Episode Details

In this episode, we chat with Hugh Brown, a Best-Selling Documentary Photographer within our industry. He is in the process of photographing a major book about the lives of the world's 40 million artisanal miners. Hugh is on the podcast to talk about artisanal mining. To make us aware that these people exist within our industry. He shares details of the many challenges they face, daily. 

Explaining how we as an industry need to acknowledge them and work to protect them in our pursuit to mine the land. He also discusses the Garimpeiros Project which is all about putting pressure on the world’s richest nations and companies to properly plan for what happens to these artisanal miners once they lose their jobs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Garimpeiros is a Portuguese word that is now used globally to describe independent artisanal miners.
• Forty million artisanal miners are working in all kinds of conditions, across the world.
• Most artisanal miners are working in extremely poor countries.
• In general, artisanal mining pays far better than other work does.
• When third parties suddenly say to them you cannot work like that, they lose their livelihood and any chance of lifting themselves out of poverty.
• Usually, when big firms move in, they strike deals with the government and the artisanal miners receive nothing.
• Artisanal miners have no voice, no say in how their industry changes.
• Billions of dollars are being spent on responsible sourcing initiatives. Yet, most of it goes on consultants.
• If we want to change the way things are done, we can. But, if it negatively impacts others, we need to do something to mitigate that.

BEST MOMENTS

‘These people I am photographing don’t have a voice. ´

‘We need to take into account the impact of decisions on employment. If there’s a detrimental impact, we need to mitigate it.’

EPISODE RESOURCES

If you’d like to support Hugh in this important work, please click here.  He’d love your support: https://hbrownofficial.com/msp

Or if you’d like to follow Hugh’s work he is active on these two platforms:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-brown-37a73132/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HUGHBROWN9/

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Email: rob@mining-international.org

Website: https://www.mining-international.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiningRobTyson

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theminingpodcast/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast/videos

ABOUT THE HOST

Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content around the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community insight into people's experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics.

Rob is the Founder and Director of Mining In