Artisanal Diamond Research Articles

Participation in artisanal diamond mining and food security: A case study of Kasai Oriental in DR Congo

Abstract The high prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition in Kasai Oriental, Democratic Republic of the Congo, prompted an investigation into the complex relationship between household livelihood activities and food security. Despite many rural households relying on subsistence farming, this alone may not ensure improved food security in Kasai Oriental. Consequently, non-farm sectors like artisanal mining offer a potential solution to address food insecurity among rural households. The aim of this study is to explore the association between engagement in artisanal diamond mining, food insecurity, and children’s nutritional status in Kasai Oriental. The research utilizes household cross-sectional data collected between November and December 2022. Fixed effects and Instrumental variable models were employed to address household heterogeneity and potential endogeneity related to participation in artisanal diamond activities. The regression results reveal a significant relationship between participation in artisanal diamond mining and food security. This implies that participation increases households’ cash, enabling them to access sufficient food and potentially mitigating the risk of falling into food insecurity. However, involvement in artisanal mining has not shown a significant association with children’s malnutrition. These findings call for further research on “hidden hunger.” Policies aiming to encourage and formalize artisanal diamond mining should integrate specific extension services and inform rural households about hidden hunger.

EVALUATION DES IMPACTS ENVIRONNEMENTAUX ET SOCIAUX DE L’EXPLOITATION ARTISANALE DE DIAMANTS A TSHIKAPA, PROVINCE DU KASAI EN REPUBLIQUE DEMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO

In the Kasai region, and more specifically in Tshikapa, artisanal diamond mining is as important a livelihood strategy for local communities as agriculture. Indeed, for most miners, it is their main activity. Diamond mining therefore plays a major role in the economy of local communities, and is an important source of income for these communities, but one that is accompanied by misery. Yet the mining code requires all mining and other extractive industries to invest in local development. Artisanal diamond mining has a huge impact on the environment. The results of the survey carried out as part of this study showed that this exploitation has deteriorated the environmental fabric, making the soil unusable for hunting, farming and other activities. Generally speaking, mining pits remain unfilled, causing erosion and gullies, watercourses are polluted and sometimes screening is carried out in the same springs or rivers regularly used for household chores and in some cases even to collect water for drinking.Significant deforestation to extend mining activities, many people abandon the fields and take up diamond mining to earn a quick buck. This is why it is so important to raise awareness among all local communities, artisanal diamond miners and all other players in the sector of the need to protect the environment through sustainable management of the mining environment.

Gold and diamond artisanal mining in Liberia: Under the umbrella of (in)formality?

Liberia intends to harness the development potential of artisanal mining through formalization. However, there are several obstacles that the country needs to overcome for it to succeed. The existing literature provides evidence on the challenges faced by miners and local authorities, but fails to make a distinction between different types of activities. This study sets out to identify differences in formalization patterns across the two largest artisanal sectors, namely gold and diamond mining. Drawing on an extensive survey of 231 communities and 174 mines in Gbarpolu County, we spatially match mining sites to their nearest license recorded in the country’s cadastre. To do so, we consider both distance to licenses and concentration of mines around titles before loosening the definition of formality by exploring town chiefs’ perceptions. We complement our spatial analysis with qualitative insights into miners’ views on the challenges and opportunities of artisanal gold versus diamond mining. Our findings show that artisanal diamond mines are more likely to fall under what we define as an “umbrella of formality” compared to gold mines. We explain this difference through geology, but also the history and perceptions of the respective minerals. Against this backdrop, we question the effectiveness of formalization as it is currently conceived in Liberia. We argue that distinguishing between artisanal mining sectors is important to understand the different sets of incentives and constraints that miners face. This, in turn, is key to the design of tailored and effective formalization policies.

The power of the blood: myths and practices surrounding menstruation in Indonesian diamond mining

ABSTRACT This paper is a feminist investigation into the beliefs and practices surrounding menstruation among traditional artisanal diamond mining women in the Muslim Banjar ethnic community in rural parts of South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Based on feminist ethnographic field methods, it investigates how these women interpret the religious and cultural restrictions in their everyday lives as miners, and how their beliefs influence their attitudes toward diamond mining. While the women have different economic and social backgrounds, and have experienced and experience menstruation differently, they are all involved in diamond mining. This article shows that, contrary to popular belief, menstrual blood is considered lucky in this traditional diamond mining community, and it considers the wider implications for a deeper understanding of gender in mining.

Natural resource sector reform and human security in post-conflict societies: Insights from diamond mining in Sierra Leone

State- and peacebuilding strategies increasingly feature reforms of natural resource governance that strive to ensure that the management of natural resources is legal, transparent and beneficial for lasting peace and development. In the past, legal and institutional reforms were mostly oriented towards the state level and rarely took into account the impacts of natural resource governance on the wellbeing of individuals and communities affected by natural resource extraction. More recently, the importance of positive outcomes for local communities in extractive areas is gaining traction among governance actors. This article proposes a human security lens to analyze the effects of reform initiatives. A human security approach enables researchers and policymakers to be sensitive to the intended and unintended consequences of governance measures and their impact on vulnerable populations. Based on in-depth field research, this article examines the human security implications of five types of reform measures in post-conflict Sierra Leone’s diamond sector, both in large-scale and artisanal diamond mining. The authors conclude that the reform measures have, so far, not substantially improved the human security of artisanal mineworkers or local communities.

State-owned minerals, village-owned land: How a shared property rights framework helped formalize artisanal diamond miners in Côte d’Ivoire between 1986 and 2016

Since 1985, Côte d’Ivoire has employed a unique government/village co-management approach for diamonds produced in its artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector. Parastatal mining company Société pour le Développement Minier en Côte d’Ivoire (SODEMI) signs agreements with villages organized as cooperatives inside its industrial research permits. The agreements empower communities to monitor mining and take 12% of sales proceeds for local development, while allowing the parastatal to define where mining occurs, away from primary deposits destined for semi-industrial development. This paper draws upon five years of fieldwork and observations from The Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development II (PRADD II) project in Côte d’Ivoire that between 2013 and 2018 helped revive these cooperatives after the country's 2002–2011 political crisis. Between 2014 and 2016, the system resulted in the formalization of most mine sites and the majority of diamonds registered at the mine level as part of the chain of custody. However, the system was also challenged by local communities who contested access rules around kimberlitic deposits. Taking a land tenure lens to ASM formalization, the paper uses the Ivoirian model of hybrid governance of its diamond sector to illustrate the importance of an adaptable and structured relationship between state and customary mineral rights holders in order to promote local development and reduce illegality and conflict.

‘A concealed economy’: Artisanal diamond mining in Butha-Buthe district, Lesotho

This paper examines the livelihoods of Lesotho's Basotho people in the highlands of the country. It focuses on the rural artisanal diamond mining communities in the Butha-Buthe District in the northwest of the country. The paper draws on ethnographic insights and oral sources from the district's villages of Kao and Liqhobong, the epicentre of artisanal diamond mining in the country. It is argued that artisanal diamond mining is an indispensable aspect of a livelihood activity – a blend of agrarian and non-agrarian activities characteristic of Basotho forms of economic organisation in the face of economic hardships across time and space. The paper offers a window into the activities of a historically and ethnographically hidden economy. It demonstrates that artisanal mining is concealed by two meta-narratives. First, it is historically obscured by popular constructions of the Lesotho economy as a ‘labour reserve’ for South African mines. Second, artisanal miners conceal their activities and the existence of diamonds as a means to protect themselves against government and multinational corporations’ aggressions and criminalisation.

Satellite applications in diamond exploration and mine monitoring

SYNOPSIS Satellite-based applications for the monitoring of diamond exploration, operational mines, and post-closure mine sites is gaining traction. A variety of imagery is used to detect both kimberlite and alluvial deposits. Hyperspectral data is utilized mainly for primary deposits, and elevation models for secondary deposits. The data is used to constrain the exploration and ground truthing efforts, resulting in savings on both cost and time. Operational mines benefit from near-real-time monitoring of mining and related activities, including include environmental and security aspects. Satellite imagery can also be used to detect illegal and artisanal diamond diggings, with particular value for ethical sourcing validation in the supply chain. Post-closure monitoring of dumps and rehabilitation reduces the on-site presence of staff. The limitations of satellite applications are related mainly to the cost of obtaining images and the resolution or number of bands available on a detection platform. Keywords: remote sensing, satellite, monitoring, diamond, exploration, kimberlite, alluvial.

God’s Gifts: Destiny, Poverty, and Temporality in the Mines of Sierra Leone

In Sierra Leone, many artisanal miners share the view that every human act and every event is the realisation of an inscrutable divine plan. Even though notions of fate and destiny are part of the vocabulary of Krio, the country’s lingua franca, miners prefer to use expressions that evoke God and stress His immanent presence and influence in their everyday lives. In order to understand the religious vocabulary of contingency and the cosmology underlying the ways in which miners interpret, reproduce, and imaginatively prepare the conditions to change their lives, this article focuses on the ritual practices connected to artisanal diamond mining. It considers these rituals as attempts to resolve the ever-present temporal and moral tensions between actual conditions of suffering and poverty, and the realisation of the well-being that miners associate with their desired futures.

Sparkling Reality: Can Foreign Direct Investments Alone Revive the Akwatia Diamond Mine and Diamond Exports in Ghana?—A Cointegration Analysis

The Akwatia Diamond Mine has been responsible for most of the diamond-related activities in Ghana. This study analyses the factors responsible for the recent lack of investments inflows into the Mine and also assesses diamond export performance in Ghana using the annual time series data from 1987 to 2018. The Gravity Model, a well-known model for trade flow analyses is employed into the study to assess the relationship between diamond exports and foreign direct investments as well measure its impact on gross domestic product, diamond price, real effective exchange rate and inflation rate. The study found a positive but insignificant impact of foreign direct investments on diamond export over the period under study in the long run and also reports little or no direct impact on diamond exports in the short run. The study recommends that the Government of Ghana should introduce punitive laws and regulations to guide the next Akwatia Diamond Mine divestiture to avoid a repeat of the past divestiture failures. Additionally, the study recommends that the Government of Ghana should reconsider lifting the ban on artisanal diamond mining and rather formulate and adopt policies to manage and supervise their activities to boost diamond production, exports and revenue.

In the Realm of the Diamond King: Myth, Magic, and Modernity in the Diamond Tracts of Central India

From being “the cradle” of raw diamonds in the world in the eighteenth century, India has turned into an insignificant producer of rough diamonds today. Yet, even now, the indigenous Gonds mine diamonds artisanally in a remote location in central India, largely hidden away from public vision. This article presents an exposition of artisanal diamond mining in central India from the humanistic tradition in geography to illuminate the “realm” of the Gonds, where magic and social relations rule imaginaries of the diamonds in the particular place. It argues that the imaginations of diamonds and their mining by indigenous miners in Panna are shaped through the prism of their particular regional history, myth, geography, and culture. Without faith in the restrictive authority of science, capital, and state, and refusing domestication, the miners dig, smuggle, and spend for the savoir vivre. They remain dynamic and rely on traditional ideas of luck, masculinity, and success. They bind themselves to work and to each other in ways that preclude the possibility of amassing wealth and direct wealth in ways that reaffirm their dependence on the miner's life. The argument is illustrated through the story of protagonist Ramu, who proudly spends the earnings from his big diamond find. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Panna, Madhya Pradesh State in central India, this article explores the magic of artisanal diamond mining, shows how place shapes such mining, and shows how informal mining shapes the context.

Mapping Small‐scale Mineral Production Networks: The Case of Alluvial Diamonds in Ghana

ABSTRACTIn recent years, donors and certain governments have committed to formalizing artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) — low‐tech, labour‐intensive mineral extraction and processing. Few, however, are able to do so effectively because of a limited knowledge of how the sector operates, who it employs and where the commodities it mines are being channelled. This article argues that a radical reconceptualization of ASM will be needed if these challenges are to be overcome. As a starting point, it calls on donors and policy makers to adopt the Global Production Network (GPN) as a ‘lens’ for analysing the sector's organizational structures. Popular in geography scholarship, the GPN, though rarely used to study the intricacies of largely informal sectors such as ASM, could prove valuable here, aiding with the mapping of key production processes. In this article, the GPN is applied to Ghana's artisanal diamond mining sector, yielding valuable insights into its organization, the roles played by the different individuals who populate it, and the nature of the relationships between these individuals. Such information is key to designing more robust formalization and support strategies for ASM in Ghana; more generally, the exercise provides important lessons for other governments working to achieve similar goals.

‘The war whose bullets you don't see’: Diamond digging, resilience and Ebola in Sierra Leone

This paper reflects critically on the transformational impacts the recent Ebola epidemic has had in diamond-rich areas of rural Sierra Leone. It focuses specifically on the country's ‘diggers’, a sizable group of labourers who occupy the bottom of the country's artisanal diamond mine production pyramid. Based upon research conducted in the diamond-producing localities of Kenema and Kono, the paper argues how, in sharp contrast to the gloomy picture painted in the literature about their existences and struggles, diggers exhibited considerable resilience during the Ebola crisis. Their diversified livelihood portfolios proved to be effective survival strategies and buffers against the shocks and stresses brought about by lengthy periods of quarantine, and during times when mobility was restricted by the government in a bid to prevent the spreading of the disease. Drawing inspiration from the resilience literature, the paper captures the essence of these survival strategies, which should be viewed as latest reshuffling and expansion of diggers' rural livelihood portfolios. Policymakers and donors have yet to embrace fully these changes in a country where the Ebola recovery period promises to be lengthy and at a time when fresh, locally-informed rural development solutions are in short supply.

The rise and fall of Liqhobong Diamond Mine Cooperative in Lesotho

Diamond mining in the rural highlands of Lesotho has taken different forms over the past century: unregulated diamond digging by locals and “migrant” diggers in the early 1950s; regulated diamond mining by a state-sponsored diamond cooperative from 1978 onwards; and a commercial diamond mining company from 1996 onwards. This paper examines the rise and fall of the Liqhobong Diamond Mine Cooperative in Lesotho's rural highlands in the Butha-Buthe district according to the human economy approach. It is based on ethnographic research undertaken from May 2013 to January 2014. It focuses on the impact that the diamond cooperative had on social divisions and livelihood strategies within Liqhobong and how this changed when the cooperative was taken over by a multinational company. The paper shows that the fall of the cooperative was the result of government issuing private claims to investors, thus undermining artisanal diamond miners by incorporating and managing their pace and ultimately throwing them off. The paper demonstrates how the state uses and legitimises its power to mute and suppress artisanal diamond diggers.

Social insecurity, stability and the politics in West Africa: A case study of artisanal and small-scale diamond mining in Guinea, 1958–2008

The period of protracted conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia brought the politics of alluvial diamond mining in West Africa to the forefront of academic and policy-oriented discussions. Using social contract theory, this paper moves away from discussions on how minerals have perpetuated conflict in the region, and interrogates how the governance of diamond mining in Guinea impacts regime stability and social insecurity. More importantly, it attempts to illustrate how artisanal diamond mining contributes to stability. The paper situates this discussion within the broad spectrum of the social contract between state and citizens and an analysis of how these are at play in diamond mining areas. It illustrates how artisanal diamond mining enables specific social contracts to emerge and how this in turn contributes to stability in the regions where they are extracted.

Semiquantitative determination of total mercury in Pygocentrus nattereri Kner, 1858 and sediment at the plateau of Upper Paraguai River, Brazil

In this study an environmental assessment of contamination by total mercury (THg) was carried out at the Plateau of the Upper Paraguai River. Total mercury was evaluated in sediment and muscle of the red piranha Pygocentrus nattereri Kner, 1858, a piscivorous species at the top of the food chain consumed for subsistence and commercially. THg concentrations were below national guidelines established by WHO for sediments (100 ng g−1) and fish (100–600 ng g−1) for most of the sampled sites. Two sites located downstream of artisanal diamond and gold mines had THg concentrations in fish equal or greater than 600 ng g−1.

Testing a Small UAS for Mapping Artisanal Diamond Mining in Africa

Testing a Small UAS for Mapping Artisanal Diamond Mining in Africa

‘Diamond mining is a chain'. Luck, blessing, and gambling in Sierra Leone's artisanal mines

Many mining and development experts consider artisanal diamond mining to be a form of gambling. In Sierra Leone's mining areas, this comparison also recurs occasionally in miners’ discourses. However, the idea that mining is like gambling deserves critical scrutiny as it allows only a limited, stereotypical representation of this work. This article considers mining as a complex combination of material production and imaginaries oriented by a specific ethic. Central to the understanding of this ethic is a repertoire of religious metaphors that inform miners’ working and ritual practices. By drawing upon my ethnographic experience in Sierra Leone (2007–2011), I examine the vocabulary of contingency which the miners use to make sense of their successes and failures and guide their daily decision-making. Moreover, I show how this vocabulary mirrors the daily efforts of miners in (re)producing the social reality in and around diamond mines. What I mean to highlight is the ways in which diamond miners challenge dominant discourses depicting them as immoral, antisocial agents.

DISCOVERY OF A KIMBERLITE PIPE AND RECOGNITION OF A DIAGNOSTIC BOTANICAL INDICATOR IN NW LIBERIA

Diamond-bearing kimberlite dikes (fissures) are present in the deeply eroded Man Shield of West Africa. Small kimberlite pipes, generally less than 1 hectare in area, are known in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Exploration for larger bodies has been severely hampered by thick tropical vegetation, and the lack of distinct geophysical contrasts between weathered kimberlite and the nonresponsive nature of country-rock granites and granodioritic gneisses. Following several years of intense exploration in the highly active artisanal diamond district of northwestern Liberia (which was a major source of alluvial “blood diamonds”) by several large companies and the present study, we report that an elusive diamond-bearing kimberlite pipe has finally been located. A bonus to the pipe location is that an unusual botanical indicator, Pandanus candelabrum , is now recognized exclusively on the pipe and not in eluvium covering the adjacent kimberlite dikes. Plants ( Lychnis alpina ) have been widely used since medieval times for copper in Sweden, and with Haumaniastrum katangese, more recently in Africa. Other plants have evolved to physiologically stabilize heavy metals (U, Pb, Zn, Ni, Cr, Ba, Pb, Zn) in leaves and bark. Termite hills have been used in diamond exploration for kimberlitic indicator minerals (ilmenite, chromite, garnet, pyroxene) in Botswana, the United States, and Australia, but the identification of Pandanus candelabrum, with stilt-like aerial roots, is the first plant to be described that has a marked affinity for kimberlite pipes. This could dramatically change the exploration dynamics for diamonds in West Africa, as geobotanical mapping and sampling is cost-effective in tough terrain.

WHO OWNS THE DIAMONDS? THE OCCULT ECO-NOMY OF DIAMOND MINING IN SIERRA LEONE

ABSTRACTMuch of the literature on Sierra Leonean diamonds focuses on the role that this mineral resource played in the recent civil conflict (1991–2002). However, the political-economic perspective that is common to these analyses has lost sight of the main actors in this social reality. What do miners think of diamonds? Like their Malagasy colleagues engaged in the search for sapphires, the Sierra Leonean diamond miners often maintain that they do not know what diamonds could possibly be used for. What is specific to the diamond mining areas in this West African country is that suspicions and fantasies about the uses of diamonds go hand in hand with the idea that these precious stones belong to invisible spiritual entities known locally as djinns ordεbul dεn. Although this article aims to analyse the occult imaginary of diamond miners, it takes a different stand from the occult economies approach. By combining a historical-imaginative perspective with a historical and ecological one, this article intends to highlight the indissoluble interweaving of material and imaginative processes of artisanal diamond production in the context of Sierra Leone's mines.