise, including research on mining and processing technologies, environmental and health conditions, legal and institutional arrangements, and socioeconomic characteristics of mining communities.

The Brazilian Project in the Tapajós

The Brazilian pilot component was situated in the Tapajós Mineral Province, particularly in the wider Itaituba gold-mining region.

The area contains a heterogeneous mining economy consisting of mining sites, settlements, processing activities and commercial networks connecting garimpeiros, mine owners, gold buyers, traders, public institutions and surrounding communities.

Within this regional setting, the Global Mercury Project sought to understand the conditions under which cleaner technologies and improved mercury practices could be introduced.

This required attention not only to mining technology but also to the ways mining communities were organized, how workers moved between mining sites, how income was generated and distributed, how local organizations operated, and how miners perceived environmental, health and economic risks.

Sociological and Socioeconomic Research

My research focused particularly on São Chico and Crepurizinho, two mining settlements selected within the Brazilian project context.

Field research was conducted during two periods in June and July 2003. It included community-level research as well as visits to mining sites and interviews with actors involved in the local mining economy.

The research examined a broad range of dimensions of mining-community life, including:

settlement history and population;
migration and geographical origins;
housing and living conditions;
economic activities and livelihoods;
labour organization in gold mining;
income and forms of remuneration;
social organization;
education;
health and occupational accidents;
food and consumption practices;
mercury handling and perceptions of mercury-related risks;
political participation;
media and access to information;
violence and security;
relationships between mining communities, organizations and public institutions.

This broader research design reflected an important premise of the project: technological change cannot be understood independently of the social and economic conditions under which mining takes place.

Research Approach

The research combined quantitative and qualitative methods.

Community censuses were undertaken in São Chico and Crepurizinho, generating information about population, households, economic activities and social conditions. In Crepurizinho, local teachers were trained to participate in the collection of census information.

The research also included structured interviews with miners, interviews with local leaders and institutional actors, observation of mining activities, visits to mining sites and discussions with organizations and individuals involved in the regional gold economy.

Interviewed or consulted actors included representatives of local organizations, public authorities, teachers, health personnel, traders, gold buyers and other participants in the mining economy.

The resulting research report combined qualitative observations with extensive quantitative material and more than one hundred statistical tables concerning the two communities and their mining populations.

Social Conditions of Technological Change

An important contribution of the sociological research was to place the introduction of cleaner mining technologies within the actual organization of the garimpo.

Mining practices are embedded in economic relations, labour arrangements, local knowledge and expectations concerning income and risk. The adoption of alternative technologies therefore cannot be explained exclusively by their technical efficiency.

From this perspective, reducing mercury use involves relationships among technology, economic incentives, knowledge, organizations, regulation and the everyday practices of miners.

The Global Mercury Project provided an opportunity to examine these relationships within an applied international intervention rather than exclusively as an academic research problem.

The Brazilian project consequently illustrates a broader challenge in environmental intervention: technically available solutions do not automatically become socially viable practices.

Research and Project Adaptation

The sociological research also contributed directly to the empirical organization of the Brazilian project.

Fieldwork in São Chico indicated that mining activity there had declined considerably. Following presentation of the findings, the suitability of the site for subsequent project activities was reconsidered with the national project coordination, and additional field reconnaissance was undertaken to examine alternative mining areas.

This experience demonstrated an important relationship between research and intervention.

Socioeconomic research was not simply used to describe populations affected by mining. It also generated information relevant to decisions about where and under what conditions project interventions could realistically be implemented.

My Role

My role within the Brazilian component of the Global Mercury Project focused on sociological and socioeconomic field research in the Brazilian project sites.

My principal field research concentrated on São Chico and Crepurizinho and examined mining communities, livelihoods, labour organization, local institutions and the social conditions affecting technological and environmental change.

This research resulted in a substantial project report that subsequently formed part of the documentary basis used in the Brazilian Global Mercury Project.

Research Outputs

Sociological Field Research Report

Mathis, Armin (2003). Report in Reference to São Chico and Crepurizinho Mining Sites. Global Mercury Project, Project EG/GLO/01/G34. 79 pp. Internal project report.

The report documents the field research undertaken in the two mining communities and presents the resulting socioeconomic, institutional and mining-related information.

Earlier Research on Intervention in Tapajós Gold Mining

My earlier work on the possibilities and limitations of intervention in Tapajós gold mining preceded the formal Global Mercury Project and should therefore not be classified as a direct project output.

This earlier research nevertheless forms part of the intellectual and empirical trajectory through which questions concerning technological change, public intervention and the organization of garimpo became connected to the subsequent GMP research.

The distinction is important: the earlier work constitutes a research precursor, not a retrospective Global Mercury Project publication.

Contribution to My Research

The Global Mercury Project represents an important stage in the development of my research on artisanal and small-scale mining in Amazonia.

Earlier research had examined gold mining through questions concerning labour, technological change, markets, public policy and regional development. The Global Mercury Project placed these questions within an international intervention explicitly seeking to change mining practices.

Three aspects became particularly important.

Intervention. The project demonstrated that the existence of a technically preferable solution does not mean that it can simply be transferred into existing mining practices. Intervention depends upon the social, economic and institutional conditions under which actors make decisions.

Organizations and institutions. Mining communities are connected through organizations, commercial relations and public institutions that influence information, regulation, access to technology and possibilities for collective action.

Knowledge and technological change. Effective intervention requires knowledge about the settings in which technologies are expected to operate. Socioeconomic research therefore becomes part of the process through which technological and environmental interventions are formulated and adapted.

These observations also contributed to a gradual shift in my research from mercury reduction and technological intervention toward broader questions of mining governance. Later research increasingly examined formalization, conflict and cooperation, resource access, stakeholder relations and the institutional arrangements through which artisanal and small-scale mining is governed.

The Global Mercury Project thus occupies an important position between my earlier research on the economic and social organization of garimpo and later work on small-scale mining governance, responsible mining and regional development.

From the Global Mercury Project to Regional Development in World Society

The Global Mercury Project was not conceived within the later theoretical framework of Regional Development in World Society (RWS). Its relevance to the current programme is retrospective and genealogical.

From the perspective of my current research, the project provides particularly useful empirical material concerning the relationship between global environmental problems and regionally situated possibilities of intervention.

Mercury contamination was addressed as an environmental and health problem extending far beyond individual mining settlements. International organizations, scientific research and environmental policy translated this problem into programmes for technological and behavioural change.

Yet implementation occurred within specific regional configurations. Cleaner technologies encountered existing labour arrangements, economic incentives, organizations, knowledge, regulatory structures and locally established mining practices.

The project therefore provides an early empirical example of a problem that later became important in my research: world-societal expectations do not produce identical regional consequences simply by being communicated or institutionalized. Their effects depend on the configurations through which they become connected to particular regions.

The sociological research also illustrates the role of knowledge in this process. Information about mining communities helped determine whether and how intervention was possible and, in the case of São Chico, contributed to reconsideration of the empirical site itself.

Retrospective analytical relevance:
Global environmental expectations · Organizations · Knowledge · Intervention · Technological change · Mining practices · Institutional mediation · Regional differentiation

The relationship to RWS is therefore one of research genealogy rather than theoretical continuity.