Reducing Hg pollution in small-scale mining through associative entrepreneurship: an experimental and modeling approach

After signature to the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2013, several challenges remains to deal with the transboundary pollution and reducing the harmful effects that mercury usage has on human health and ecosystems.... [ view full abstract ]

After signature to the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2013, several challenges remains to deal with the transboundary pollution and reducing the harmful effects that mercury usage has on human health and ecosystems. Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is one of the main sources of mercury pollution worldwide, but it is also the most attractive or the unique source of livelihood several millions of people in the world. The application of conventional practices, mercury amalgamation being the most representative, makes ASGM an activity with a high negative environmental impact, primarily due to mercury pollution. These and other rudimentary techniques continue to be massively popular techniques despite the fact that cleaner technologies are available to miners. Several policy instruments have been proposed to phase out mercury in ASGM, from the traditional command and control to other approaches such as associative entrepreneurship. By associative entrepreneurship, we mean the creation of local associations between small-scale gold miners in order to acquire more environmentally-friendly technologies. This approach, associative entrepreneurship, has been proposed as a scheme that would bring cleaner technologies to miners engaged in the extraction of gold at small scale. By using the results of an economic experiment and with the construction of a behavioral simulation model, we assess the feasibility of associative entrepreneurship (collective action) in the context of the public-good dilemma that ASGM communities face. We investigate the effect of two different institutional arrangements on associative entrepreneurship: (i) exclusion, and; (ii) the interaction between internal communication and the intervention of a non-coercive authority. We show that a sustained collective action (associative entrepreneurship) is possible when miners completely understand the social dilemma they face, but that self-organization is not possible. Features such as reciprocity and temptation to free ride partially explain why self-organization fails. In such a case, external intervention has a key role in promoting programs that improve the understanding of the social dilemma faced by artisanal and small-scale gold miners. However, a monetary (des)incentive such as exclusion did not trigger associative entrepreneurship.

Key words: small-scale gold mining; public goods; co-management; exclusion; mercury pollution.