The spotlight must turn to the systemic reasons artisanal gold mining has become such a threat to peace and security. These include the state’s decades-long failure to nip an unregulated and illegal artisanal gold mining industry in the bud. These incidents are also the result of the failure to formalise artisanal mining as a livelihood strategy through appropriate policies and legislative provisions.
AuthorTracy-Lynn Field
Tracy-Lynn Field is a Professor of environmental and sustainability law , University of the Witwatersrand.
Professor Field has worked in the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law since 2003 where she teaches several courses on environmental and sustainability law to post- and undergraduate students. Her research focuses on the comparative governance of sustainability and development in the mining industry, and the governance of climate change.
She is the holder of an NRF grant from the Competitive Rated Researchers Fund entitled: “Re-imagining mining governance and regulation for a post-extractivist age”. She has graduated a number of LLM and PhD students and currently supervises 9 PhD students in her area of interest. She was the lead editor of Climate Change Law and Governance in South Africa and has published around 45 peer-reviewed book chapters and articles.
Her current monograph State Governance of Mining and Environment in the Anthropocene is due for publication in 2018. She chairs the Research Committee of the IUCN Academy of Law, a global network of environmental law scholars. Over the years she has undertaken policy development, research and advocacy work for a number of organizations including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Open Society Foundation, the International Council of Mining and Metals and is the Independent Review Mechanism Researcher for the Open Government Partnership.