Ninja miner

Ninja miner (Mongolian: Нинжа уурхайчин), or simply Ninja (Mongolian: Нинжа), is a nickname for a person who digs small unauthorized mines or pans dirt for gold in Mongolia.^[1] The miners are so named because the bowls they use for panning, when carried on their backs, are said to resemble the shells of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,^[1][2][3] and their dirty appearance is said to resemble black ninja masks.^[4]

Many ninja miners are Mongolian miners who lost their jobs after the fall of the Mongolian People's Republic and subsequent economic crisis in the 1990s, when the country transitioned to a free market economy. The term is considered to have originated from Nalaikh, a district of Ulaanbaatar, which has a large source of coal. The closure of Mongolia's first coal mine, Nalaikh Coal Mine, in 1990 due to a methane explosion and economic stagnation left around 5,000 miners unemployed. Subsequently, these miners resorted to primitive artisanal mining methods.^[4]

In 2001 and 2002, Mongolia faced two harsh winters (known as dzuds), and a third of the country's livestock was lost. Thousands of families took up ninja mining and searched for quartz or gold on properties large mining companies deemed unmineable.^[3]

The ninja mining process starts with a group of miners (up to four) digging a hole, usually 10–15 feet (3.0–4.6 m) deep, using iron stakes, or until reaching a depth with a high gold content. Holes that are near each other are connected underground. Upon completion of the hole, one ninja miner works at the bottom of the hole by candlelight, digging up dirt, while another pulls dirt to the surface to be sifted by yet another ninja miner.^[1]

In 2003, there were approximately 30,000 ninja miners in Mongolia,^[1] which increased to 100,000 in 2007.^[3] Ninja miners earned an average of US$10 a week in 2003,^[1] rising to US$5–10 per day in 2007.^[3] Students on summer break often work with their parents to help pay tuition. The largest ninja mining area is at Zaamar, a five-hour drive from Ulaanbaatar.^[1]

Ninja mining is having an adverse effect on agriculture, as nomadic herders are having to move more frequently to find land for their livestock to graze on due to the increase in holes and the reduced amount of grass. This, combined with the northward expansion of the Gobi Desert, led some herders to reduce their herds to focus on higher-quality livestock, while others gave up nomadism and set up farms and cooperatives. In 2007, Peter Morrow, the then-CEO of Khan Bank (former state agricultural bank), said this could be the end of traditional herding in Mongolia, "the last horse-based nomadic culture in the world" to The Times.^[3]

• An episode of the Animal Planet series River Monsters filmed in Mongolia mentioned ninja miners, a local guide mentioning that ninjas will aggressively defend their claims from intruders.

• A feature-documentary Price of Gold ^[5] (Sven Zellner, Chingunjav Borkhuu; D 2012) ARTE - Dokumentarfilmpreis Duisburger Filmwoche^[6] - HotDocs Toronto 2012, official selection World Showcase.^[7][8]

• A photo-essay "Ninjas" by Sven Zellner and Building Sand Castles on the Steppe? Mining, Herding and Water Governance in the Gobi by Jennifer Lander and photographer Sven Zellner. ^[9]

• Artisanal mining
• Bootleg mining
• Illegal mining