What is legal? Formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining in Colombia.

Colombia’s mining sector is characterised by widespread informality, with two-thirds of all mining operations lacking any legal title. This not only prevents improvement in the working conditions and human rights of miners, but perpetuates environmental degradation and poor quality of life in mining communities. This paper assesses these past formalisation processes, analysing the barriers to formalisation for artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and offering approaches to overcome them.

Prepared for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).