Victoire Girard
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victoiregirard.bsky.social
Victoire Girard
@victoiregirard.bsky.social
640 followers 450 following 17 posts
Development & natural resources economist – research mostly on identity, violence & (artisanal) mines – @novafrica.bsky.social
https://sites.google.com/site/girardvictoire/
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victoiregirard.bsky.social
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November 22, 2024 at 3:12 PM
victoiregirard.bsky.social
Our work on artisanal gold mining (#ASgM) is conditionally accepted at The Economic Journal!

ASgM provides livelihoods for 130-270 million people. We assembled new data to estimate its (large) deforestation footprint. 🎇 📈📉 🌳

novafrica.org/wp-content/u...
The image shows the front page of the paper. The paper is titled "Artisanal mining in Africa. Green for Gold?" authored by Victoire Girard, Teresa Molina-Millan, and Guillaume Vic and its abstract reads as follow: The livelihoods of 130 to 270 million people depend on artisanal mining. Artisanal mining is a labor-intensive, often illegal, extractive activity. We combine geological knowledge and a source of exogenous temporal variation to construct the first proxy for artisanal gold mining in Africa – the main form of artisanal mining. We establish that an increase in the potential value of artisanal mining is a significant driver of deforestation. The historical increase in the gold price accounts for 8% of deforestation continent-wide, 28% in gold suitable areas. In parallel, artisanal mining increases local economic wealth and may provide an alternative livelihood in case of weather shock jeopardizing agricultural output. Finally, mining-induced deforestation seems rooted more in the direct clearing of trees for the activity than in indirect deforestation triggered by increased local demand.
November 14, 2024 at 2:37 PM