For over 20 years I have photographed some of the poorest people in the world. Miners working with their bare hands in some of the most dangerous work environments on earth.

In recent years the world’s developed nations have been exerting major pressure to shut down many of these mining operations or to change the way they do things.

But little thought is being given to what happens to these miners when they lose their jobs – there’s around 280 million who depend on this activity worldwide.

So I’m doing a book to put pressure on the world’s richest nations and companies to properly plan for what happens to these people when they lose their jobs.

What will happen to them? What alternative employment opportunities do we create for them?

What alternate opportunities do we create that gives them the same employment, skills development and remuneration rewards?

To say it’s not okay for us to just dump these people onto the street.

That we must do better. That we must find alternatives for them.