Artisanal Gold Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (A study in Economic Geography)

Document Type : Academic scientific reports related to Conferences, Symposiums, and even Seminars.

Author

Department of Geography - Institute of African Research and Studies - Aswan University

Abstract

Artisanal mining is an important mode of gold production in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The current study sought to achieve several objectives, including identifying the relationship between artisanal gold mining and armed conflicts in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, analyzing the factors affecting artisanal gold mining, determining the size of its production and exports, extrapolating the problems of artisanal gold mining, and putting forward proposals to solve them.

To reach its objectives, the study used the Regional, and Activity approach, and the Historical and Behavioral entrance. And it ended with the emergence of artisanal gold mining activity in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the fifties of the last century, and the presence of the gold-rich geological formations of Kibarien and Kibalien in the eastern provinces, and the concentration of more than half of the artisanal gold production (56.4%) in 2021, in the provinces: Maniema, South Kivu, Tanganyika, The continuous fluctuation in the volume of artisanal gold exports, the multiplicity of artisanal gold mining problems such as the proliferation of armed groups in mining areas, the smuggling of a large part of the production through illegal means, the weak institutional capacity of mining cooperatives, child labor, deforestation, and the negative effects of the use of mercury and cyanide in extracting gold.

The study suggested the use of advanced tracking systems using remote sensing (RS) techniques and the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Keywords

Main Subjects

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics