Mercury is endemic to the production of gold. Despite growing education on the dangers of mercury use, it is often seen as a necessary evil to make ends meet. Fairtrade’s standard for certification requires the eventual phase out of mercury use in gold refining (FairTrade section 3.2.1). In recent years, governments have joined the Minimata Convention’s pledge to stop the use of mercury in artisanal mining (Minimata 2025). While a worthy cause, this has negative implications for artisanal miners.

Under section 3.2.20 of the Fairtrade standard, miners are required to comply with national environmental laws. Thus, if the government bans the use of mercury then for miners to receive the Fairtrade certification and a good price on gold, they must end mercury use immediately. This is something artisanal miners want to do, but are unable to because of the capital investment needed for mercury-free gold mining.

“Heavenly Father that you show the ways of how to help people to run away from mercury, heavenly Father that these places can be mercury free” — Emily Kitabire 2017 (as quoted in Garde 2020).

Terry Garde reported his work in trying to develop and implement mercury-reducing and mercury-free gold refining equipment. With support from The International Miners’ Mission, equipment has been provided which reduces the use of mercury. Without the donated equipment, the miners would generally not be able to afford it. The equipment also increases the productivity of the miners, reducing labor and increasing revenue.

The quantity of gold needed for export to receive a fair gold price is another challenge. To export gold economically, miners would need to sell a minimum of a kilogram of gold. However, miners only produce upwards of 10’s of grams of gold a day, which are sold immediately for quick cash.

The miners would receive a better price for gold if they could export it. But they currently cannot produce and save their gold for export. Without a good price of gold, they have a harder time obtaining the capital needed to improve their production. This relegates miners sell their gold to middlemen which are seen as “cheats” who offer unfair prices. Again, due to the need for quick cash, miners are forced to sell.

The above problems of justice are exacerbated by what are referred to here as psycho-social challenges. These are problems which revolve around the antisocial behaviour miners exhibit because of their dangerous work, isolation, and lack of education. The effect of this behaviour is the unjust use of money, which locks the miners, their families and arguably their communities in poverty.

 Often, the men mine and process the best ores, obtaining up to 10’s of grams of gold. Many of them sell the gold and blow their earnings of alcohol and hookers.

“…Tiira in Uganda here we have a tendency of men when they get money they abandon families, go drink, even defile children, use money in all sorts of things that are not godly. If a child is defiled at an early age she is not going to have a good future. People tend to marry so many women because they have gotten this money out of gold and they think this is the right way to live, they don’t go church they don’t have any Christian heart in them even to do things. … We have seen gold being the source of very many evils in our societies we have seen people murdering one another just because somebody has money. Also he is using this money to punish the others or to use his money to punish the poor, to use his money to commit so many offences in societies.” — Josephine Aguttu 2017 (as quoted in Garde 2020).

Not only does this cause marital issues, but it leaves the mother and children to take the already processed ore and process it again to get tenths of a gram of gold. Just enough to make ends meet.

“So the artisanal miners in this area if you look at them keenly you find most of them are mothers, some young boys, who can do it just for the sake of getting little to keep them moving.  They are not earning so much out of it.” — Duncan Onyango (as quoted in Garde 2020). 

In addition, due to the promiscuity, the spread of HIV/AIDS has claimed many lives.

“Another aspect that contributes to low enrollment in schools is due to the HIV prevalence rate which is claiming a lot of lives in the society. Men dying in a large number, leaving their responsibility to wives, and are not able to cater for family needs. These are continuous steps that make parents to be unable to cater for their children, leading to low enrollment of children in school.” — George Odhiambo (as quoted in Garde 2020).

This issue is similar to the problems faced by frontier workers in logging or mining camps in North America in the 1800’s. Isolated from their families, with little to do besides visiting the local saloon or brothel, these workers used their hard-earned cash on the usual suspects. Psychologists refer to these people as “frontier workers” and have specific stresses and needs that make them prone to these behaviors (Ehrlander 2010). These include:

• Isolation from families and loved ones.
• Dangerous and risky work.
• Lack of places to relax besides bars and brothels.

Due to the isolation, workers are more likely to lose sight of the people they are trying to provide for. The dangerous work means the next day could be the last, which promotes spending now rather than saving for later when one might be dead. Finally, if the only available places to relax or get entertainment are bars or brothels, then antisocial behaviors are likely (Ehrlander 2010). These psychosocial dynamics appear in other extractive industries globally.

Artisanal miners use mercury to refine gold. When added to the crushed ore, the mercury combines with gold forming an amalgam. The amalgam is then heated over a wood fire to vaporize the mercury, leaving behind sponge gold. The mercury enters the environment, where it is converted to toxic methyl mercury by bacteria. The mercury is taken up in wildlife, accumulating further up the food chain.

Miners and consumers of mercury-rich wildlife can exhibit mild poisoning in the form of dizziness, fatigue, headaches or tremors. Severe mercury poisoning can cause paralysis, blindness, convulsions, reduced immunity to diseases and malaria, and can cause death. The Global Mercury Assessment 2018 reports that in 2015, 38% of all mercury emission in the atmosphere is from artisanal gold mining.

In 2021, the fish in Lake Victoria contained 335 micrograms of mercury per gram of fish (μg/g) (Montaña et al. 2021). That is over 300 times the safe mercury limit of 1 μg/g set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Models on the effect of mercury on pregnant mothers found that every 1 μg/g of mercury in hair correlates to a −0.18 IQ points decrease (Axelrad et al. 2007). The models used to correlate IQ loss with mercury intake are not calibrated for such extreme mercury contamination. Suffice it to say that the mercury contamination in Lake Victoria and the surrounding environment is tragic and the pollution must be stopped.

“The other problem I would cite is that some of these people take these tailings and do the sluicing just on the river banks because that is the source of water, but you see it causes a lot of danger to aquatic life.  The mercury is expected to roll even down to the lake.  I don’t know whether that is why we don’t have a quite number of fish in this Lake Victoria nowadays.  It can as well be a reason we are not getting some species of fish from the lake.” — Duncan Onyango 2015 (as quoted in Garde 2020).

In an email with Terry Garde, he described Mining God’s Way as a lens by which we can see mining form the perspective of God’s heart for justice. Mining God’s Way is a vision for what mining looks like in a redemptive context and steps towards achieving that through addressing issues of justice, social relations and the environment holistically.

These issues are interdependent, thus why I’ve called them collectively as a “poverty trap.” The main issue artisanal miners face boils down to:

1. Equipment: miners need good equipment to produce more gold to:
   • Export for a better prince
   • Afford mercury-free processing equipment
   • Purchase mienral rights
2. Training: miners need to be trained in the following areas:
   • Equipment and technical skills.
   • Business and money management
   • General health and the effects of mercury
3. Providing social/psychological needs: the needs of miners must be met to prevent emergent antisocial behaviour.
   • Space is needed for miners to relax and enjoy their time in a wholesome way.
   • The dangers of mining need to be mitigated to encourage planning for the future.
   • Family and community connections are needed to encourage pro-social behaviours.

In Mining God’s Way, Terry Garde described two ways in which the above issues and needs are met. The first is through the advocacy of companies to develop low-cost gold mining solutions. By reducing the cost of equipment, miners are more likely to afford mercury-reducing processing methods which also help increase gold production. The International Miners’ Mission helps raise capital for artisanal miners to secure this equipment.

“All is God, all is God, talking to Terry, talking to Greg and saying this is now the way to go …in London …(to) fundraise for this equipment to help these women, to help the men in Uganda, Busia district. It’s all God’s hand… His purpose has come to pass. …I am seeing God’s hand at a time when I was told the GoldKacha had come. If God has touched men and women to think they can get us from the back breaking kind of work to where we are only now in minutes able to sluice our ore, turn it into gold, then made pure and ready to be exported, this where I see God’s hand.” — Josephine Aguttu 2017 (as quoted in Garde 2020).

I once naively thought the poverty in Africa looked like hungry, jobless people sitting in the mud, like many of the photos I’ve seen which ask for donations to help poverty stricken African countries. I used to think that the land was resource rich yet untapped. If only it were being mined, then people would have livelihoods! If only a foreign mining company would set up in these countries, build a mine and employ thousands of people to uplift them from poverty!

Terry Garde shows the artisanal gold miners in east Africa as hardworking, skilled people caught in a poverty trap. Thus, the miners are there. The ore body is present. But the lack of capital due to the poverty trap severely limits and prevents development. The poverty trap is a complex assemblage of injustice, socio-cultural challenges, and need for education.

In my work, I research critical metal deposits to understand how and where they form. The goal being to constrain exploration for these deposits to more promising places. The critical metals are those that are essential to the economy and national defense. This includes metals like tantalum, tin, and tungsten. In my field, one of the drivers for this research is to find new deposits as a source of “conflict-free” minerals (Mackay & Simandl 2015; Fitzpatrick et al. 2015; Mancheri et al. 2018).

A good example of a “conflict” mineral is tantalum mined as “coltan.” As shown earlier, the majority of tantalum is produced by artisanal mining accounting for 64% global production. These operations share some similarities with gold and other artisanal mining operations. However, coltan mining is especially malodorous because it is run largely by rebel groups which use artisanal miners to provide them coltan to sell to support their rebel activities (Nest 2011). These activities come with abominable human rights violations where miners are sent into extremely dangerous conditions without safety equipment, face threats, physical assault at the hands of mine police and private security guards working for those who control the site, which include political figures and armed groups. Evictions of communities from around mine sights. Child labour. Obstructing access to water (Amnesty International 2013).

Not all artisanal mining operations are the same. Terry Garde reports that in East Africa, artisanal gold miners welcome outside support as God’s direct blessing to them. Terry describes that many of these miners desire to follow the core commandments, love God and treat your neighbor as yourself. This is bore out as worshiping God and giving all that they can to support their poor neighbors and community. These miners are independent and seek to better their lives through mining. This group of artisanal miners differ from the coltan miners of the DRC in one key metric: the conflict. Many of these miners have the rebel conflict thrust on them and they are forced to mine to support the rebel activities. These two groups represent very different political and economic climates,

As I reflect on these settings, I see two very different types of mission fields. Terry Garde lays out a path for pairing missions with economic geology in East Africa. However, the political–economic situation of the DRC clearly would require a different approach. Going there to help improve mining operations would clearly help only the rebel groups who are violating the human rights of the artisanal miners. With no experience in this area, I can only wonder what approach would be best.

The solution must come from within. Terry Garde cautions that in his experience with trying to provide mercury-free or reducing solutions, many were not effective because they did not consider the lived experience of the artisanal miners. In addition, many of the solutions being proposed to deal with mercury pollution and artisanal miners are top-down solutions. However, without consideration of the actual challenges being faced by miners, the problem will persist. As I consider my role in Mining God’s Way, this one quote struck me the most:

“University researchers will go there to get information, the Government, United Nations, someone will go there … the first time I got to the site they told me ‘if you have come as one of the researchers please can you back, where you came from? We are not going to give you information to make your thesis and make money. You have to show us that you are one of us, you have to show us your passion’ … [So] even us, we have to change from our professional whatever we are, to being one of them … to walk along with them. To me, I think there isn’t a better way.” — Tina Mwasha 2015 (as quoted in Garde 2020).

This quote speaks to the need for a solution to come from within. But once the solution is found from within, help from without is welcomed. The following quote speaks to that:

“I believe God must have given man the vision to say there is something that I have hidden underground and then he gave the ability to extract the gold. God must have also seen the suffering that the small scale miners are going through and made some people maybe in the UK, maybe in Germany, in Europe to think so hard about us. Through them God brought the wisdom to EWAD and to fair trade. Someone somewhere must have said what about the people in Africa? They may not have known where we are, but I think God led them to here.” — Stephen Padde 2017 (as quoted in Garde 2020).