Mercury amalgamation remains the default gold recovery method across much of Uganda's artisanal sector, with well-documented consequences for miners, downstream water users and the wider environment.
Licensed processing centres are moving faster than unlicensed camps. Gravity concentration, shaking tables and closed-circuit recovery are now standard on mechanised sites, where documented environmental management plans are a condition of tenure.
Formalisation is the lever
The pattern is consistent: where a site is licensed and monitored, mercury use falls. Where it is not, price and habit prevail. That makes cadastre reform and CDA enforcement environmental policy as much as economic policy.
The enforcement gap
District environment officers remain thinly resourced. Until monitoring reaches the camps rather than only the licensed plants, national commitments will outrun on-the-ground reality.