Engaging Legal Systems in Small-Scale Gold Mining Conflicts in Three South American Countries - Conflicts Over Natural Resources in the Global South - page 130

mining regions, even when state mining legislation exists. Understanding engaging
legal systems is a prerequisite for the formulation of more adequate policies and the
mitigation or solution of conflicts.
Keywords Small-scale gold mining, engaging legal systems, legal pluralism, conflict,
Brazil, Colombia, Suriname.
8.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter addresses the relationship between legal pluralism and the incidence of
conflicts in small-scale gold mining in the Amazon. Economic growth and crisis, envi-
ronmental concerns, and the social consequences of the extraction of natural resources
all contribute to the importance of mining in the 21st century. Gold mining is currently
one of the most rapidly expanding industries in the world. The price of gold started
rising a decade ago and has quadrupled in less than ten years. Large and mid-scale
extraction by international mining corporations has significantly benefited national
economies. Small-scale gold mining has attracted a large number of individuals who
see opportunities for social and economic development. It is estimated that such activ-
ities support the livelihoods of over 100 million people in more than fifty countries
(Spiegel and Veiga 2007), while employing a total of 15 million directly (ICMM,
CASM, and CommDev 2010).
Gold mining is also one of the most important economic activities in the Amazon
region. In Suriname, for example, it supports the livelihoods of an estimated 60,000
people (12% of Suriname's population) (Hammond et al. 2007; ICMM, CASM, and
CommDev 2010). In Colombia, approximately 15,000 families live off small-scale
mining (Defensoría del Pueblo Colombia 2010), and in Brazil the sector employed
around 200,000 miners in 2010 (Sousa et al. 2011.). By small-scale gold mining we
refer to mining that is labour-intensive, poor in technology, mostly outside the formal
legal frameworks of nations and often out of sight of national policies. Some small-scale
mining is artisanal and manual, occasionally using no more than a pump to push water.
In other forms, miners use excavator machines, multiple pumps and grinding mills.
This mining is still called small-scale because the working units operate independently
and are solely comprised of the number of people necessary to have all of the machinery
running, usually four to six men.
The expansion of the small-scale gold mining sector in the Amazon countries is
characterised by migrating mining populations, deforestation, uncontrolled release of
mercury, the deterioration of soils and riverbeds, inefficient mining operations that are
not based on thorough prospection, and dangerous working conditions. With unprece-
dented numbers of people entering the small-scale gold mining industry, gold mining
also causes many conflicts between different populations, and between miners, com-
munities and the state. These conflicts are the result of the unauthorised occupation of
land, conflicting claims on the access to gold-rich soils and rivers, or equally conflict-
ing claims by different stakeholders on the revenues of the mineral wealth. Although
small-scale gold mining is an important economic sector, one in which many poor
people find a living, public policies are not adequate to deal with conflicting claims. In
all countries, the sector remains rather uncontrollable; it takes place in remote parts