Faced with rising prices for raw materials and the hoarding of minerals by certain emerging economies, Europe is sharpening its claws. And, as always, it is the countries of the South with large natural reserves of coveted resources that will end up on the losing side, especially their populations.
Bulletin articles
That mining can pose a threat to the integrity of forests is obvious. Clearance of surface vegetation and soils to gain access to sub-surface minerals has evident and often long-lasting impacts. Surface scarring by mines themselves, with associated erosion and siltation, is exacerbated by spoil heaps, tailings dams, associated mining works, disrupted water tables, and local chemical changes, including acid mining drainage and the release of heavy metals and the consequent pollution of soils and waterways. Mining operations use, and too often pollute, vast quantities of water.
Government authorities in Guatemala continue to promote metal mining, despite the widespread opposition of local communities and indigenous peoples. Consultations carried out among local populations have clearly demonstrated that they are completely against the further development of mining activities.
There are around 110 ethno-linguistic groups in the Philippines and they constitute almost 15% of our population. Most of them live in mountain ranges and coastal areas. (1) Nine million or roughly 30% of our total land area is mineralized including some of the mountains inhabited by those groups.
A new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled “Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth” (1), reveals some alarming figures with regard to global consumption of natural resources.
In 2009, Rio Tinto, one of the world biggest mining companies, explained how it hoped that it could use REDD, “as an economic tool to offset Rio Tinto’s carbon footprint and to conserve biodiversity”. That, in a nutshell, explains the mining industry’s interest in REDD. Companies hope to continue mining, while investing comparatively small amounts of money in REDD credits to “offset” the destruction.
The price of gold is rising for the tenth consecutive year. As a result, more and more investors, financial market operators and central banks are turning to gold as a safe haven in the face of global economic instability. This has troubling consequences, because gold mining is one of the most destructive and polluting of all mining activities.
The Palawan Province has the best-conserved and most ecologically diverse forest in the Philippines inhabited by vulnerable indigenous communities, some of them living in partial isolation.
The natural and environmental resources of Africa like land, minerals, gas, oil, timber, territorial waters among others have been the object of the persistent scramble for the continent. Natural resources are often at the heart of the scramble for Africa.
In a state such as Orissa in which Dalit and tribal groups comprise nearly 40% of the total population, the issue of ‘access’ to land and resources (forests, water, etc.) has been central to all conflicts. For traditional communities, ‘access’ is directly linked to civilizational paradigms and cultural ethos, which rather decide their ‘economics’, and not the other way round that may be true for modern, techno-centric civilizations. So, in traditional milieus, denial of ‘access’ to resources directly impacts ‘food security’.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was established in 1993 to certify “socially beneficial, economically viable and environmentally appropriate” management of forests. In 1996, the FSC approved the possibility of certification for monoculture tree plantations, a decision that has been the target of harsh and growing criticism, as millions of hectares of plantations have been granted the FSC label (see the editorial in WRM Bulletin 163).
The UN climate talks concluded their second session of 2011 in Bonn in June without addressing the key issue of reducing climate pollution and without discussing how emissions of gases that are the main cause of climate change are going to be cut further, who is going to do it or who is going to pay for it. Climate justice groups have expressed their increasing concern at the failure by rich industrialised countries to take real action to tackle climate change as: