The number of artisanal and small-scale gold miners in Côte d'Ivoire has steadily grown for the past two decades. Although mercury use is common in these operations and many face barriers to operating formally, the planetGOLD project is working to help overcome these challenges and bring artisanal miners into the formal economy.
In the community of Agbanssou, the project has helped around 150 miners organize a cooperative to formalize their operations — which is a critical step toward enabling them to shift to mercury-free methods that can improve their health and livelihoods while protecting local communities and the environment from the toxic pollutant.
