A new report from Earthworks is complimentary to a study on smallscale mining,  published by the International Council on Mining and Metals, which is critiqued on our site this week. See:http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9890

Earthworks compares the parameters and standards, set down by several groups, aimed at improving governance, employment practices, environmental regulation and human rights, at specific smallscale operations in a number of countries.

Both reports concentrate on the gold sector, which means that neither of them examines what it means to be so-called "unorganised" miners of coal, bauxite, building stone, sand et al, in other countries - notably China and India, where the largest number of such workers toil under often-appalling conditions.

Earthwork's key finding is that none of the groups it has examined meet all the necessary criteria by which they can claim the projects they support are fully certifiable as "ethical."

Whether such certification - backed in recent years by several big organisations, such as Oxfam and WWF, and a number of companies (like Newmont) - could actually be implemented in practice remains an important question.

Although Earthworks argues for a comprehensive form of certification, drawing from existing best practices, adding others, and fully compliant with the precautionary principles, it doesn't give prime place to truly independent, third party, verification of specific operations.

Arguably, while this is essential, it would also prove difficult to achieve in practice. It would demand the employment of thousands of qualified experts, prepared to make regular site visits and issue frequent monitoring reports, and without their being dependent on potentially comprising corporate funding.

If we don't accept the ICMM prescription that the future of ASM lies predominantly in the hands of government and companies, then the obvious alternative is to empower smallscale miners to gain and assert their own rights.

In the process they are likely to improve their health, gain some economic stability, and be given access to buyers and processers of their products, willing to pay a "fair" price. Clearly some NGO's are equipped to do this.

But conflict may still arise over continued "bad practices" by self-organised groups of miners on the ground, and the higher standards set by those wanting to assist them.

Considering the parlous circumstances under which hundreds of thousands of these mineworkers have to eke out a livelihood, it would be foolhardy and indeed unjust, to demand that they all meet higher expectations virtually over night.

Both the micro approach of the projects examined by Earthworks, and the macro one adopted by ICMM, offer some alleviation in the short term.

However, we might well ask why - given the attention organised mineworkers have paid over the past decade to mapping out "just transition" from their often-degrading work in the service of ultimately doomed industries (notably coal) - more thought isn't being given to providing similar alternatives for their sothren and brethren in the informal sector.

[Comment by Nostromo Research, 14 February 2010]