Resources

This technical background document provides insights on how to engage with Indigenous Peoples and with local communities, inform policy makers to help protect human health and the environment, reduce the environmental damage and human impacts, and strengthen environmental protection and biodiversity conservation in areas where ASGM is prevalent.

This report provides a description of the three key pillars of the Road map for enhancing co-benefits from implementation of the Minamata Convention and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and advancing overall coherence across the mercury and biodiversity agendas.

This study reviews the use of sodium-based compounds such as urea, sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, and thiosulfate-often formulated with sodium cyanide-as gold leaching agents by artisanal miners, and proposes a greener, more sustainable alternative.

ASGM in Burkina Faso increasingly relies on cyanide, intensifying concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure. This study assessed free cyanide levels in water and soil across three ASGM sites—Zougnazagmiline, Guido, and Galgouli. 

Within the context of "...the capture of key eastern trading hubs and gold-rich territories by M23 rebels backed by Rwanda in early 2025" this report investigates how Congolese gold continues to flow through formalized export arrangements while conflict continued to rise and armed groups dominated gold-rich areas.

 A new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the IGF maps over 100 Sustainability Standards and Initiatives operating across value chains to clarify how these interact with laws, regulations and policy commitments, and how they might enhance environmental governance rather than undermine it. 

This report recommends that to safeguard northern Ghana from potential future exploitation, it is necessary to accelerate ASGM formalization, strengthen border security and intelligence sharing, disrupt illicit financial flows, enhance community-level early warning systems and address Fulani grievances.

This report series analyzes the forces behind illegal mining in Ghana, its geographic expansion, and the networks that benefit from it. Drawing on three years of fieldwork, remote sensing, interviews, and desk research, Part 1 focuses on the Western and Savannah regions, showing how unlicensed artisanal and small-scale gold mining has increased in scale, sophistication, and environmental and social impact. Part 2 will delve further into the illicit gold supply chains and financial systems that sustain the trade.