Minerals and metals are fundamentallyincredibly important to societies all over the world. Theactivities required to extract minerals, however, often havenegative impacts on forest landscapes and habitats. Foresthealth is not only about deforestation; mining has beenfound to produce severe impacts on water and soil that canindirectly impact forest health and its ecologicalintegrity. Moreover, impacts of mining can becomesignificant when multiple instances of mining activitieshappen at the same location simultaneously, as was found inthe Indonesian case studies. Therefore, there is still theneed to identify and attempt to reduce the impacts of miningeven in a landscape dominated by activities like agricultureand forestry. Artisanal mining is typified as formal,informal, or illegal mining operations with predominantlyrudimentary technologies in the exploration and extractionby individuals or large groups of people. Small-scale miningoperations can also be mechanized, or semi-mechanized, andor have a greater degree of capitalization than artisanalmining. The World Bank’s extractive industries in forestlandscapes program seeks to address these challenges bypromoting forest-smart extractive investments to ensure thatinvestments in the extractives sector do not erode forestcapital and instead generate positive forest outcomes. Theartisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) study and theparallel study on large-scale mining (LSM) share theoverarching objective of supporting the World Bank’s effortsto help client countries ensure that resource extractionfrom forested areas serves as a force for poverty reductionand sustainable development while respecting the environmentand the needs of local communities. In order to achieve aforest-smart ASM sector, adopting an integrated approach is recommended.
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