dirty metals report

8/9/2019 Dirty Metals Report

1/34

DirtyMetalsMining, Communities and the Environment

A Report by Earthworks and Oxfam Amer


2/34

Table of ContentsAbout This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 1

From Open Pit to Wedding Ring: How Gold is Produced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Ruined Lands, Poisoned Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Facts on the Ground: The Ok Tedi Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Close-Up: Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Acid Mine Drainage: Pollution on a Millennial Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Facts on the Ground: The Yanacocha Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Tambogrande and Esquel:

Two Communities Stand up to the Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Pouring Energy and Water into a Bottomless Pit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Close-Up: An Aluminum Can . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Mining the Parks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Map: Mining Hotspots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Endangering Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

How Mining Injures Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The Toll on Indigenous Peoples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Facts on the Ground: The Western Shoshone People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Undermining the Rights and Safety of Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Small-Scale Mining, Large-Scale Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Metals and the Wealth of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Close-Up: Your Cell Phone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Paying for the Clean-Up: No Guarantees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Towards a Saner Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Copyright Earthworks, Oxfam America, 2004. Reproduction is permitted for educational ornon-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to Earthworks and Oxfam America.

Cover photo credits: Jeff Atkinson/Oxfam Australia, CONACAMI, Tibor Kocsis, Earthworks


3/34

About this Report

1

The Metals Mining Industry

A Few Highlights:

About This ReportThe purpose of this report is to show you how much metal there is in your lifefrom the gold in your jewelry

to the aluminum in your automobileand to explain how it was produced. If you live in the United States,

your annual consumption of newly-mined minerals (as opposed to those produced from recycling) comes to21 metric tons*just over 57 kilos a day.1 This report will show you what lies behind that stupendous lode of

copper and tantalum, gold and platinum. Well explain how the mining of these and other metals damages

landscapes, pollutes water, and poisons people. Well show you why modern, industrial mining is one of the

worlds most destructive industries. And finally, well show you what we as consumers and concerned citizens

can do to clean it up.

*All references to tons in this report are to metric tons.

96 percent of US arsenic

emissions

50 percent of all newly mined

gold taken from native lands

Groundwater thousands

of times more acid than

battery acid

Implication in human rights

abuses

79 tons of mine waste forevery ounce of gold

Employs only 0.09 percent

of the global workforce

Up to 10 percent of world

energy consumption

Craters blasted into officiallyprotected natural areas

Tintaya mine, Peru Photo: CONA


4/34

From Open Pit to Wedding RingA golden wedding band, or some other piece of gold jewelryfor many people, these things are almost

oo valuable to put a price on. Perhaps you own such a ring yourself. But while the ring as a symbol

may indeed be priceless, the gold certainly is not. Gold comes with a pricea heavy one. Gold

mining costs the planet and its peoples far more than the metal itself is worth.

How Gold Is Produced

2

2. WASTE ROCK: An open pit mine generates huge piles ofwaste rock, which leach toxic metals and acid. Mine wastehas turned groundwater thousands of times more acidic thanbattery acid. For more on waste rock, see page 9.

1. EXTRACTION: Of all the gold in use or in storage today,two-thirds is newly minedit came directly from the Earth.(The other third came from scrap or recycled sources.) Of thatnewly mined gold, two-thirds was extracted from immense,open-pit mines. Several of these craters have grown so largethat they are now visible from outer space.For more on open-pit mining, see page 4.

3. CYANIDE LEACHING: Once its extracted, the ore iscrushed, piled into huge heaps and sprayed with cyanide,which causes the gold to leach out of the ore. Some mines useseveral tons of cyanide per day.A rice-grain sized dose of

cyanide can be fatal. The cyanide-contaminated waste ore isusually just abandoned. To produce enough gold for a ring,about 18 tons (20 short tons) of waste ore are created.

4. SMELTING & REFINING: Trated gold is then shipped to a where remaining impurities areremoved under intense heat. Tsmelting industry (of which goa small part) is a major consumenergy and a major air pollutemore on smelting, see pages 6 aFor energy consumption, see p

5. TRADE: Once the gold hasbeen purified, it can be traded.More than 80 percent of gold isused for jewelry; most of the restis bought by investors or used inelectronics.

6. A RING MORE COSTLY THAN GOLD: Jewelry manufacturingcan be a lucrative business.In the United States, a piece of gold

jewelry typically sells for four or more times the value of the gold itcontains. Few jewelers are likely to be able to tell you where the goldin their products came from. Theirs is a business that has yet to holditself accountable for the damage done in creating its merchandise.The time has come to change that,and as a consumer, you can helpmake that happen. Please visit our website, at www.nodirtygold.org,to learn more about what you can do. 2


5/34

RuinedLands,Poisoned

Waters

Dirty Metals

4

Once the ore is brought to the surface it must be processedto extract the mineral. The processing varies depending onthe metal being mined, but it too generates immense quan-tities of waste. Thats because the amount of recoverablemetal in even high grade ores is generally just a small frac-tion of their total mass. The amount of waste created perunit of recovered metal has tended to increase as more andmore high-grade deposits are exhausted and the industryturns increasingly to lower grade ores. In the United States,for example, the copper ore mined at the beginning of the20th century consisted of about 2.5 percent usable metal byweight; today that proportion has dropped to 0.51 percent.In gold mining, it is estimated that only 0.00001 percent(thats one-hundred thousandth of 1 percent) of the ore isactually refined into gold. Everything else is waste.4

The cumulative amounts of solid waste produced by theseprocesses are so large as to be almost incomprehensible. Asa global average, the production of 1 ton of copper resultsin 110 tons of waste ore and 200 tons of overburden. Every

year, mines in the United States generate an amount ofsolid waste equivalent in weight to nearly nine times thetrash produced by all US cities and towns combined. Thetotal amount of waste ore (not including overburden) thathas been generated to date by the US metals mining indus-try probably exceeds 90 billion tons.5

But to understand why the waste is so dangerous, youhave to look at more than just the amount of it. You haveto look at what the waste containsand a lot of the con-tents are toxic. When it comes to toxic emissions, metals

mining is one of the leading industries. In the UnitedStates, where companies are required to report such emis-sions, the industrys own data have earned it the dubiousdistinction of being the countrys top polluter. In 2001,the most recent year for which data were available, metalsmines produced 1,300 tons of toxic waste46 percent ofthe total for all US industry combinedincluding 96 per-cent of all reported arsenic emissions, and 76 percent ofall lead emissions.6

The first step in mining is to locate a subterranean ore deposit and bring it to the surface. Increasingly,mining operations find that its cheaper to do this by blasting away the soil and surface rock, calledoverburden, rather than by digging underground shafts. The resulting open-pit mines essentially obliter-

ate the surrounding landscape and open up vast craters. The worlds largest open pit, the Bingham Canyon

mine in Utah, measures 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) deep and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide. Open-pit mines

produce 8 to 10 times as much waste rubble as underground mines. This rubble is generally piled into

enormous mounds, some of them reaching heights of 100 meters, which is nearly as tall as a 30-story

building. In the United States, 97 percent of all metals are now mined in open pits. Globally, that figure is

two-thirds and its rising.3

Photo:Stev

eDEsposito/Earthworks

Copper smelter site near Butte, Montana


6/34

Ruined Lands, Poisoned Waters

5

Some of these toxics are contaminants of the ore itselfforexample, heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, selenium,and lead often drain out of the piles of waste rock. But

other toxics are introduced intentionally during the extrac-tion process. Gold, for instance, is commonly extractedthrough a technique called heap leaching. The ore con-taining the gold is crushed, piled into heaps, and sprayedwith cyanide, which trickles down through the ore, bond-ing with the gold. The resulting gold-cyanide solution iscollected at the base of the heap and pumped to a mill,where the gold and cyanide are chemically separated. Thecyanide is then stored in artificial ponds for reuse. Eachbout of leaching takes a few months, after which the heapsreceive a layer of fresh ore. Given the scale and duration ofthese operations (usually decades), contamination of thesurrounding environment with cyanide is almost

inevitable. A rice-grain sized dose of cyanide can be fatal tohumans; cyanide concentrations of 1 microgram (one-mil-lionth of a gram) per liter of water can be fatal to fish.7

Wasting Rivers and Seas

Toxic emissions can be insidiouslargely invisible untiltheir effects are widespread. But theres another kind ofmining pollution thats impossible to miss: tailings dam fail-ures.A by-product of extraction, tailings are usually a soupyto semi-solid suspension of pulverized rock in water, generally

laden with toxics. On-site tailings disposal generally consistsof bulldozing some of the dried tailings into a dam whichcan then retain the more fluid material. The dam is periodi-

cally enlarged as the level of the tailings reservoir rises.Despite its name, a tailings dam bears little structural simi-larity to an ordinary river dam. A conventional dam is gen-erally constructed as a single project, to a single set of pre-determined standards. On the other hand, the construc-tion of a tailings dam usually occurs over the life of themine, which makes it much more difficult to maintainstructural integrity. Over the past quarter century or so,tailings dam failures have accounted for three-quarters ofall major mining accidents.8

Consider, for example, the failure at the Omai gold mine inGuyana. A project of the Canadian mining corporation

Cambior, the Omai is one of the largest open-pit mines inthe world. Its tailings dam failed in 1995, releasing some 3billion cubic liters of cyanide-laden tailings into the OmaiRiver, a tributary of Guyanas largest river, the Essequibo.Following the spill, the President of Guyana declared all 51kilometers (32 miles) of river drainage from the mine tothe Atlantic Oceanhome to 23,000 peoplean officialEnvironmental Disaster Zone. Initial government reportsestimated the cyanide concentration in the Omai to be 28parts per million, which is 140 times the level that the USEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers lethal.9

Fish kill at Baia Mare, Romania


7/34

Dirty Metals

6

To get around the problems of managing tailings on site,some mines pump them directly into nearby bodies ofwater. Riverine tailings disposala euphemism for

dumping mine waste into riverspoisons aquatic ecosys-tems, clogs rivers, and can disrupt the hydrology of entirewatersheds. Once a common practice around the world, ithas now been effectively banned by most developed coun-tries, including the United States and Canada. Elsewhere,the practice is not common, at least officially. Today, onlythree mines in the world, all located on the giant Pacificisland of New Guinea, openly use this disposal method: theOk Tedi, Grasberg, and Porgera mines. (For more on OkTedi, see page 7; for Grasberg, see pages 14, 19, and 24.Porgera is a gold mine run by Placer Dome, a Canadiancorporation; it has been dumping all its tailings directlyinto the Porgera River since 1992.) To date, only three com-

panies (the Canadian firm Falconbridge and Australianfirms Western Mining Corporation and BHP Billiton) havepublicly pledged not to dump waste into rivers.10

Riverine disposal is, however, practiced illegally at manyother mines. In Ilo, Peru, for example, two mines and asmelter operated by the Southern Peru CopperCorporation (controlled by the Mexican firm GrupoMexico) have caused severe environmental degradationthrough this kind of dumping, which the company prac-ticed for decades, in violation of Peruvian law. Between1960 and 1992, the company dumped an average of 2,100tons of smelter slag per day onto beaches north of Ilo; until

1995, it pumped an average of 107,000 tons of tailings perday into nearby Ite Bay. Between 8 and 9 million tons ofaccumulated slag now form artificial beaches along thecoast. The mine tailings are now pumped into inland tail-ings ponds, but these are still contaminating the LocumbaRiver, which flows into the bay.11

Ocean dumping is a form of water disposal that is less con-spicuous than the river option, and the Ilo mines are hard-ly the only coastal mines to have used the sea as a wastedisposal site. Coastal dumping is a grave ecological concernbecause coastal waters are biologically the richest parts ofthe oceans, and because they support ocean life elsewhereas well: many open-ocean species depend on coastal habitatfor part of their life cycle. Coastal dumping is a menace topublic health as well. For example, in Northern Sulawesi,Indonesia, the Minahasa Raya gold mine, operated by theUS-based Newmont Corporation, dumped over 4 milliontons of tailings into Buyat Bay during the mines seven-yearlife, from 1996 to 2003. Local people have reported skinrashes after contact with seawater, and a toxicologist hasfound heavy metals in fish and plankton.12

Its especially unfortunate that coastal dumping is practicedin parts of the Pacific that are home to some of the worldsrichest coral reef communitiesplaces like the coastal

waters of Marinduque island in the Philippines. Those arethe waters where the Marcopper copper mine pumped 200million tons of toxic waste rock over a period of 16 years,carpeting 80 square kilometers of seabed, suffocating coralreefs, and poisoning reef fish. In the islands fishing com-munities, children have tested dangerously high for leadand cyanide.13

In response to public health and ecological concerns overshallow sea disposal, the industry is turning increasingly todeep-water disposal, a practice in which a pipe conducts thetailings to a depth of at least 100 meters before releasingthem into waters considerably deeper than 500 meters. Theindustry argues that this is a best practice because deepseawater has low levels of dissolved oxygena necessaryingredient for the chemical reactions that release heavy met-als from the rock. (See page 9.) But deep-water disposalremains highly controversial because so little is known aboutthe ecology of the ocean floors, and because of the possibili-ty that broken pipes, deep-water currents, or geologic activi-ty could disperse the waste into shallower waters.14

A growing awareness of the risks of marine tailings dispos-al has led the United States and Canada to effectively banthe practice. And in December 2003, the World BanksExtractive Industries Review recommended that the Banknot finance mines that dump their tailings at sea. But it

remains to be seen whether such moves are the beginningsof a broader ban, since other mines that use marine dispos-al continue to be developed. For example, BHP-Billiton hasproposed a nickel mine on Indonesias Gag Island, whichcontains the third-largest nickel deposit in the world. If theproject is approved in its present form, all waste would bedumped at seaeven though the coral reefs off the islandare among the most biologically diverse in the world.15

Metal Smoke, Acid Air

The ore processing at the mine does not yield a metal

that is pure enough to use. Further refining is neces-sary. For some metals, such as aluminum, nickel, and cop-per, this takes place at a smelter, a kind of furnace in whichvery high temperatures release the metal from other mate-rials in the ore. Smelting technology has improved consid-erably over the past half century, but smelters still producea great deal of air pollution, especially oxides of nitrogenand sulfur, components of smog and acid rain.

Continued on page 8


8/34

Facts on the Ground: The Ok Tedi Mine


7

The Ok Tedi mine, on the banksof the Ok Tedi river in westernPapua New Guinea, began produc-ing copper and gold for the giantAustralian mining corporationBHP (Broken Hill Properties Ltd.)in 1984. Because the mines tailingdam was destroyed during con-struction by a massive landslide,the company convinced the gov-ernment to allow it to dump wastedirectly into the river.

Currently the mine discharges, ona daily basis, 80,000 tons of oreand 120,000 tons of waste rockinto the Ok Tedi river. One indus-try-funded study predicts that ifthe dumping continues at that rateuntil the mine is scheduled toclose in 2010, the total amount ofsediment in the river would be1.72 billion tons, or the weight of4,712 Empire State Buildings.

The dumping has contaminatedthe river with toxic metals and

caused an enormous, permanentflood. Nearly all the fish in theriver have been poisoned, andsome fish species appear to havegone extinct. Vast tracts of forest

have been drowned. A 1999 esti-mate put the amount of forestdamaged in that year alone at 176square kilometers, an area nearlythree times the size of Manhattan.Most of the wildlife has disap-peared from the region. Plantingsof sago palm and other staplecrops have died, and some 30,000to 50,000 people have been dis-placed. One anthropologist study-ing the situation coined a newterm to describe it: ecocide.

The people affected were unable tonegotiate a settlement with BHPdirectly, so a delegation of themaddressed their concerns to theInternational Water Tribunal inThe Hague. Although the tribunalhad little power to enforce change,its involvement drew internationalattention. In 1996, an out-of-courtsettlement was reached: BHP wasrequired to pay compensation andreform its waste disposal practices.

But even the industry and its fun-ders were beginning to wonderwhether the mine was worth thedamage it was doing. In 2000, theWorld Bank publicly suggested

that the mine be closed. In 2002,the CEO of BHP Billiton (the suc-cessor company to BHP) called theproject an environmental abyssand said it should never have beenbuilt.

In the same year, BHP Billitonhanded over its 52 percent shareof the project to a government-controlled local corporation, inexchange for indemnity fromfuture legal claims. In an effort atremediation, the government hasbegun dredging the river toremove about 20 million tons ofsediment per year. The dredginghas begun to reverse the flooding,and vegetation is slowly returningto some areas. Ultimately, how-ever, up to 6,600 square kilometersof vegetation may be destroyedduring the life of the mine.19

Discharge from theOk Tedi mine, Papua

New Guinea

Photo:SteveDEsposito/Earthworks


9/34

Close-Up: Your Computer

Dirty Metals

8

Your personal computer con-tains a medley of metals,including gold, silver, aluminum,lead, copper, iron, zinc, and tin.Many of these materials could besalvaged at the end of the comput-ers life and recycled. But currently,most discarded computers aredumped in landfills or incinerated.Incineration of electronic waste, ore-waste, releases heavy metals anddioxin into the atmosphere. Thelandfill option is also polluting. In

the United States, about 70 per-cent of the heavy metals in land-fills come from e-waste. Thesemetals can leach into the soil andgroundwater. Exposure to them

has been shown to cause a rangeof injuries, including abnormalbrain development in children,nerve damage, disruption of theendocrine system, and damage tovarious organs.

Because it contains substantialquantities of valuable metals, e-waste is an internationally tradedcommodity. Many junked com-puters make their way to develop-ing countries, mostly in Asia,

where some of the metal is sal-vaged. These salvaging operationsare usually very crude and operateoutside any environmental orlabor regulations. An investigation

of one such operation, in Guiyu, avillage in Chinas Guangdong

Province, found workers disman-

tling computer equipment with

hammers, chisels, screw drivers,

and their bare hands. Only the

most readily extracted metal com-

ponents were recovered. For

example, workers would crack

open monitors, extract the copper

yoke, then dump the smashed

equipment in a field or push it

into a river. Area residents say thelocal water is now too foul-tasting

to drink; drinking water is now

trucked into the area from 30 kilo-

meters away.20

year-old lead smelter operated by the Doe Run lead compa-ny have caused lead poisoning in 30 percent of the townschildren. In the Peruvian town of La Oroya, where anotherDoe Run smelter operates, a study by the Peruvian Ministryof Health revealed that 99 percent of the children havesevere lead poisoning, and 20 percent of these childrenneeded hospitalization. Yet another type of pollutant detect-ed in the emissions of some smelters, such as NorandasHorne copper smelter in Quebec, Canada, is persistentorganic pollutants, or POPs. These compounds do notbreak down readily and they tend to bioaccumulatethatis, they build up in the fat of animals in increasing concen-trations at higher links of the food chain. (Organic meanstheyre carbon-based.) POPs can disrupt a broad range of

physiological processes in animals and people.17

And since smelters burn huge amounts of fuel (see page12), they also release substantial quantities of greenhousegases, such as carbon dioxide and perfluorocarbons(PFCs). Aluminum smelters, for example, release 2 tons ofcarbon dioxide and 1.4 kilos of PFCs for every ton of alu-minum produced. PFCs have up to 9,200 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon and will linger in the atmos-phere for tens of thousands of years.18

Some of the larger and older smelters have done extensiveecological damage, primarily from heavy sulfur dioxide emis-sions. For example, nickel and copper smelters near Sudburyin Ontario, Canada, rendered the soil practically lifeless with-in 3 kilometers and badly damaged forests, lakes, and wet-lands up to 30 kilometers away. Although the originalSudbury operation shut down in the 1970s, other smelters inthe region continue to number among the top air polluters inCanada. Close by Sudbury, for example, is Incos CentralMills smelter. By far the worst air polluter in the Canadianmetals mining sector, Central Mills released nearly 622 tonsof sulfur dioxide and other toxic pollutants in 2001. A moreextreme but less studied case involves the nickel smelters atNorilsk, in northeastern Russia. Acid emissions from these

smelters, which are still operating, have destroyed an estimat-ed 3,500 square kilometers of forest and injured the respira-tory health of thousands of people. Worldwide, smelting addsabout 142 million tons of sulfur dioxide to the atmosphereevery year. Thats 13 percent of total global emissions.16

Smelting releases a range of other pollutants as well.Emissions of metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, andzinc are common and can pose serious health risks. In thetown of Herculaneum, Missouri, emissions from the 110-

Sketch:ChrisEngnoth


10/34


9

Gold, copper, silver, and othervaluable metals are oftenfound in rocks rich in sulfide min-erals, such as pyrite, or foolsgold, and pyrrhotite. Miningoften exposes these rocks to theelements for the first time sincethe rocks were formed. Once theyare dumped as heaps of waste rockor pumped into impoundments ascrushed tailings, their sulfides areexposed to oxygen and water. Theresult is a chemical reaction that

produces sulfuric acid, a compo-nent of acid rain. But in compari-son to acid rain, the acid in minewaste is 20 to 300 times more con-centrated.

As it leaches through the minewaste, the acid liberates variousmetals from the rockfor exam-ple, arsenic, cadmium, mercury,and lead. These metals are notdangerous when embedded in therock, but once they are freed, they

are highly toxic to a broad rangeof living things. In humans,chronic exposure to arsenic, forexample, is associated with skincancer and tumors. Cadmium hasbeen linked to liver disease, mer-cury to nerve damage, and lead togrowth retardation in children.

Eventually, this toxic, acid leachatefinds its way into streams andrivers, where the acid releases stillmore metals from exposed rock.

As they flow downstream, the acidand toxic metals can kill virtuallyall aquatic life for several kilome-ters and badly degrade down-stream environments many timesfarther than that.

This process, known as acid minedrainage, or AMD, is the mostwidespread and persistent form ofwater pollution caused by mining.The signature of AMD is a slimy,orange coating that builds up inthe beds of affected rivers andstreams. This is caused by metals,especially iron, settling out of thewater column. For all practicalpurposes, AMD is irreversible.There is evidence, for example,that some AMD in the Rio Tintomining district of southern Spainis coming from ancient Roman oreven Phoenician mines.

But ancient mines are small com-pared to those of our own day.Take the 17.8 square kilometer

Iron Mountain mine in northernCalifornia. During nearly a centuryof operation, the mine producediron, silver, gold, copper, and zinc.Iron Mountain was closed in 1963,but 40 years later, AMD continuesto poison fish and other aquaticlife in the Sacramento River, whichdrains the region. The Sacramentoflows into the immense SanFrancisco Bay and there too, theAMD is endangering aquatic life.

Groundwater near the mine hasregistered pH levels as low asminus 3, which is 10,000 timesmore acidic than battery acid. Andexperts predict that Iron Mountainwill continue to poison its water-shed for at least 3,000 years.

Treatment procedures for AMD doexist, but they are costly and diffi-cult to implement. There are basi-cally two options: either prevent-ing water and oxygen from reach-ing the sulfide-laden waste rock,or applying alkaline materials suchas limestone to the leaching runoffto counteract the acidity. The firstoption generally requires a massiveand very difficult revegetationeffort; building soil on barren,poisonous rock and then gettingplants to grow in that soil is not asimple matter. Treating the acidrunoff might seem more feasible,but to produce a stable result, thetreatment would have to be main-

tained as a matter of routineindefinitelythat is, for thousandsof years. And the limestone treat-ments produce a metal-contami-nated, toxic sludge that presentsadditional remediation problems.In many developing countries, alack of resources and politicalinterest makes treatment througheither option an unlikelyprospect.21

Acid Mine Drainage:Pollution on a Millennial Scale

Porgera gold mine, PapuaNew Guinea

Photo:SteveDEsposito/Earthworks


11/34

Facts on the Ground: The Yanacocha Mine

Dirty Metals

10

On June 2, 2000, a truck fromthe Yanacocha gold mine innorthern Peru spilled 150 kilo-grams of mercury out of somepoorly sealed containers and ontoa 43-kilometer stretch of roadrunning through the towns ofChoropampa, Magdalena, and SanJuan. (Mercury is a secondaryproduct of the mine.) Many localpeople, not knowing what thematerial was or that it was toxic,collected it in the hope that it

might be valuable. Other villagerswere hired by the mine to clean upthe spillbut were not providedwith any protective gear. Mercurycan damage the lungs, kidneys,and nervous system. It can alsocause birth defects.

The spill affected an estimated 925people; 400 of them were treatedfor mercury poisoning and over130 were hospitalized. TheNewmont Mining Company, the

US-based corporation that co-owns the mine with BuenaventuraMining of Peru and the WorldBanks International FinanceCorporation (IFC), spent $12 to14 million on the clean-up, butwas unable to account for nearly15 percent of the spilled mercury.In exchange for agreeing not tosue the mine, some of the spill vic-tims were offered small cash settle-ments and medical care. But manyresidents continue to report health

problems and some have attempt-ed to press their case againstNewmont in US courts.

Yanacocha, located high in theAndes, is the most profitable goldmine in South America and thesecond largest gold mine in theworld (after the Grasberg mine inIndonesia). Newmont insists that ithas been a good corporate citizenof the Yanacocha region. The com-munities affected by the mine, thecompany argues, receive a share ofthe mining wealth. The companyalso claims that it has created over1,600 jobs in the area, and helpedbuild schools and clinics.

But many area residents worryabout the mine. Some argue thatby causing local inflation anddriving people off their land, it hasdeepened their poverty. They alsoworry about the condition of theirstreams. The water that comesdown from the mountains is now

brown, full of sediments, says oneresident.The trout are dying.They worry about the cyanideused to leach the gold out of theore; they fear it has contaminatedthe water and is sickening theirlivestock. And they worry aboutwhats in the dust that blowsoff the tailing piles andinto their homes.

They have reason toworry. According to

tests done by both the governmentand the mine, many local river andstream sites exceed the WorldHealth Organization (WHO) limitsfor acidity and concentrations ofvarious metals, such as mercuryand arsenic. One site had an alu-minum concentration 20 times theWHO limit. (Free aluminum istoxic to a wide range of plants andanimals, including people.) Thetailings dust is also contaminatedwith toxic metals. And a study

recently commissioned by the IFCfound that acid leaching from themine could further degrade localwaters.

Since the mercury spill, Newmonthas proposed expanding the mineto Quilish Mountain, the sixthmountain in the area the companywould be leveling for gold. Quilishis a critical source of water for over100,000 people in and around thenearby city of Cajamarca. Many

local residents, concerned aboutthe risks of water pollution, opposethe plan. There have been massprotests, including one in April2003 that drew thousands of peo-ple to Cajamarcas main square.Im aware that Peru is a countrythat relies on mining, Jorge Hoyos,the Mayor of Cajamarca, told aReuters reporter in 2002. But we

cant sit by and wait for ourwater supply to be ruined. We

cant swap gold for lives.22

Photo:PayalSampat/Earthworks


12/34

Tambogrande and Esquel: Two CommunitiesStand Up to the Companies


11

Two rural Latin American com-

munities, each faced with alarge-scale mining project, aredemonstrating the power of direct,peaceful opposition.

The small farming community ofTambogrande, located in Perussub-tropical San Lorenzo Valley, issitting on deposits of gold and cop-per worth millions of dollars. Itsalso sitting in the midst of primeorchard country: the San LorenzoValley is Perus top fruit-growing

region. Tambogrande producesclose to half of Perus citrus crop.

In 1999, the Canadian miningcompany Manhattan Minerals pro-posed to relocate half of the towns16,000 residents, demolish most ofthe town itself, and create an open-pit mine in its place. The proposalincluded a promise of new jobsand housing. But the people ofTambogrande, fearing that themine would poison streams and

farmland, said no deal.That message was delivered in areferendum held in June 2002, inwhich 93 percent of the votersopposed the mine. (About 75 per-cent of the towns residents partic-ipated in the referendum.) Thereferendum was not legally bind-ingthe mine proposal was put to

the Peruvian government not the

local communitybut the voteattracted considerable internation-al attention. It was followed by fre-quent protests against the mine,and a peaceful, three-day generalstrike in November 2002. Localactivists also began working withtheir counterparts in other coun-tries to keep Tambogrande in thepublic eye. Finally, in December2003, the Peruvian governmentturned down Manhattans pro-posal. The official reasons for the

rejection included an inadequatelyresearched environmental impactassessment, as well as insufficientproof of assets and processingcapacity. Citizen activism, howev-er, had created a political contextin which the proposals social andenvironmental deficiencies couldcount against it.23

A similar scenario has emerged inEsquel, a town of about 30,000 inthe still largely unspoiled

Patagonian region of Argentina.Meridian Gold, a mining companybased in the United States andCanada, is proposing to mine a sil-ver and gold deposit about 7 kilo-meters outside the town. The minewould be an open-pit operationusing 2.7 tons of cyanide per day.The company proposes to operate

the mine for 8 or 9 years, but it

does not propose to guarantee theremediation costs up front.

Esquel is an ecotourist destination;it is located near the Los AlercesNational Park, home to gigantic,2,000-year-old alercetrees, a kindof conifer that grows only in thatregion. Esquel is also a farmingand fishing community. So its notsurprising that when the townheld its own mining referendum,in March 2003, the response was

similar to what it had been inTambogrande: an overwhelmingNo. Eighty-one percent of the vot-ers opposed the mine. (Seventy-five percent of Esquels residentsvoted.) Esquels referendum isntlegally binding eitheralthough itwas called by the provincial gov-ernmentbut the project hasbeen stalled since the vote.24

In both Esquel and Tambogrande,the message to the mining industry

is essentially the same. Increasingly,the communities directly affected bymining proposals are demanding asay in decision-making about theirfuture. That right imposes a basicobligation upon any form of extrac-tive project: the obligation to obtainthe free, prior, informed consent ofthe communities concerned.

Photo:JuanMiguelSantino

Protest in Esquel, Argentina


13/34

Pouring Energy and Waterinto a Bottomless Pit

Dirty Metals

12

Mining is one of the most energy-intensive industriesin the world. The mining sector is thought to con-sume 7 to 10 percent of annual global energy production.In the United States alone, mining uses 2.3 quadrillion(thats 2,300,000,000,000,000) BTUs of energy per yearenough power to supply over 25 million single-familyAmerican households for a year, roughly 23 percent of thecountrys population. Most of the energy consumed bymining comes from fossil fuels, primarily coal and oil.(Nearly all of the rest comes from the hydro-electric powerused in aluminum smelting.)25

Mining also requires gargantuan quantities of fresh water. (Salt

water cannot be used because it corrodes equipment.) Largeamounts of water are needed for virtually every aspect of theoperationdrilling, dust control, grinding ores,and so forth.At many mines, water is recycledthat is, it is fed through thesame operation repeatedly. But the systems leak. Tailings dis-posal, especially, results in a high volume of water loss, so morewater must be regularly pumped into the system.

Paradoxically, given the huge water demand, mining isalso frequently challenged with the problem of too much

water. Constant pumping can be necessary to keep themine accessible as it drops below the water table. Thepumping sometimes dries up streams and other surfacewaters. This type of disruption can outlive the operationitself: once a mine has closed and the pumping ceases, thepits may fill with water, drawing flow from naturalsources. Evaporation and seepage from the pits can per-manently alter groundwater movementand the seepageis frequently contaminated with sulfuric acid and otherpollutants.

There are no comprehensive estimates of the water volumethat flows through the industry. (In the United States,

pumping water out of mines is not defined as a use ofthat water, so there is no requirement to measure that atall.) But it is clear that mining can cause substantial hydro-logical disruption. In Nevada, for example, the USGeological Survey has found a decline in water tables by asmuch as 300 meters around some of the states largestopen-pit gold mines. One of these mines, Barricks Betzemine, pumps out 380,000 cubic meters (100 million gal-lons) of groundwater per day.26


14/34

When was the last time youdrank something from analuminum can? If youre living inthe United States, chances are itwas sometime todayon average,an American consumes 350 single-serving canned beverages per year.

What went into the creation ofthose cans? Aluminum begins asbauxite ore, which is 45 to 60 per-cent aluminum oxide. Bauxite isformed deep underground, and istypically mined in open pits, aprocess that produces vastamounts of waste rock. After itsextracted, the bauxite undergoesextensive cleaning and processing,after which it is dissolved in acaustic solution under high tem-perature and pressure to produce afine, white powder called alumina.

The dried alumina is then shippedto a smelter, a metal-working fur-nace, where it is reduced to moltenaluminum. This is done by liberat-

ing oxygen from the alumina, achange that occurs only at a veryhigh temperatureover 1,200degrees Celsiusso the process isextremely energy intensive.Primary (that is, non-recycled)aluminum production demandsmore energy per unit mass of fin-ished metal than does the produc-tion of any other metal. Accordingto the Container RecyclingInstitute in Washington, DC, theamount of energy needed to pro-duce enough aluminum for onebeverage can is equivalent to aboutone-quarter of that can filled withgasoline. In 1999, aluminum pro-duction accounted for 2 percent ofthe worlds energy use.

Because aluminum smelting is soenergy intensive, mining compa-

nies look for the cheapest energythey can find, and that usuallymeans shipping the alumina greatdistances. The aluminum in yoursoda or beer can probably origi-nated as bauxite in Australia,Brazil, Guinea, or Jamaicathecountries that produce three-quar-ters of the worlds bauxite. Thesmelters themselves are often sitednext to power plantsand indeed,many power plants are built espe-cially to supply aluminum

smelters. (Virtually all aluminumsmeltering is done with electricity.)

Worldwide, over half the alu-minum industrys energy supplycomes from hydroelectric dams,and the industry is a powerfullobby for dam construction. Likemines, these dams cause enor-mous social and environmentaldisruption. The next largestenergy source is coal-burn-ing power plants, which

account for about athird of the total supply.Coal combustion is aprincipal source ofgreenhouse gas emis-sions.

Fortunately, used alu-minum cans can be com-pletely recycled into newmetal. But in the UnitedStates, more than half ofall aluminum is used justonce and tossed into thetrash. Currently, over 50billion beverage cans arewasted in the UnitedStates every yearthats a quarter of amillion tons of scrapmetal valued at$750 million. Laidend to end, these

wasted cans would encircle theglobe at the equator 153 times.

Recycling aluminum cans con-sumes only 5 percent of the energyneeded to make them from virginore. In the United States, the ener-gy wasted by not recycling allthose cans is equivalent to theannual electricity use of 2.7 mil-lion American households. Duringthe 1990s, Americans discarded 7million tons of cansenough alu-minum to make 316,000 Boeing737 airplanes. Thats a fleet 25times the size of all the worldscommercial airlines combined.Think about that the next time

you finish a beer or a soda, andmake sure that can finds its wayinto a recycling bin!27

Close-Up: An Aluminum Can

Dirty Metals

13

Sketch:ChrisEngnoth


15/34

Miningthe Parks

Dirty Metals

14

Yellowstone was spared, and withdrawn fromthe list of endangered World Heritage Sites in2003. Unfortunately, however, this is not a typical

scenario: the mining industry has a long and dismal

record of damaging officially protected natural

areas. Consider the following cases, each involving

an area that, like Yellowstone, has been declared a

World Heritage Site.

West Africas Mount Nimba Strict Natural Reserve, whichstraddles the border between Guinea and Cte dIvoire, wasincluded in the World Heritage list in 1981. In 1993, a con-sortium of mining companies, including BHP-Billiton andGuinea-based EuroNimba, acting in concert with theGuinean government, persuaded UNESCO to redraw theboundaries of the reserve on the Guinean side to allow forthe development of an iron mine. (According to the govern-ment, the mine site wasnt supposed to have been includedin the Reserve to begin with.) But redrawing the boundaries

obviously hasnt eliminated the danger to the Reserve. In1999, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), a multilat-eral grant-making agency run by the United Nations andthe World Bank, awarded Cte dIvoire $16.5 million toprotect its share of the Reserve, citing mining operations inthe region as among the threats the forest faced. 29

Indonesias province of West Papua (the western half of theisland of New Guinea) is home to Lorentz National Park, thelargest protected area in Southeast Asia. This 25,000 square-kilometer expanseabout the size of Vermontwasdeclared a National Park in 1997 and a World Heritage sitein 1999. But as early as 1973, US-based mining giantFreeport McMoRan Copper and Gold had begun chasingveins of gold through nearby formations. This operationeventually led to the discovery of the worlds richest lode ofthose metals, lying close to the park boundary. The resultingopen-pit mine, the Grasberg (operated by Freeports localsubsidiary, PT Freeport Indonesia), has already ruined itsimmediate environment. The mine dumps 110,000 tons oftailings per day into the Ajikwa river, and by the time it closes

1872: The Yellowstone Lake basin in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho becomes the worlds first national park in themodern sense of the term. The area merits this distinction because it is home to one of North Americasmost spectacular assemblages of megafauna, including grizzly bears, wolves, elk, and bison, and because itcontains two-thirds of all the geysers in the world.

1978: Yellowstone is declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

1990: Crown Butte Mining Resources Ltd. decides to site a gold, silver, and copper mine 4 kilometers (2.5 miles)from the park boundary. Park officials warn of the possibility of permanent damage to the landscape.

1995: Yellowstone is placed on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger.

1996: The US government agrees to a land-swap with the company in order to stop the project. 28

The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area in Montana is threatened by a proposed copper and silver mine.

Photo:MarkWilson/DouglasD

ay


16/34

World Heritage Site Metal Mined

Okapi Wildlife Reserve,

Democratic Republic of Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold

Mt. Nimba Strict Nature Reserve,

Guinea and Cte dIvoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Iron

Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . Tin

Southeast Atlantic Forest Reserves, Brazil . . . Gold, Lead

Talamanca Range, Costa Rica and Panama . . . . . Copper

Tai National Park, Cte dIvoire . . . . . . . . . Gold (illegal)

Sangay National Park, Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold

Lorentz National Park, Indonesia . . . . . . . . Gold, Copper

Kinabulu National Park, Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . Copper

Huascaran National Park, Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold

Volcanoes of Kamatchka, Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold

Pantanal Conservation Complex,Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold (small-scale)

Doana National Park, Spain . . Lead, Silver, Copper, Zinc

Central Suriname Nature Reserve, Suriname . . . . . . Gold

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda . . . . . Gold

Kahuzi-Biega National Park,

Democratic Republic of the Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gold

Selected World Heritage SitesAffected by Metals Mining34

Dirty Metals

15

in 30 years, it will have excavated a 230 square-kilometerhole in the forest that will be visible from outer space.30

Overall, one-quarter of World Heritage Sites listed for nat-

ural value (other Sites are listed for cultural value) are atrisk from past, current, or planned mining or oil and gasdrilling. (See Table.) Perhaps this threat will eventuallydecline as a result of the agreement reached in August2003, in which 15 of the worlds largest mining companiespledged not to explore or mine in existing World HeritageSites. (The agreement was brokered by an internationalagency, the IUCN-World Conservation Union.) There are,however, many important parks that are not on the WorldHeritage list and that remain vulnerable to mining. Arecent analysis examined all the parks, reserves, and otherofficial natural areas that meet IUCN criteria for strictly

protected (IUCN protected area management categoriesi-iv), and found that more than a quarter of active minesand exploration sites overlap with or are within 10 kilome-

ters (6 miles) of such areas.31

Some countries are attempting to tighten up on miningincursion into protected areas. In 1999, for example,Indonesia passed a law banning open-pit mining in protectedforest areas. But the government is looking for foreign invest-ment to bolster a weak economy; it is also under intense pres-sure from the industry and foreign governments to overridethe law and grant mining permits. In July 2003, 15 miningcompanies were granted leases to mine in Indonesian pro-tected areas, in apparent violation of the law. Some of thesecompanies are signatories to the World Heritage pledgeindicating their apparent disregard for protected areas thatfall outside the World Heritage category.32

One reason that its difficult to keep mining out of protect-ed areas is that the boundaries of these areas are oftenpoorly defined. This is a common problem in some partsof the Pacific region, which has relatively few protectedareas and many major mines. In the Philippines, for exam-ple, mining is prohibited in intact forests and protectedareas, yet approximately a third of all mining concessionsoverlap with these areas. (That figure covers bothexploratory and active concessions.) Vague park bound-aries have contributed to this situation; another factor isuncertainty over what constitutes an intact forest. PapuaNew Guinea has a much larger version of the same prob-

lem. Nearly 90 percent of this island nation is still forested,but more than a third of its forests are already allocated tooil, gas, or mining concessions. Establishing formal protect-ed areas has been a challenge in Papua New Guineabecause most of the countrys land is owned communally.Forty-seven protected areas have been established, but eventhese suffer from poor management. Of the countrys high-land fragile forests, deemed especially vulnerable tohuman disturbance, 26 percent now lie within oil, gas, andmining concessions.33

There is an urgent need to stop the industry from makingfurther inroads into protected areas, but this objective

alone would not make for adequate conservation policy.Thats partly because many major ecosystem types are stillpoorly represented within protected areas. This is true, forexample, of prairie, coastal, and marine ecosystems. Its alsobecause legal protection is difficult to implement on thevast scales at which nature operates. To be effective, conser-vation has to extend well beyond park boundariesandfor that reason, conservation is not likely to be compatiblewith mining as it is currently practiced.


17/34

Mining HotspotsThousands of metals mines now pockmark the surface of the planet, displacing communities, poisoning rivers,

nd ruining the lands of indigenous peoples. This map shows a s mall sample of the industrys activities.

Alaska: Red Doge worlds largest zinc mine,Dog, is also the largest pol-

luter in Alaska, releasing96,000 metric tons of toxic

pollutants a year.

Montana: Zortman-LanduskyGold mining has destroyed SpiritMountain, a sacred site for theAssiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes. Themost recent mine was abandoned bythe Pegasus Gold company in 1998,when it went bankrupt.

Nevada: Carlin TrendThe mining of NevadasTrend, the worlds sec-rgest gold deposit, hasged Western Shoshone

while making the stateorlds third largest gold

producer.

Utah: Bingham Canyons copper and gold mine is now theds largest open pit, measuring 1.5kilometers deep and 4 kilometersss. The company is responsible for

s layoffs in violation of its contractwith the employees union.

Argentina: EsquelIn a 2003 referendum, 81 per-cent of this Patagonian townsresidents voted against a pro-

posed open-pit gold mine.

Peru: Tambograndeproposed gold mine was rejected by this ruralcommunity in Perus top fruit-growing region.

Peru: YanacochaResidents of Choropampa,a town near the Newmont-owned Yanacocha goldmine, still suffer the effectsof a mercury spill in 2000.

Bolivia: Don Mario

Indigenous communi-ties are protesting thedevelopment of thisgold and silver mine inthe Chiquitano Forest.

Guyana: OmaiA 1995 tailings spill sent 3billion liters of contaminat-ed effluent from this goldmine into the Essequibo,Guyanas largest river.

Brazil: Small-Scale MiningTens of thousands of small-scaleminers work the Amazon regionfor gold, using mercury and littleprotective equipment.

Ghana: TarkwaBetween 1990 and1998, more than30,000 people inTarkwa were dis-placed by gold min-ing operations.

Mali: SyamaThe first large-scale miningoperation in Mali, this goldmine is responsible forextensive groundwater con-tamination.

South AfricaThe worlds largest

gold producer, SouthAfrica laid off nearlyhalf its mining work-force between 1985

and 2000.

Romania: Baia MareIn 2000, the tailingsdam from this goldmine spilled 100,000metric tons of toxicwastewater, killing fishand poisoning thedrinking water of 2.5million people.

Romania: Rosia MontanaIf built, this proposed gold mine would create

Europes largest open pit, displacing 2,000 peopleand destroying Roman archeological sites.

Kyrgyzstan: KumtorCyanide spills and worker injuries and deathshave raised concerns about this enormous,World Bank-financed gold mining project.

Spain: Los FrailesA 1998 accident from this

lead and zinc mine senttoxic sludge into the

Guadiamar river and con-taminated portions of the

Doana National Park.

Burma: MonywaThe infrastructure for this copper mine, run byCanadas Ivanhoe company, was built by nearly a mil-lion forced laborers.

Indonesia: PT KelianHundreds of familieswere forcibly evictedto make way for this

gold mine inKalimantan.

PaGuTh20waOkea

West Papua, Indonesia: GrasbergThe operators of this giant gold andcopper mine, owned by US-basedFreeport McMoRan, have been impli-cated in human rights violations,including forced evictions and murders.

Marinduque,Philippines: Marcopper

This copper minedumped 200 million tons

of waste rock directlyinto the sea over a 16-

year period.

Orissa, India: Utkal ProjectProposed bauxite mines and an

aluminum smelter would dis-place three villages in an eco-

logically sensitive area inhabit-ed by tribal people. Police fired

upon a public protest, killingthree tribal members in 2000.

Laos: SeponThis gold and copper project straddles atributary of the Mekong river, threateninglocal forests and the traditional livelihoodsof indigenous peoples.

Mongolia: Turquoise HillIvanoes proposed copper mine is part of a miningboom in Mongolia, where the number of prospect-ing licenses has tripled to 3,000 in two years.

Zambia: CopperbeltLocal communities sufferfrom asthma, lung diseases,and other health problemscaused by pollution fromcopper mines and smeltersrun by Anglo-American andother companies.

Honduras: San Martinhis open-pit gold and silver mine, run byas Glamis Gold, is destroying forests andg up local farmland. The mine consumes

1.5 million liters of water a day.

Photos: Ernesto Cabellos/Guarango Cine y Video, ICEM, Tibor Kocsis, JATAM, Steve D'Espos


18/34

EndangeringCommunitites

Dirty Metals

18

Even over the short term, the local mining economy tendsto create some very powerful social deficits. The damagemay begin with the displacement of local peoples fromtheir traditional lands. In the developing world and inmany indigenous communities in the industrialized world,many people lack legal title to the lands they live on, eventhough they may have occupied the same lands for manygenerations. Such people are vulnerable to eviction when amining lease is granted, and the eviction may be imposedwithout prior consultation, meaningful compensation, orthe offer of equivalent lands elsewhere.

In the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, for example, a2001 investigation by the countrys National Human RightsCommission substantiated claims of forced evictionsaround the PT Kelian gold mine, operated by the giantBritish and Australian mining company, Rio Tinto. TheCommission found that from 1989 to 1992, military forces,along with Rio Tinto security personnel, had burned vil-lages around the mine and forcibly evicted small-scale

miners from their claims. The 440 families displaced by themine received only minimal compensation for their losses;the miners received nothing. Sometimes these evictions areimposed on an enormous scale; between 1990 and 1998,for instance, mining displaced more than 30,000 people inGhanas Tarkwa District.35

Even where there is no direct displacement of the peoplethemselves, there is frequently a displacement of their tra-ditional livelihoods. Large-scale mining is so destructive tothe landscape that little in the way of traditional rural life is

liable to survive in its vicinity. Industrial mining generallyeliminates farming, fishing, small-scale forestry, and evenas is apparent from events in Kalimantanany previousartisanal mining.

Despite the usual promise of jobs, the mining economytypically creates little employment for those who lose theirlivelihoods to the mine. In large operations, most workersare not likely to come from local communities, since themining companies are usually looking for skilled labor. The

When a large mining operation begins, the area around the ore deposit often sees a sharp boost ineconomic activity. New roads are built; housing goes up for the miners; smaller businesses set upshop to serve the mine and its workers. And indeed, such operations are typically presented as the ticket to

local prosperity. But the economies that grow up around large mines usually suffer from the company

town syndrome: there is generally little economic activity that is independent of the mine. This high

degree of dependency has not proven to be a good way to build long-term economic stability.

Choropampa residents demand clean-up and compensation after mercury spill.

Photo:ErnestoCabellos/GuarangoCineyVideo


19/34

Endangering Communities

19

former Panguna copper mine on the island of Bougainville,part of Papua New Guinea, is a case in point. Virtually allits workers came from off the island; during a single four-

year period, the mine imported 10,000 workersto anisland whose total native population numbered just80,000.36

A host of subsidiary problems tends to follow all the initialdisruption. The loss of traditional ways of life and an influxof male migrant workers, usually living away from theirfamiliesin many places, this scenario has led to anincrease in alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, crime, anddomestic violence. A recent World Bank investigation iden-tified such problems around the giant Yanacocha gold minein northern Peru, an area formally inhabited by traditionalfarmers and herders. (See page 10.) The Bank found thatpeople are troubled about their future and a heavy cloakof anxiety and profound concern darkens the spirit of theplace and threatens any meaningful sense of well-being. InBougainville, the massive influx of mine workers spurredan increase in crime and alcohol abuse, which eventuallyled to riots and finally to a civil war.37

The mining economy is also likely to produce a major publichealth deficit. A part of that deficit is generally the result of

recurrent accidentssometimes so recurrent, the term acci-dent may be something of a misnomer. For example, in theTien Shen mountains of Kyrgyzstan, at the Kumtor gold

mine operated by the Canadian company Cameco, trucksdelivering nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, and cyanidenitrate have on at least three occasions spilled part of theircargo into streams, poisoning more than 2,500 local resi-dents. And beyond these immediate dangers, there looms thethreat of injury from long-term exposure to toxics.38

The Violence of Metals

Community opposition to mining may encounter vio-lent suppression by the companies themselves or bygovernment forces working in concert with themindeed,as a practical matter, it can be difficult to distinguishbetween these two entities. Especially in parts of Africa andthe Pacific region, large-scale mining tends to become mil-itarized. In such situations, the actions of the police, themilitary, or persons unknown have often resulted in thedeath or disappearance of mining opponents. For example:

In West Papua, Indonesia, where Freeport McMoRan oper-ates the giant Grasberg gold and copper mine, human

An Australian mining company in

Indonesia entertains military officials.

Photo: Oxfam Aus


20/34

rights investigators have documented numerous humanrights violationsincluding rape, torture, extrajudicialkillings, and arbitrary detentioncommitted by theIndonesian military against indigenous communities livingnear the mine. During 1994 and 1995, according to theAustralian Council on Overseas Aid, the Indonesian mili-tary, with the assistance of the mines own security forces,disappeared or killed 22 civilians and 15 other peoplethey alleged were guerillas. Human rights advocates have

long suspected that Freeport was paying Indonesian sol-diers directlyan arrangement that would make the com-pany complicit in the militarys abuses. And in 2003, a doc-ument requested by Freeports shareholders confirmed thatthe company was indeed doing this: Freeport paid theIndonesian military $4.7 million in 2001 and $5.6 millionin 2002. In August of that year, the military shot and killedtwo American schoolteachers working near the mine, andone Indonesian mine employee.39

In the west African nation of Ghana, a country with exten-sive gold mines, the Ghanaian Commission on HumanRights and Administrative Justice issued a report in 2000

that found overwhelming evidence of human rights viola-tions occasioned by the mining activities, which were notsporadic but a well established pattern common to almostall mining communities. An investigation by the Ghanaiancommunity group WACAM (Wassa Association ofCommunities Affected by Mining) supports that conclu-sion. WACAM found that the Ashanti Goldfields Company(AGC) was committing human rights abuses against theSansu community, which has a long history of artisanalmining in an area that AGC itself has recently begun tomine. The group found evidence that between 1994 and1997, AGC security personnel, acting in conjunction withthe police and the military, had killed three artisanal miners.

In one incident in January 1997, 16 artisanal miners wereseverely beaten by AGC security personnel. WACAM alsocollected testimony from six other artisanal miners whosay they were beaten and attacked by AGC securitysguard dogs.40

Eventually the boom goes bust, as ore deposits are exhaust-ed and the jobs generated by the mine disappear. Mostlarge-scale projects have a lifespan of between 10 and 40

years, after which the mining companies close up shop andmove on to new projects. Any schools, clinics, and otherservices established by the companies usually lose theirfunding.

When this happens, the miners and communities are gener-ally left to fend for themselves. Since mining is specializedemployment, miners typically have few other marketable jobskills, nor do many governments or companies make muchof an effort to provide those skills. There are few just transi-tion programs, in which former mineworkers are retrainedfor other work. For these reasons, laid-off miners are likelyto stay unemployed for long periods. The social effect ofthese layoffs is often profound, because the miners generallyhave a large number of dependents (although the majorityof them may not be in the mining communities themselves).According to an estimate by the South African Chamber ofMines, one in every eight people in southern Africa is eco-nomically dependent on mining. In South Africa itself, thegold mining industry laid off some 400,000 workers between1985 and 2000nearly half its workforce.41

This is the end game of the local mining economy: thedestruction of the traditional employment base, followedby the loss of the mine itself. Its little wonder that even inthe United States, mining areas exhibit some of the highestpoverty and unemployment rates in the country.42

Dirty Metals

20

Jailed mining activists, Ghana

Photo:DanielO

wusu-Koranteng/WACAM


21/34

How Mining Injures Women


21

In the mining communities ofthe developing world, it is thewomen, already disadvantaged,who bear some of the most diffi-cult burdens. A profile of their lot:

In many countries, women are notpermitted to own land or their landrights are restricted. Lack of titleoften excludes women from landcompensation payments. Evenwhen women have title, they maybe excluded from negotiations any-way because such matters are fre-quently seen as a male prerogative.In Papua New Guinea, for example,women were excluded from formalcompensation negotiations withthe Rio Tinto subsidiary that ownsthe Lihir gold mine.

Large-scale mining creates veryfew employment opportunities forwomen, and it displaces economicactivities, such as agriculture orartisanal mining (see page 25), inwhich women often play major

roles. These changes tend to con-centrate economic power in thehands of men, increasing womensdependence on their husbands ormale relatives. Thats what hashappened, for example, in the

Antamak region of Luzon, in thePhilippines, around thePhilippines-based BenguetCorporations open-pit gold mine.As small-scale mining and farminghave disappeared, women havebeen leaving town to look forwork elsewhere, often withdrawingtheir children from school to takewith them.

Women who do find work in min-ing companies may face severe dis-criminationor worse. In EastKalimantan, Indonesia, for exam-ple, women employees of the PTKelian Equatorial Mining compa-ny report being sexually abused bymale supervisors.

The drinking, drug use, and pros-titution typical of mining commu-nities also aggravate some healthrisks that fall especially heavily onwomen, such as HIV infection.(Women are disproportionatelyaffected by the spread of

HIV/AIDS because they areanatomically at greater risk ofinfection than men.) For example,widespread infection of womenhas been found around the townof Timika, in Indonesias Irian Jaya

Province, where there is a mineoperated by the company PTFreeport Indonesia.

Environmental contaminationfrom miningespecially waterpollutioncan greatly complicatethe traditional role of women asproviders of food and water totheir families. In drier regions ofthe developing world, womenmust often walk considerable dis-tances to collect the days water.Mine pollution can lengthen thatwalk, reducing the time for every-thing else. And because it ruinsfarmland, mine pollution may alsostrain local food resources, as hashappened, for example, aroundPlacer Domes gold mine onMisima Island, Papua NewGuinea.

In January 1997, female miningactivists from around the worldgathered in Baguio City, in thePhilippines, to look for ways to

address these issues. The resultwas the establishment of theInternational Women and MiningNetworkand a commitment tomake the plight of women a cen-tral concern of mining activism.43

Woman near gold and copper mine, Didipio, Philippines

Photo:IngridMacdonald/OxfamCAA


22/34

The Toll on Indigenous Peoples

Dirty Metals

22

Around half of all the goldmined from 1995 to 2015 islikely to come from native landsthe traditional territories ofindigenous peoples. Many indige-nous peoples live in remote areas

that until recently had not beenaccessible to the mining industry.And their relative isolation frommainstream society often leavesthem without basic legal andpolitical safeguardsa conditionthat lends itself to abuse. In manycountries, for example, the lawdoes not recognize indigenouspeoples clearly as owners of theirlands. Even when surface landrights are clearly titled to indige-

nous groups, governments fre-quently sell off the subsurfacerights to mining corporations.

Thats why the Dayak complaintquoted above might sound veryfamiliar to the Assiniboine andGros Ventre indigenous nations,whose traditional lands includedparts of northern Montana. In1895, the tribes were forced by theUS government to abandon 16,200hectares of what was then SpiritMountain, a site sacred to bothtribes. The government thenopened the land to gold prospect-ing. Today, Spirit Mountain hasbeen replaced by the Zortman-Landusky open-pit cyanide-leachgold mine. Although the mine wasclosed in 1998 when its owner,Pegasus Gold, declared bankruptcy,it continues to pollute what is left

of the landscape. Both surface andground water have been extensivelycontaminated. The acid minedrainage (see page 9) has madewater treatment a permanentnecessity for people living down-

stream. Water quality problems andinadequate clean-up of damagedlands have prompted multiple law-suits by the indigenous peoplesagainst both the state and federalgovernments. Despite a $37 millionsettlement, the problems persist.

In the United States and else-where, this same scenario is stillbeing repeated. For example,Glamis Gold Ltd. has a proposalpending today in California for an

open-pit cyanide-leach mine atQuechan Indian Pass. The minewould destroy or degrade over 50known sites of cultural or religiousimportance to the Quechan IndianNation, including graveyards,prayer circles, shrines, petroglyphs,and geoglyphs. To the south, inBolivia, the Canadian companyOrvana Minerals opened its DonMario gold and silver mine in May2003. The mine is in the heart ofthe formerly pristine ChiquitanoForest, home to numerousChiquitano and Ayoreo indige-nous communities. One monthlater, the regional indigenous fed-eration filed a complaint with theWorld Banks InternationalFinance Corporation (IFC), whichis funding the mine. Alleged viola-tions of the Banks environmental

and social policies have promptedan IFC investigation.

Some native communities havemanaged to negotiate acceptableagreements with mining corpora-tions but so far, such negotiationsare rare. As with violations oflabor rights, (see pages 24 and 26),the key to progress may be theenforcement of internationalagreements. The InternationalLabour Organization Indigenousand Tribal Peoples Convention,adopted in 1991, guaranteesindigenous groups the right todecide on their own developmentpriorities, and to be consulted ingood faith before any developmenttakes place on their lands. In LatinAmerica, where most countrieshave ratified the Convention andwritten it into national law, someindigenous movements have usedthe Convention to defend them-selves against the incursion of

extractive industries into remoteparts of Amazonia.

Another international agreement,the UN draft Declaration on theRights of Indigenous Peoples,moves beyond consultation andrequires the free, prior, andinformed consent of the indige-nous peoples concerned beforeany development can proceed.Indigenous groups around theworld have invoked this right todefend their cultures, lands, andlivelihoods against resourceextraction operations. InDecember 2003, the ExtractiveIndustries Review, an independentcommission appointed by theWorld Bank, recommended thatthe Bank itself introduce thisrequirement for all its extractiveindustry investments.44

IMK made us leave our gardens when the crops were ready for har-vest. IMK also destroyed our graveyards and sacred places that wehave protected and respected.

Mumpung, testifying on February 6, 2003, before the South Jakarta State Court in

Indonesia, in a lawsuit brought by the Dayak people against the PT Indo MuroKencana (IMK) Gold Mining Company.


23/34

Facts on the Ground:The Western Shoshone People


23

The story of the WesternShoshone is a long lesson inthe ways that law can fail indige-nous people threatened by mineralinterests. The ancestral territory ofthis native American peopleencompasses an area stretchingfrom southern Idaho, througheastern Nevada, to the MojaveDesert of California. Underneaththis swath of over 240 thousandsquare kilometers (over 60 millionacres) lie billions of dollars worth

of gold. Nearly 10 percent of theworlds gold productionand 64percent of US productioncomesfrom Western Shoshone land.

Prospectors hoping to strike it richbegan entering Western Shoshoneterritory in the 1840s. Clashes withthe Shoshone prompted the 1863Treaty of Ruby Valley between theUS government and the WesternShoshone Nation. The treatyallowed settlers to mine, establish

ranches, cut timber, and extractother natural resources fromShoshone lands, but it also recog-nized the Western Shoshone peo-ple as the landowner, entitled toroyalties for the extractiveactivities. But no royaltieshave ever been paid.

The gold rush continues today, butthe prospectors have been replacedby corporate mininga practicethat has proved far more destruc-tive to Western Shoshone lands,sacred places, and scarce waterresources.

The failure to pay royalties is atreaty violation and the Shoshonehave been attempting for decadesto get the government to live up toits constitutional obligations. In1979, the government tried to leg-islate a settlement that would haveabrogated the treaty and awardedthe Shoshone a one-time paymentof $26 million, or roughly 15 centsan acre, in exchange for relin-quishing title to their land. TheShoshone refused the settlement,

maintaining that the landswere never for sale in thefirst place. Even so, thegovernment is acting as ifit were the landowner.

Today, Shoshone ranch-ers are required to payfederal grazing fees torun cattle on their

traditional lands,and the govern-

ment continues to hand over hugetracts of Shoshone lands to min-ing companies. Among the benefi-ciaries are Newmont, PlacerDome, and Barrick. Under thenational mining law, which datesfrom 1872, corporations can pur-chase so-called public lands fromthe government for as little as $5 ahectare ($2.50 an acre), withoutowing a penny in royalties for theminerals they extract.

In December 2002, the Inter-American Commission on HumanRights, a part of the Organizationof American States, found that theUS government was violating thefundamental rights of the WesternShoshone to property, due process,and equality under the law. But thegovernment has ignored the rulingand is moving forward with legis-lation that would open the terri-tory up to a major new form ofextraction, geothermal energy, and

to additional mining. In September2003, the Shoshone filed suit yetagain, reasserting their claim totheir ancestral territory anddemanding payment of the royal-ties owed them under the treaty.45

Sacred site of theWestern Shoshone,Nevada

Photo:ChrisSewall/WSDP


24/34

Undermining the Rightsand Safety of Workers

Dirty Metals

24

In 1983, the chief safety engineer of an unnamed SouthAfrican mining corporation told the Economistthat produc-tion is more important than safety. No one in a similar posi-

tion would go on record with such a statement today. And itis true that over the past 20 years, health and safety condi-tions have improved in large-scale corporate operations inmost countries. Between 1984 and 2001, for instance, theaverage annual death rate in South African gold mines fellfrom 1.23 per 1,000 workers to 1.05 per 1,000, while thereported accident rate declined by one-third. (For conditionsat small-scale sites, see page 25.) But even so, mining remainsone of the worlds most dangerous professions.47

Rock falls, tunnel collapses, fires, heat exhaustion, andother dangers claim the lives of over 15,000 miners every

year. (Miners in the notoriously dangerous coal mines of

China may account for up to half of these deaths.)According to the International Labour Organization (ILO),deaths within the mining sector as a whole (both metalsand coal) account for 5 percent of all worker deaths on the

job, even though the sector employs just under 1 percent ofall workers worldwide. But these are just the reporteddeaths; a substantial share of mining deaths go unrecorded.The data on injuries are even less reliable but its likely thathundreds of thousands of serious injuries are sustained

On October 9, 2003, the south face of the Grasberg gold mine in West Papua, Indonesia, collapsed.

Eight workers died and five others were injured. Government investigators turned up evidence that in

the days leading up to the accident, seismic data had led mine operators to suspect that slippage was immi-

nent, and that key machinerybut not workershad been moved from below the unstable zone. These

were not the first deaths at the Grasberg mine, the largest open-pit gold mine in the world. In May 2000,

a landslide at the mines waste dump claimed four lives, prompting environmentalists and government

officials to question the safety of recent production increases.46


25/34

Small-Scale Mining, Large-Scale Risk

Undermining the Rights and Safety of Workers

25

Afair share of the worlds min-ing is done, not by big corpo-rations, but by individual people,families, and collectives. This partof the industry, which is largelyconfined to the developing world,is known as artisanal and small-scale mining, or ASM. ASM coversa range of activities. At the highend are companies doing sophisti-cated but small-scale mechanizedmining. But the overwhelmingmajority of the sectors workers are

found at the opposite end of thespectrum: they are poor, untrainedminers often working their claimstogether with their families. Someof these miners are organized intocollectives of several hundred peo-ple. All told, there are enormousnumbers of them: an estimated 13million people are directlyemployed in the sectorasopposed to only around 2.75 mil-lion in industrial metals mining.

ASM produces a sizeable share ofthe worlds gem stones and pre-cious metals, especially gold. Butthese riches are produced at greatcost to both the environment andhuman health.

On both counts, the single greatestthreat within the sector is proba-bly mercury poisoning. Artisanalextraction of gold is done througha process called amalgamation, inwhich gold ore is heated in thepresence of mercury. The mercuryamalgamates withadherestothe gold, thereby drawing itout of the ore. The gold remainsin more or less pure form after themercury evaporates in the heat.

But in both its liquid and its vaporforms, mercury is extremely toxic.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that hasbeen shown to impair brain func-tion in fetuses and children. Peoplecontinually exposed to it mayexperience loss of coordinationand memory, personality change,and stupor. Mercury has also beenlinked to increases in miscarriagesand birth defects. In children, highlevels of exposure correlate withlower intelligence and hearing loss.Mercury can also persist in theenvironment for decades in forms

in which it is readily metabolized.And it bioaccumulatesit buildsup in the fat of animals in increas-ing concentrations at higher linksof the food chain, with the resultthat top predators (bears, forexample, or people) tend to absorbthe highest concentrations of it.

But in poor communities, wherethere is little information on suchhazards, and where in any case,people cannot afford to buy safety

equipment, few precautions aretaken. Amalgamation is often doneat home, by women and children,while the men are out on the claimdigging more ore. The mercury isoften handled with bare hands,and heated in the same pots usedfor cooking. Under such circum-stances, its virtually impossible toavoid inhaling mercury vapor, andcontaminating food and drinkingwater with the metal. Much of themercury eventually escapes into

soil and water, and once released ittends to be mobile. In French

Guiana, for instance, the Wayanapeople live downstream fromsmall-scale gold mining operationsand suffer from mercury poison-ing. Their hair sample tests showmercury levels two to three timeshigher than World HealthOrganization limits.

Overall health and safety data forASM are sketchy, but the sectorappears to experience a signifi-cantly higher accident rate than theindustry as a whole. Lack of train-ing and equipment lead to morefrequent landslides, shaft collapses,and accidents with explosives. Inmatters of risk, ASM differs inanother important way from large-scale mining: many injuries inASM are suffered by women andchildrena reflection of theirwidespread presence in the sector.Children, for example, are fre-quently employed undergroundbecause of their small size. Women

make up an estimated 10 to 20percent of the above-ground ASMworkforce, and are often engagedin the amalgamation process.

This poor safety record is due inpart to a lack of legal recognition.According to the InternationalLabour Organization, about 80percent of the worlds small-scalemining is illegal. In many poorcountries, the laws against ASMhavent successfully controlled it,but they have discouraged poorminers from seeking medical helpand other forms of assistance. Theminers reticence, in turn, makes itdifficult to understand their needs,or how the sector as a whole mightbest be managed.54

Small-scale gold mining, East

Kalimantan, Indonesia

Photo:JATAM


26/34

Dirty Metals

26

every year in the mines. In 1996, Pik Botha, then SouthAfricas Minister for Mineral and Energy Affairs, estimatedthat in his country, each ton of gold mined costs 1 life and

12 serious injuries.48

In addition to the deaths and injuries on the job, mining cancause a range of long-term disabilities, the most common ofwhich are respiratory problems such as silicosis. Caused bythe inhalation of crystalline silica dust, a common air con-taminant in hardrock mines, silicosis can develop after onlyseven months of exposure to thedust, and can lead to completeloss of lung function. It alsogreatly increases its victims sus-ceptibility to other lung diseases,such as tuberculosis, bronchitis,and lung cancer. Deep mines,

such as South Africas gold mines,which reach depths of 3.5 kilo-meters (2 miles), present theirown special set of risks. Theextreme heatup to 60 degreesCelsius (140 degrees F)and thehigh atmospheric pressure put miners at risk for certainkinds of nerve damage and high blood pressure. SouthAfrican gold mines sometimes also extract uranium, therebyexposing thousands of workers to unsafe radiation.49

Its not surprising that in some countries, the lifespan of min-ers is substantially lower than that of the general population.In Bolivia, for example, the average miner in the tin mines ofPotos will live only 35 to 40 years, whereas the general popu-lations life expectancy at birth is about 64 years.50

Almost all governments have enacted health and safety reg-ulations that apply to the mining industry. But these lawsare often poorly conceived and enforced. To help bridge theregulatory gap, the ILO developed the Convention onSafety and Health in Mines in 1995. The Conventionrequires employers to eliminate or minimize safety andhealth risks in their mines. It requires governments to over-see and report publicly on the implementation of suchmeasures, and to suspend mining when violations occur.And it guarantees miners rights to form unions and to be

informed of health and safety risks and precautions. But todate, only 20 countries have ratified the ILO Conventionand have agreed to abide by its standards. Among the majormining countries that have not done so are Australia, Brazil,Canada, China, Indonesia, Peru, and Russia.51

Miners have tended to respond to this unfavorable regula-tory climate by looking to each other for support. Toincrease their leverage with the multinational corpora-

tions that employ them, the unions themselves are global-izing. In 1998, for example, members of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy,

Mine and General Workers Union (ICEM) formed theRio Tinto Global Network to confront the labor practicesof the Rio Tinto Corporation. Rio Tinto operates in 40countries and is the worlds largest private mining compa-ny. The Global Network charges that the company hasemployed union-busting activities, some of which might

qualify as human rights abuses,at mines in various parts of theworld. Among the charges areaccusations that Rio Tinto firedHIV-positive workers inZimbabwe; that in BrazilsParacatu gold mine, it spied onand fired union leaders, andexposed workers to highly toxiclevels of lead; and that it violateda two-day-old collective bargain-ing agreement with mass layoffs

in Utah. Although the company has signed the UnitedNations Global Compact, a code of corporate responsibil-ity, the Global Network points out that Rio Tintos poli-cies do not yet acknowledge basic ILO standards, such asprotections for collective bargaining.52

But even though it is growing more sophisticated, labororganizing in the mines remains a difficult and risky busi-ness. The International Council of Metals and Mining(ICMM), a confederation of the 25 largest mining compa-nies, still does not recognize the rights of workers to bar-gain collectively in its guiding principles. In some coun-tries, such as China, Burma (Myanmar), and Laos, organiz-ing independent unions is illegal. In Burma, workers arenot only prohibited from forming unions, but have some-times even been subjected to forced labor, such as at theMonywa Copper Mine, operated by the Canadian corpora-tion Ivanhoe Mines, where the ILO reports that in the mid-1990s, nearly a million people were forced to build thehydroelectric plant and railway servicing the mine. Even

where unions are legal, they are often undercut in variousways. In 2001, for example, some 2,500 workers at coppermining facilities in Kazakhstan were forced by the manage-ment to join house unionsled by the directors right-hand manor face dismissal. Sometimes the hostility tothe unions turns deadly. In Colombia, which has theworlds worst record for trade unionist murders (onekilling every other day), 11 members of the metals, mining,and oil workers union federation were killed in 2001.53

Photo: ICEM


27/34

Metals and

the Wealth of Nations

Metals and the Wealth of Nations

27

But this apparent success can come at considerable cost. In

Chile, as elsewhere, mining areas have suffered extensiveenvironmental degradation. Success can also be very diffi-cult to reproduce. Botswanas diamond production is close-ly linked to the DeBeers cartel, which keeps diamond pricesartificially high. Very few if any other mined products havea similar history of high, stable prices.

When you look at the industrys general economic record,the picture is actually quitegrim. For the most part,mineral-rich developingcountries have some of theslowest growth rates in the

world, and the highestpoverty ratesa phenome-non economists call theresource curse. (See thetable for examples pertain-ing specifically to mining.)Harvard economists JeffreySachs and Andrew Warnerstudied 95 developingcountries that had highratios of natural resourceexports relative to grossdomestic product (GDP)

for the period 1970 to 1990.They found that the higherthe dependence on naturalresource exports, the slowerthe per capita growth.57

There are several reasonswhy mining is a poor betfor economic growth. Inthe first place, despite its

colossal environmental and social deficit, and its gargantu-

an appetite for energy (which claims, as noted earlier, up to10 percent of the worlds energy supply), metals miningaccounts for only a very small share of world economicoutputless than 1 percent.58

And when it comes to particular deals, the tax breaks andother incentives awarded to large corporations for establish-ing mines

dirty metals report

Documents