Abstract
The artisanal mining sector is largely informal, yet provides an essential livelihood for
many dependants, as well as facilitating an important source for the flow of income
into many communities. Artisanal mining varies from site to site, but appears largely
well structured despite its informality. The artisanal mining sites in Central Africa
have some inherent management structure and the extraction itself is often
organised through teams of about 20 diggers who co-operate in one underground
excavation. The miners are generally accompanied by supporting crews e.g.
developers, timbering crews, rock transporters, rock crushers, mineral washers and
waste disposal crews.
Underground operations are based largely on exploiting payable pegmatite veins or
mineralised material with little consideration made for mine planning issues such as
mine access, rock breaking, material handling, support, ventilation or general safety
considerations. Typical problems encountered in artisanal mining are poorly
excavated mine accesses, which are often either unsupported or excavated to
inappropriate sizes. Travelling ways promoting easy access are often lacking with
material handling largely conducted by manual methods. Artisanal mining operations
are largely excavated by manual labour with limited ventilation and working under
conditions of limited or no illumination and are generally conducted utilising hand
digging methods e.g. shovels, picks or hand chisels.
This paper investigates artisanal mining in underground workings as currently
applied in Central Africa and proposes best practice guidelines to uplift artisanal
mining to small scale mining. Areas under investigation are mine access, pillar
support, improved rock breaking, material handling and ventilation, and mining
methods. This paper investigates practical methods to improve underground mining
safety in the artisanal mining environment and promotes ways to improve miners’
knowledge so as to promote mining operations to migrate from labour and manual
intensive methods to semi-mechanised methods. Along with improving productivity,
basic mine planning principles are described promoting safer and more efficient
mining methods than what are currently being applied.