Small-scale gold miners’ preferences on formalization: First steps toward sustainable supply chains in Colombia

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining employs millions of poor people, globally–yet also significantly degrades the environment. Support from conscientious buyers, based on the information within supply-chain certifications, could induce lower environmental impacts and raise incomes, leading miners to be willing to incur costs to participate in sustainable supply chains. As certification may require formalization, we explore miners’ motivations for and barriers to formalization within a choice experiment in two Community Councils in Afro-descendent areas of Colombia’s Pacific Region: Yurumangui, in Valle del Cauca; and San Juan, in Choco. Community Councils have collective land rights—which might make them more willing to engage in collective actions often required for formalization. We find that while all miners prefer to leave their status quo towards formalization, the Councils differed in miners’ views of formalization. Given the options we offered, San Juan expressed less interest overall, perhaps due to negative past experience with formalization. Yurumangui was more willing to form or join an association and to formalize, likely due to positive past organization outcomes. Prior voluntary restoration effort correlated with individual miner willingness to restore sites. Additionally, we found no consistent significant effect of gender. Our results inform interventions supporting formalization in small-scale gold mining communities: miners are willing to try formalization yet perceive specific costs which hinder adoption in ways that vary with Councils’ legacies.