In June 2013, we conducted a micro-level census of the Kamituga mining site. The objective was to get an overview of the different mining zones (“carrières”), pits, pit managers (“PDG – Président Directeur Général”) and artisanal miners.

The census was implemented in collaboration with the International Peace Information Service (IPIS). It complemented IPIS’ large-scale mapping exercise of mining sites in Eastern DRC. The IPIS database provides general information on the location of mining sites, the scale of mining activities and the presence and involvement of armed groups. While useful to shed light on the broad relationship between mineral resource wealth and conflict, the database reveals little about the micro-level actors and processes in a mining site.

Through several contacts with government officials and committees of artisanal miners, we collected a list of 47 mining zones in Kamituga with information about the estimated levels of production and the number of pits, pit managers and artisanal miners in each zone. Given our interest in the tension between ASM and LSM, we also conducted field observations and interviews with members of mining committees to assess Banro’s presence and interest in specific zones across the mining site.

The collected information allowed us to draw a stratified sample of pit managers to be interviewed. We selected 7 zones with a relatively high presence of Banro and three zones where Banro was not present. In these 10 zones, we randomly selected 101 pits and conducted an individual survey with 96 pit managers. The survey included an opinion-poll on ASM-LSM and collected information on recent changes in the mining sector of Kamituga. We also collected socio-demographic characteristics of the pit managers, as well as information on their pits and personal experience in the mining sector.