Mining at high altitudes in Peru

Abstract

Although in the mining sector in Peru, which represents only 4-5% of the Gross National Product (Glave and Kuramoto 2002), formal employment appears to have decreased, the number of subcontracted labourers, who often work in an artisanal manner, has in fact increased. The Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM) estimated that, in 2002, there were approximately 22,000 artisanal miners in Peru, and according to the ILO, around 150,000 persons are directly or indirectly involved in artisanal mining (Glave and Kuramoto 2002; Cruz et al. 2005). Gold exploitation particularly is associated with artisanal mining because of the low investments needed to initiate work combined with the high price for the product. Peru is the principal gold producer in Latin America; 12% of the gold production comes from artisanal mining (Romero et al. 2005). Artisanal miners exploit deposits without title possession or any other contractual agreement, generally in isolated places. For them, mining is a survival strategy. In the mining area, gold purchasers pay the miners directly according to the current price. They then sell the gold to bigger companies, who bring it on the national and international market. This relatively long chain, from the mines to the final consumer, hides the fact that the artisanal miners get a very low price for very hard and uncertain labour. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.