Charupá does not seem particularly worried, as he is used to the uncertainties of raising cattle. Moreover, he is confident about the long-term prospects of his community: in June of 2007, the president of Bolivia announced that the Chiquitano people had successfully completed all legal requirements to attain title to a vast area of Santa Cruz's eastern forest known as Monte Verde.
The indigenous people took advantage of an agrarian reform law passed in 1996 that allowed them to claim "original community territories" known by their Spanish initials as TCOs. The Monte Verde TCO has immense significance for the Chiquitano people. Their ancestors were moved out of Monte Verde in the 1700s by the Spanish and relocated to communities run by Jesuit priests. Chiquitanos were enslaved on haciendas and eventually forced to tap rubber trees in the early 20th century. The area near Charupá's village is part of San Antonio de Lomerío, a place of refuge for escaped slaves. Their descendents organized groups to work on the legal claim for their territory, while illegal logging decimated their forests.
It took more than a decade of hard work and sustained Oxfam support for the Chiquitano people to achieve their goal. Oxfam helped three local organizations, in Lomerío, San Javier, and the village of Monte Verde to coordinate their work and collaborate with the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research (known by its Spanish initials CEJIS) to get the technical training to gather satellite positioning data on the TCO borders and investigate 158 land claims by ranchers and other nonindigenous people trying to grab a piece of the territory. Only a small number of these claims were legitimate, and it was only through the legal support, technical data, and satellite photos gathered by the community members and CEJIS that the Chiquitanos could defend their claim from these interlopers, some of whom were using forged documents.
Violence has been a continuous threat to the Chiquitano people for the last 200 years. Individuals forced into slavery were murdered if they tried to escape, and later when the ancestors of escaped slaves in Lomerío organized to win back their territory, their leaders were intimidated and attacked. "We heard of incidents in other communities where entire families had been pulled out of their houses and hung by their wrists under trees," Juan Soqueré, leader of the indigenous Chiquitano community in San Lorenzo said.
Opposition to the land investigations and the legal process from civic committees, representing nonindigenous business and ranching interests opposed to the indigenous people, became violent. When the land investigations exposed fraudulent claims, there was a strong reaction. One of the worst incidents involved Leonardo Tamburini, now 41 and the director of CEJIS. In 2001 while investigating one fraudulent claim, he was kidnapped.
"They beat me so badly they almost killed me," Tamburini said. "They put me in a pick-up truck, and took me to the Cattlemen's Association headquarters in San Javier—which is next door to the church. They had me there for about an hour. There was a cattlemen's congress going on, and they paraded me around the patio of the restaurant, all beat up and bloody, saying 'This is what we do to the people who want to take our land away from us.'"
Tamburini refused to sign a document recognizing the cattlemen's claim to half the territory of Monte Verde, and after the mayor of San Javier intervened he was released. "They didn't accomplish what they wanted," he said.
Juan Soqueré said that gaining the legal title to Monte Verde has brought peace for the Chiquitano. "There are no more threats. And those that threatened us before have left the territory, and now we are all calm, living in peace."
There are 33 communities, comprising roughly 5,000 people living in or near the Monte Verde TCO. They are now looking to the future and envisioning the best ways to manage and enjoy the roughly 3,830 square-mile territory.
Lorenzo Charupá says such planning will be essential for the future. "We are deciding together what areas are for crops," he says. "We are setting aside areas for grazing, hunting, and to preserve trees. We have a map showing all the different areas and what we will do there. Everything has its place."
José Luis Rivera, president of the indigenous organization of San Javier, says they have several ways of making more money:
With the legal title in hand, the community has the confidence to make proposals to development organizations that might have otherwise been reluctant to support agricultural projects on lands the community did not legally own. "These institutions will have no doubt we can do these projects on our own land," Rivera says. "We have the right to our land and can respect our culture."
Outside Rivera's temporary office, his compañeros are building a new office to replace the one burned down by thugs last December. The walls are up, and the smell of sawdust mixes with the wood smoke and cooking scents from a nearby restaurant. Pablo Solis Chuviru, 57, is looking at the new building and reflecting on the struggle to gain the legal title to Monte Verde and what it means for the future for his small village, Turuxnapez, which means "Heaven's Door" in the local Bésiro language. "I hope we can hunt and fish, and use our trees in an orderly way," he says, resting in a chair in the winter sun. "Now we are using a forest management plan so that our children will benefit from the forest. This is the future for them; they can see the fight we won. For them it is a treasure."
]]>Although Minera Majaz has not yet submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), there is reason to be concerned about the area's environmental future, especially if Río Blanco proves to be just one part of a mining "district," or group of mining operations.
First, mining is an activity with high environmental risks, as a list of hundreds of environmental liabilities compiled by the Ministry of Energy and Mines reveals. While it is true that a given mining operation usually affects a local area in a concentrated and relatively small manner—according to the company, the total area to be directly affected by the Río Blanco project will be around 4,450 acres (1,800 hectares)—it is also true that aquifers can be severely affected many miles downstream.
The potential contamination of the Río Blanco has become one of the main causes of unease for the people in the area, given that the proposed mining project is located in the river's headwaters. The Río Blanco is a tributary of the Chinchipe River, which forms the most important valley in the neighboring province of San Ignacio, in the department of Cajamarca. According to the study "Mining and Development in Peru, with Special Reference to the Río Blanco Project, Piura," written by a multi-disciplinary team led by Anthony Bebbington, professor of the School of Environment and Development of the University of Manchester, the most serious environmental problems that the mine could generate are "the leaching of acidic mine waters (AMW) from the mining site, the heaps of tailings, and the piles of excavated material." According to the study, the high precipitation in the area (2,000 millimeters (6.5 feet) or more per year) "raises the possibility that rainwater could filter through the piles of tailings and excavated material, transporting contaminated metals to both surface and underground waters." The study indicates that another worrisome potential problem is AMW contamination of the water table, because the open-pit mine would probably be deeper than the groundwater in the area.
After analyzing the environmental variables and reviewing the technical proposal by Majaz, Bebbington and his team concluded that "it would be possible to handle the environmental impacts of the project as designed," provided that this is an isolated mining project. If Río Blanco became part of a large mining district, the situation would be different and the risks to the environment, and water resources in particular, would increase considerably.
At the same time, the team had reservations, given that the proposed mining technology "has never been used in an area with as much precipitation or a history of seismic activity" and hence "the possible combination of tailings/wet excavation material and seismic activity is a reason for serious concern."
Minera Majaz states in many of its official notices that using of state-of-the-art technology will protect the environment. However, simply complying with Peruvian laws, which are regrettably weak, is no guarantee of true protection from environmental contamination. Vito Verna, Director of the Indigenous Communities and Environment Program in the office of the Peruvian Ombudsman observes that "the Peruvian state apparatus lacks an integrated environmental policy. For example, each industrial sector has (or should have) its own maximum allowable pollution limits, and there should be national quality standard for water, soil and air. The system does not work because the ministries have not yet put these standards forward, and consequently the National Environmental Council (CONAM) cannot approve them."
As a result, Peru has approved standards only for air and non-ionizing radiation [such as emitted by radio waves, or microwaves], but not for water (the existing standard is obsolete) or soil. Although a mining operation is required by law to treat its waters before discharging them into a body of water, the maximum allowable limits are so lax that they could even be Class III—waters suitable for irrigation or livestock, but not to sustain aquatic life. Thus, in Peru, a mining operation could exterminate fish, amphibians, and other river wildlife without breaking the law.
But the potential environmental impact of the Río Blanco project does not end there. The project site, in addition to being at the headwaters of a river basin, is located in the heart of a vast area of high-altitude cloud forests—the last sizeable area of tropical rain forests remaining in the department of Piura. These forests have great value in themselves, owing to their diversity and the fact that they form an extension of the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, and thus contain flora and fauna rare in Peru. Yet their greatest value is the connection they provide between the Tabaconas Namballe National Sanctuary (SNTN) in neighboring San Ignacio, and protected areas extending to the Ecuador border. The Río Blanco forest creates a "biological corridor," serving populations of animals that require large areas to be viable, such as the spectacled bear and Andean tapir—two endangered species protected by law.
A large open-pit mining operation in the midst of these forests, and the resulting human activity, represent a threat to the very survival of this corridor. Without it, the spectacled bears and tapirs of the sanctuary, which would lack the space necessary to survive, would be condemned to extinction. A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study of the biodiversity of the sanctuary and its neighboring zones concluded that "the protection of a biological corridor between the SNTN in Peru and the Podocarpus National Park in Ecuador is critical for the preservation of the species that inhabit those areas."
A final consideration: Minera Majaz is not the only company interested in conducting mining operations in the area. A glance through the government's Cadastral Mining Atlas reveals, in addition to the Río Blanco project, concessions of several thousand acres in Carmen de la Frontera. Many of these are adjacent to the Río Blanco project—forming, on the maps produced by the National Institute of Concessions and Mining Surveys (INACC), a solid block of mining concessions in the forests of the Yanta and Segunda y Cajas communities. In context, then, the Río Blanco project is just the first of many future mining operations, which, as a group, constitute a potential new mining district in Peru—and whose environmental impact would be considerably more serious and significant than any single project such as Río Blanco.
It is imperative that the Peruvian government consider all the environmental issues at play in the Río Blanco case, both as part of the dialog process following the referendum and when it evaluates the EIA that the company must soon deliver.
]]>Having completed a training program with the environmental and human rights organization WACAM, partly funded by Oxfam America, Ayensu said he could tell what had happened: "WACAM has taught me how to identify a polluted stream," he said. Ayensu then went to alert others in Teberebie that there was a cyanide spill in the streams that supply water and fish for him and about 100 families that live along them.
Ayensu's colleague Emilia Amoateng, leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, immediately started an investigation. Knowing that cyanide is used to separate gold from ore in the mining projects surrounding Teberebie, she centered her investigation on the polluted streams near the south gate of Gold Fields Ghana mining company, and behind the waste piles of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mines. However Gold Fields has a drain from its tailings dam (a waste storage area) that runs into the stream. She also found that BARBEX Technical Services, a chemical supply company to the various mines in the area, has also constructed a drain from its warehouse into the stream. An accidental cyanide spill from either of these sources would therefore enter the streams quite easily. Recent heavy rains increased the likelihood that water overflowing from these sites would carry any spilled chemicals into the waters.
Moses Ayuba, the district program officer for Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said water tests had shown extremely high levels of acidity, but that he was unable to identify the cause of the acid in the river. He said that further testing on fish and water should help identify the source of the pollution.
Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the director of WACAM, said that the pollution represented a serious public health problem. "Some people who mistakenly went swimming in the river had their skin peeled off," he said. "Those who drank the polluted water and ate some of the fish are having serious stomach problems. We have helped seven of them get medical attention."
Owusu-Koranteng went on to say that the mining and chemical supply companies have been reluctant to take responsibility for the pollution. "The mining companies and EPA initially tried to push the blame on 'galamsey' [small-scale mining] activities and later shifted the blame to chemical fishing." He went on to say that chemical fishing is unusual in this area, and in any case would never be done during the rainy season when the rivers are high. He also said that people living near the Barbex Technical Services had been previously warned by the company not to drink from the river, and were permitted to take tap water from the company.
Villagers in Teberebie are now calling on the EPA to help them defend their right to live in a clean environment, and are planning a demonstration to bring media attention to this incident.
]]>According to published figures, of the individuals qualified to vote in the referendum, there was a turnout of 50.9 percent in Ayabaca; 59.1 percent in Carmen de la Frontera; and 70 percent in Pacaipampa. Consulta Vecinal reported that of 31,388 registered voters, 18,107 cast ballots—a turnout of roughly 60 percent overall. Of these votes, 17,033 said NO to the mining company and 285 said YES. There were 239 blank ballots and 460 disqualified votes.
"Participation has been successful and voluntary," said Fernando Romero, coordinator for Oxfam International. "We believe that the referendum has succeeded in allowing the people of these three districts to voice their opinion regarding the Rio Blanco project."
The referendum has brought to light the issues at the heart of the Majaz case. First, there is a weak or nonexistent state apparatus in Peru for dealing with such issues—making plain the need for an environmental authority capable of regulating and supervising corporate conduct. Second, there is an urgent need for a land-use plan that would identify sites suitable for mining projects.
After explaining that this is a non-binding referendum that would not translate into law, Romero went on to say that "the inhabitants of mining areas are interested in voicing their opinions and being heard by the authorities."
"This is a call for attention and a reminder that these communities are part of the country and should participate when decisions are made that affect their way of life and their future," Romero said.
]]>"This award is dedicated to the poor mining communities," said Kwarteng. "Their struggle has been recognized. I hope this will encourage people to continue the fight against irresponsible mining."
Kwarteng has served as an advisor to Oxfam America's partners in Ghana that are working to help communities affected by mining pollution and other social problems.
Kwarteng's article described the problems of acid mine drainage, which pollutes rivers and streams with acid leaching from rocks exposed in mining. He wrote about a report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on an environmental impact assessment for the proposed mine run by the Newmont Mining Corporation of Denver.
Kwarteng gained access to the report after a petition was filed under the US' Freedom of Information Act. When the EPA report became available to the public, it revealed that the testing carried out by Newmont on the potential of acid mine drainage was inadequate. His article was published in the Daily Graphic, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Ghana.
The EPA report also noted that the amount of cyanide that would be allowed in water discharged and held in waste holding areas would be above acceptable standards. Kwarteng's article quoted the EPA report: "Cyanide will be discharged into the tailings facility at 1,000 times the aquatic life water quality standard and 100 times the drinking water standard, thereby setting up for future water quality problems."
Press articles critical of the mining industry in Ghana are unusual. Kwarteng said that access to technical data made his award-wining story particularly strong. "Most of the mining companies here have a way of controlling information, but in this case I got some primary data," he said. "These are facts that could not be disputed."
Kwarteng has also been threatened with lawsuits by mining companies when he published stories about controversial subjects. "Mr. Kwarteng has made great sacrifices to report on many critical mining community issues such as military and police brutalities in mining communities, cyanide spillages, forced evictions of mining communities, and environmental problems," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, director of WACAM, an environmental and human rights organization in Ghana that works in partnership with Oxfam America.
]]>Given everything this project represents for the government and the mining industry, all the attention is not surprising. This is a huge copper mine that will require an investment of about US$ 1.4 billion and that could export around US$ 1.0 billion a year for the next 20 years. The recent acquisition of close to 90 percent of the shares of the Majaz main company—the English junior miner Monterrico Metals Plc—by the Zijiin Mining Group Ltd. consortium, does nothing but add more weight in the balance for the development of the project, especially now that the Peruvian government wishes to sign a trade agreement with China.
The conflict, nevertheless, did not start this week, and the referendum that intends to collect the opinion of the local population about the continuation of the Majaz mine, is just the latest controversy. There have been a series of problems that have marked the presence of this mining company since it entered the scene in 2001.
From the beginning, the concerns about the environmental impact of this mining project have marked the tone and character of this debate. Located in the Huancabamba mountains, the mining concession area will cover a total of 6,473 hectares (about 18,858 acres) of deserts and cloud forests. The forests act like a sponge, collecting rain water and feeding it into the rivers that flow into the agricultural basins of Chinchipe (in Cajamarca) and Quiroz (in Piura). The communities of Yanta and Segunda y Cajas, under whose territories the copper deposit lies, immediately expressed their worries about the potential destruction of these fragile eco-systems and the effect on their agricultural lands. Soon other peasants and biologists from Piura joined in with concerns about the impact mining would have on the rich biodiversity of the area. The preliminary results of a recent study of the University of Texas made by researchers Kenneth Young, Blanca León and Julio Postigo confirmed their worries, when it found that a mine with an open pit of 1,000 hectares (2,450 acres) would cause alarming degrees of destruction because "it would cut connections among eco-systems (biological corridors), transcending impacts of local dimensions," and endangering species already threatened like the oso de anteojos or Andean spectacled bear and the altitude tapir. Majaz has not yet presented its Environmental Impact Study (EIS), which makes it difficult to know what plans they have to diminish these potential impacts.
But besides these environmental worries, another social problem that has legal implications must be added: Majaz never obtained the communities consent, required by law, to start the explorations in their territories. As it has been confirmed by the report N° 001-2006/ASPMA-MA of the Peruvian Ombudsman, the firm has not obtained the authorization of two thirds of the members of the communities found in the mining concession area. Recently, Andrew Bristow, operations manager for Majaz mine, has admitted that even if the firm had a document signed by leaders of both communities in 2002 authorizing the exploration activities, Majaz did not comply with the above mentioned legal requirement. It is not surprising then that the firm, after six years operating in the zone, has not obtained the social license required to operate a mine project. This fact was recognized even by Bristow, who has declared that the Río Blanco mining project "could be delayed if a social agreement with the communities where it operates is not obtained."
The social conflict reached its most critical moments in 2004 and 2005, when two demonstrations of thousands of community members coming from several miles around confronted police forces. Several peasants were injured in violent confrontations—some of them severely. Two died and more than 200 had lawsuits brought against them for taking part in the protests.
A few days from the referendum, hostilities have started again. "The referendum is being politically manipulated. "...mayors from outside of Piura and international NGOs are involved," declared Bristow. And the government, which in almost all other similar social conflicts has supported the mining investors, has ignored communities concerns. The Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo, who traveled to Piura on Monday September 3rd with Monsignor Luis Bambarén, bishop of nearby Chimbote, said that "a referendum cannot be used to veto an economic activity...because natural resources are the property of all Peruvians and do not belong to a district, community, or province." The minister of Energy and Mining, Juan Valdivia, said that "the interests of other countries are behind these entities [NGOs] that intend to delay the country's development." On the same note, the National Jury of Elections (JNE) has delcared this referendum illegal, and that it will start the legal actions against those who should be held responsible for "acts against the legal order."
The Ombudsman office and the National Council for Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice have expressed a different opinion, recognizing this is not an illegal procedure. The Ombudsman in particular said that these kinds of mechanisms are useful if they are oriented to "start processes that will build consensus which enrich the decisions of the state authorities."
Answering the JNE statements, the mayors of the zone have said that they are holding the referendum because the government will not engage in a dialogue with them. According to Javier Jahncke, from the Technical Table for the support of Majaz, "since January 2006 there were several initiatives for dialogue, but this year, with the authorities of the new government, it definitely stopped. That is why this referendum was conceived."
At the time of this report, the mayors of Carmen de la Frontera, Ayabaca, and Pacaipampa are determine to hold the referendum in their towns and reestablish some type of dialogue afterwards. The mining company has reiterated that the offer they made last August 15th of giving US$ 80 million as a fund for social projects and infrastructure in the communities, "is still standing." Prime Minister Del Castillo expressed his wish to build bridges when he declared in a press conference that the president of Zijin "has no intention of exploiting the mineral resources in the zone if they do not reach an agreement with the population."
Being so close to the referendum, the political and media pressure on the organizers will be, no doubt, very strong during these days. Above all, it is expected that the action will take place in calm and with transparency.
From a legal point of view, the most important aspect of the conflict between Minera Majaz and the communities is the lack of consent from the communities, required by law, authorizing mining explorations in their territories. In its report N° 001-2006/ASPMA-MA, released in November 2006, the Peruvian Ombudsman declares that the Law of Peasant and Native Communities states that all use of lands for mining activities, including exploration, must have the authorization of the communities who own the surface property, granted in general assembly and registered in an act signed but two thirds of the accredited members. If the community authorization is not obtained, the firm must wait until the state carries out a "serving procedure," in which the government of Peru gives the authorization and pays compensation to the community. According to the Ombudsman, this legal requirement has not been completed, because Majaz has not obtained the authorization of two thirds of the members of the communities over whose territories the concession is located.
As for the legal status of the referendum, the Nacional Jury of Elections (JNE), in a communiqué dated August 15th, stated that the referendum has no official character, and is also illegal because "no person, sector of the population, or organization, including a city hall, can arrogate the exercise of exclusive and non transferable faculties that constitutionally belong to the electoral bodies."
The Peruvian Ombudsman has declared that, even though these mechanisms do not have legal implications, meaning that the State is not forced to accept its results, the referendum is allowed under constitutional law and is not illegal.
Anthony Bebbington, an academic from the Environmental and Development School of the University of Manchester and main author of the study "Mining and development in Peru, with special reference to the Río Blanco Project, Piura,"" has observed that the deep discrepancy among the central government and the local authorities about which are the adequate ways to solve the conflict could be a sign that the democratic practice is failing. As Bebbington says, "it seems that there are no institutions that permit a point of a balance among local wishes and concerns, on the one side, and national wishes and concerns, on the other."
]]>The proposed mining project has caused social conflict in this area of Peru. The problems started when the communities denied the company their authorization for the use of their lands, which the firm needs under Peruvian Law No. 26505. The Peruvian Ombudsman office verified this, and communicated the decision to the Ministry of Energy and Mining, which disregarded it. After that there have been several violent conflicts between the security forces hired by the company and community members, two of whom died.
In recent weeks, the Zijin consortium has offered $40 million to the community of Yanta, and the same amount to the community of Segunda y Cajas, to be paid over the duration of the mining project. The latter community held an assembly and decided not to accept this proposal, which conditioned the disbursement to the approval of the mining project. The former will decide in the following days.
"This plebiscite is taking place because the population has asked for it," said Fernando Romero of Oxfam International. "The citizens of this zone want to express their opinion about an activity that would profoundly affect their lives. This action respects the right to express one's opinion, a very fundamental right," he added. "Oxfam International decided to support the referendum because it is a legal mechanism that does not pretend to go further than what the law recognizes as a matter for local governments, as it has no legal implications. We think it is crucial to collect the communities' opinion and establish a dialogue between the authorities, firms, and civil society." Romero emphasized that, according to Oxfam's experience, only by listening to the population can social conflicts be mitigated.
In the last few days some Peruvian authorities have publicly criticized the referendum. The National Election Board, the body that regulates elections, has declared it an illegal activity because local authorities are not supposed to hold referenda in which citizens decide about extractive industries. The Ministry of Energy and Mining has said that local authorities cannot make declarations on a national issue. President Alan García and the Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo have publicly opposed the referendum.
Nevertheless, the office of the Peruvian Ombudsman has declared that the referendum is not an illegal activity because it is within the jurisdiction of the local authorities. The Ministry of Justice has made similar statements. The organizers have stated that the referendum lies within the responsibility of the local government, and that it is meant to reflect public opinion, which they want the authorities to consider when it is time to make decisions.
"We make a public call for this activity to be held in peace, for the different points of view to be heard, and for the authorities to give the necessary help and make sure there is adequate security for everyone," said Romero. "Oxfam is opposed to any type of violence or coercion and supports freedom of expression and participation for everyone involved. We expect this opportunity will be used to hear the population's opinion and find the best solution for the social conflict that has been brewing. The communities of these three districts have sought a way to express themselves in a peaceful way, and this is a will and a right that should be respected."
]]>She was also furious. "This should not happen to us," she said later, referring to the residents of her village of Teberebie, which had been relocated to accommodate a new mining operation in the area. "What did we do wrong?"
Mr. Baidoo had been walking away from a confrontation between farmers and a military force when he was wounded. The protest arose after the military began blocking a road the farmers used to travel to their fields where they grow cocoa and palm trees, yams, cassava, and other fruits and vegetables. Having recently been denied this route through the mine property, and tired of the alternative—a longer, 12-mile round trip on foot—the entire town turned out in February 2006 to demand access to the road. Baidoo and one other man were shot, and several people were beaten.
Amoateng immediately called WACAM, the environmental and human rights organization partly funded by Oxfam that had trained her and others in the community. "I reported that Anthony had been shot, and was lying in his own blood," she said. After WACAM's director Daniel Owusu-Koranteng called the head of the AngloGold Ashanti mine company, Baidoo got the medical care he needed to survive at the company's expense. After recovering for eight months in the hospital he is now disabled.
Teberebie is a farming community in the Wassa West District of Ghana's Western Region. The community was resettled in 1991 to make room for the AngloGold Ashanti, Iduapriem Mine, which is now producing over 300,000 ounces of gold per year. It is just one of many scenes of violence over the last several years, as Ghana has thrown open its doors to foreign companies and relaxed its rules on investment to encourage more mining. The shootings in Teberebie were just two of 15 reported by the BBC in 2005 and 2006.
Amoateng is now a leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, which consists of 35 farmers who have worked with WACAM to learn about their human rights under Ghana's constitution and Minerals and Mining Act. She is leading this group in a legal case against AngloGold, alleging non-payment of compensation for their lost farms, which are now buried under piles of waste rock.
Amoateng, 30, said she is now more aware of how the government and mining companies in the area are violating the rights of people in her community—and what to do about it. "Because of WACAM, I now know where to go and who to contact in case of any problem in the community," she said. Her recent activities have included leading a march to the nearby town of Tarkwa, where radio, television, and newspaper journalists interviewed her about the situation facing farmers in Teberebie.
In Ghana, as in many other countries in Africa and other parts of the world, women do not usually lead political struggles. Speaking out publicly is simply out of the question for most women in communities affected by mining in Ghana. Men are normally perceived as the voices of the community. But with the right training and personal ambition, women like Amoateng are showing they are strong leaders.
To more effectively represent her community, Amoateng is presently studying to finish high school and prepare for university. She aspires to be a lawyer and an advocate for women and children.
Her concerns center on basic justice for Teberebie. "The 1992 constitution and the Minerals and Mining Act are my closest friends now," Amoateng said. "I don't want the mining company to cheat my community. And I know my rights as a citizen living in a mining community."
Amoateng's work is a good example of how WACAM uses education as a tool to empower mining communities in their struggle to improve their living conditions. Her training with WACAM has strengthened her community as well as her own ability to represent her neighbors. "This has made me very powerful in the sight of both the mining company, and the men in my community," she said. "I am proud of myself."
Jerry Mensah-Pah is a radio and newspaper journalist based in Tarkwa, Ghana, and has been covering human rights violations related to communities affected by mining for four years. He works for WACAM in the Western Region of Ghana as its assistant programs officer.
]]>In 1996 he and about 25,000 others from several villages were informed they were being evicted from their farms in Ghana's western rain forests to make room for a gold mine run by Gold Fields Ghana, Ltd. "I was not happy," Pelpuo said. "But at the end of the day I had to accept it because the government gave the land to the company. They are not treating us fairly, giving the land to the company without informing the community members."
Since the government of Ghana retains the rights to the minerals under his land, there was not much a farmer like Pelpuo could do—or so he thought. He, along with others from several villages being moved to a new town called New Atuabo, attended a training program led by Oxfam America's partner WACAM, where they learned about their basic rights to own property. They realized that they had a right to negotiate compensation for their lost homes and lands. "Initially we had no knowledge, and we had to learn that what the company was doing was not right," Pelpuo said.
Gold Fields and government representatives did negotiate with community representatives, but the talks became difficult. One community representative was intimidated and eventually arrested for allegedly insulting representatives of the military and local chiefs supporting the mine's offer, according to Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, Executive Director of WACAM. After convincing him to publicly apologize to the chief, the company and its allies then got 95 percent of the relocated families to go along with the deal.
However, Pulpuo and about 125 others refused to accept the compensation offer, and took action themselves late in 1996. With the help of WACAM and the legal aid organization CEPIL, they began negotiating with Gold Fields, a company with mining operations in four countries that last year made a $69 million net profit with over 700,000 ounces of gold from their Ghana mine alone.
At the heart of the disagreement between the company and the group of farmers, which became known as the Lawyer's Group, was the so called "value for value" calculation used by the company to determine what size concrete house would replace existing homes, many made of mud with thatch roofs. "I had 12 rooms," said Agnes Ackon, 68, a mother of five and grandmother of 12. "They were going to replace them with six."
"We learned the language of the court, and got paralegal training to understand our rights," Pelpuo said. "When we met with the company we did not entertain any fears, because we knew our rights. And out of this, the company could see what we were saying at first, and we started to get some of the things we need."
While they were negotiating, many of the Lawyer's Group members stayed in their existing homes as the mining activity moved in around them. One group of homes lost all their clean water as mine activity affected nearby streams, and all suffered from loss of income as their fields were converted to mining pits and waste rock dumps. Many were forced to pull their children out of school because they could no longer afford the fees.
The Lawyer's Group and Gold Fields struggled to come to agreement until Agnes Ackon came up with the solution in 2001: "I suggested that the hospital was now too far away since we moved, and we needed a clinic here now," she said. So in exchange for accepting a new house with fewer rooms and some cash, the Lawyer's Group secured a health clinic for New Atuabo.
"We had to sacrifice for it," Pelpuo said. It was particularly generous of the Lawyer's Group members as they had suffered already at the hands of the company and their neighbors, who had treated them as foolish renegades for disputing their compensation. Yet the Lawyer's Group thanked them by negotiating a public benefit the whole town could enjoy. They even got a commitment from the regional health authority to staff and supply the clinic after construction was completed.
Like many real-life stories, there is not yet a happy ending in New Atuabo. Although the town's neat concrete houses with metal roofs are now arranged on straight streets, they mask the problems of unemployment among the displaced farmers, many of whom are illiterate and unable to secure jobs at the mine.
The new housing comes with new costs, as well. As Pelpuo puts it, "Where we used to live we did not have to pay for water, but after resettlement all this cost is now on the community members. We have to pay for water, sanitation, and we have no jobs."
The members of the Lawyer's Group also suffered an insult when the new health clinic was officially commissioned in 2002. At a public ceremony, the health ministry and mine company took full credit for its construction, and failed to recognize that the money used to build it came out of the compensation fund negotiated from the relocated farmers in the Lawyer's Group.
Despite this indignity, the farmers did learn about and stand up for their rights—a real achievement. "There was lots of intimidation" said Owusu-Koranteng of WACAM. "But they persisted, and it led to a better settlement for the entire community."
]]>Dr. Almendares is a renowned defender of human rights and the environment. He has a long trajectory of work in the poorest communities of his country, providing people with free health care, organizing them, and passing on his knowledge. In his academic career, he has directed research at prestigious universities and institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and the Cardiovascular Research Institute in San Francisco. In his own country, he has dedicated himself to the sciences, first as a professor at the Medical School, later as its dean, and eventually as rector of the Autonomous National University of Honduras.
After the award ceremony we spoke with Dr. Almendares:
What does it mean to you to be nominated and then elected for this prize from InterAction?
I accepted this recognition as a noble and generous act by the organizations in the United States, and also as an act of solidarity with the people we are working with to build a better world that is more respectful of human rights and environmental justice. This honor has been a great act of moral support for me in the face of the all the risks we take in order to defend the life and dignity of human beings and to provide for a great love of humanity and our planet earth.
What inspired you to study medicine?
My greatest inspiration was my mother. I call it the theology of dreams. When my mother was pregnant she dreamed she was in paradise and that I worked with plants, the environment, and serving humanity. I come from a poor family. We lived in a poor neighborhood plagued with alcoholism, prostitution, and violence. Thanks to my mother's advice, I didn't get involved in all that. She never physically or psychologically abused me and she taught me a culture of non-violence. But it was a struggle to make it out of that environment. When I was in college sometimes I went hungry. I was malnourished and anemic. When I it was my turn to spend six months in bed, I learned what it meant to be a patient, and that as a doctor, one must be humble. When I graduated from the university with a degree in medicine, I had three callings: to work on behalf of the poor, to educate, and to dedicate myself to science.
These callings led you to establish various projects aimed at improving people's lives...
For many years we have run a clinic for poor people where we provide free medical attention. Mostly we work with the urban poor residents of Tegucigalpa and with indigenous people in some of the most remote communities in the country, where doctors rarely venture. In addition to providing medical attention, we do organizing work. For example, we work with 26 communities in the Tegucigalpa urban areas. We organized the women in these communities into a committee called the Honduran Committee for Peace. Now they have family gardens. Also, with the support of a Canadian organization, we have constructed more than 200 tanks to store the water that they get only once a month. We held natural medicine workshops to teach women how to treat common illnesses themselves. For example, chamomile, mint, and linden flower teas, and massage techniques, can relieve stress and tension. We have taught them how to treat a cough or diarrhea. We are also concerned about the environment and founded the Madre Tierra [Mother Earth] movement. Now we are working on a reforestation project. We asked the kids in the program how many trees they would like to plant. The told us one million trees. So, with the dream of planting a million trees, we are working with them in the poorest neighborhoods. We have already planted more than 15,000 trees and within this movement we have created a school of sorts, where kids are learning how to care for the environment and their health.
How is your work related to Oxfam America's work?
Through our work with Madre Tierra, we have been involved with Oxfam on the issue of mining. Madre Tierra has been studying the health impacts of heavy metals. We have been conducting research for five years in the Siria Valley region of Honduras, where there is a large mine. With the help of a Harvard student, we were able to get baseline data on the health conditions in the community prior to the mine, in order to make a before and after comparison. We go to the communities to conduct research and clinical exams and what we have noticed, interestingly, is that it is mostly the women who are ill, not the men who work in the mines. The women use the water often, to cook, clean, and wash clothes. We have seen many health problems in their skin, eyes, and nervous and respiratory systems. Oxfam America has helped a lot by providing us with information on technical and ethical issues. It has worked on a broad scale in many different areas.
In all these years that you have spent working with the poorest of the poor, have you seen any changes in the people, their situation or policies?
Yes, we have seen changes. The people have a better perception of their situation; they are more aware. This allows them to dissent and make demands of the authorities if they disagree with decisions they make. We also work in human rights. We have a center for torture victims and violence prevention, inspired by the teachings of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Francisco Morazán [Morazán, a Honduran politician and defender of democracy, was the last president of the Federal Republic of Central America in the mid-1800s]. We have been able to promote a message of non-violence with government institutions, which we see as directly related to the issue of health. We advocated for the government to incorporate mental health issues in its human rights agenda and women's rights into the health agenda. The government also approved and ratified The United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Your work presents you with some of the toughest situations in your country. What motivates you to keep going?
Despite it all, I always maintain great optimism and a love for the earth. I appreciate the cooperation from the international community. I have found great human beings in all the continents: Africa, Europe, Asia, and America. I am very grateful for this. We must always have love and compassion among us and with all that we do.
]]>"Cambodia needs a very good new petroleum law and expertise from Oxfam and World Bank would be very interesting," said Than Sina, chair of the National Assembly's planning and investment commission, at the first national public forum on extractive industries in April.
Oxfam America organized the event in Phnom Penh, which was attended by more than 130 members of the public, media, government, the private sector, and diplomatic missions.
"It would be a big opportunity for the government to draft a good law. We can't do it by ourselves, but with the help of Oxfam and other groups we have a good chance of making it work – other wise, Cambodia will be like Chad," Sina added. In Chad, a much vaunted plan to direct oil revenues towards poverty reduction, backed by the World Bank, has unraveled and the population has seen few concrete benefits from the oil boom there.
Chevron and other companies are currently exploring oil fields in Cambodian territorial waters. It is possible that oil production could begin in 2010, although the probability of finding significant oil reserves is not known. Sina said that oil and gas exploration represents a great opportunity for Cambodia because other natural resources such as timber and fish are quickly depleting.
Oxfam welcomes and supports the government's intention to work with other organizations to make development that supports poor communities part of the agenda. Our work centers around helping civil society and the wider population engage with the government before the new law is created. The current Cambodian Petroleum Act regulations were adopted by the Council of Ministers in 1991.
Oxfam's extensive extractive industries program in South America, Central America, United States, West Africa, and East Asia seeks to ensure that oil, gas and mining projects are designed in ways that respect the rights of the poor, and contribute to the long-term reduction of poverty.
In several countries, Oxfam has supported local groups to influence the development of new petroleum and mining laws. In Bolivia, for example, the new government's hydrocarbons law increased the rights of local communities to be consulted before oil and gas projects moved forward, and gave the National Assembly the ability to approve individual projects.
"The promise of oil wealth for Cambodia presents an opportunity to reduce poverty. But, experiences from other countries show that, on a variety of economic indicators, those that become dependent on oil as their leading export have often performed worse than countries without oil," said Ian Gary, extractive industries policy advisor for Oxfam America.
"While no country is perfect, there are positive elements of particular country experiences that Cambodia could draw upon. Nigeria, for example, has completed three audits under the "Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative," Gary said.
Oxfam also highlighted the experience of the joint government and civil society Petroleum Revenue Oversight and Control Committee in Chad. While the Chad experiment with oil revenue management has largely unravelled, this Committee formed in 2002 and tasked with approving social spending projects using oil revenues, made some strides to provide checks and balances in government spending. "In many countries, local civil society organizations have played a crucial monitoring role to try to ensure that oil, gas and mining revenues are used for beneficial purposes," Gary said.
Cambodian civil society could draw upon the experiences of other national level coalitions involved in the global Publish What You Pay campaign, which is a coalition over 300 NGOs worldwide who calls for the mandatory disclosure of the payments made by oil, gas and mining companies' to all governments for the extraction of natural resources. Publish What You Pay also calls on resource-rich developing country governments to publish full details on revenues.
“Too often, oil, gas, and mining projects don’t benefit people in countries that are rich in natural resources, but whose population is extremely poor. These extractive projects should not add to poverty and powerlessness – natural resources can and should help communities overcome these challenges,” says Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “In order for this to happen, however, communities need to know how mining and energy projects will impact their lives and lands and how revenues from these projects will be used.”
Oxfam calls on international oil, gas, and mining companies to show their respect for:
“Empowered with this information, communities are better able to share in the benefits of extractives projects. Revenues can go to real community needs like education, health care, and jobs, and communities can judge if these projects are a benefit or a burden,” said Offenheiser. “More often, contracts and revenues are kept secret leading to an environment that fosters embezzlement and corruption, which has contributed to the failure of extractive projects to help alleviate poverty.”
Oxfam supports legislation to reform revenue transparency rules for companies working in developing countries. Last fall, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) convened a hearing on the transparency of company payments to host governments. During the hearing, Rep. Frank opened the door for legislative action that could be a powerful step to remedy the problem. A mandatory approach in the US would be an important complement to voluntary initiatives currently in place in only a few countries.
“Many extractive industries projects promise wealth and new job opportunities,” says Mamadou Biteye, Oxfam America’s Regional Director in West Africa. “Unfortunately, many projects, like gold mining in West Africa, have failed to deliver. These industries create few jobs for locals, and communities rarely see the benefit. Communities need to be empowered with information to have more control over the management of the natural resources necessary to sustain their livelihoods.” In 2005, gold accounted for more than 50 percent of Mali’s total exports of $297 million, but information about mining revenues is inaccessible for the vast majority of citizens. And despite Mali’s gold wealth, it remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.
]]>"We are disappointed that the IFC has decided to fund the second phase of the Camisea project. We believe the board of directors should have requested a delay of the vote in order to more fully assess the environmental and social impact this project will have on local communities," said Ian Gary, Oxfam America's Senior Policy Advisor for Extractive Industries and a member of the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Advisory Group.
The region surrounding the Camisea project is home to indigenous communities, notable biodiversity, national parks, and reserves. Communities in the Lower Urubamba area were particularly neglected by the first phase of the project, with serious compensation agreement problems and little spending of royalties by local governments for increased social services. And these communities have not been fully consulted on the second phase.
"The IFC declined to participate in the first phase of the Camisea gas project, and, with support for Camisea II, runs the risk of being further tarnished for its financing of oil, gas and mining projects, such as the Chad-Cameroon oil project, with dubious development impacts," said Gary.
In April 2006, the IFC instituted new "Performance Standards" to manage social and environmental impacts and enhance development opportunities for all financed countries. The standards require that the company sponsor obtain "broad community support" for high-risk projects within affected communities.
"The IFC has greatly undermined its new environmental and social policies by not fully applying these standards to the gas fields in the Peruvian Amazon, which will supply the export facilities financed by the IFC and other lenders," said Gary. "The narrow parsing of this project, done in order to avoid addressing serious problems, sets a disturbing precedent and will do significant harm to the credibility of the IFC's social and environmental risk management."
"We have yet to see, for example, how the IFC demonstrates compliance with its 'Broad Community Support' requirement, within the narrowly-defined transportation/export portion of the project, let alone for the upstream gas fields that supply the project. 'Broad Community Support' is an important new feature of the 'Performance Standards,' but it is unclear how, or whether, the IFC ensures compliance," said Gary.
Now that the World Bank Group has decided to support the project, it must address serious failures, risks, and concerns still pending from the first phase of the project and from new gas development in the Amazon. These include:
"I am pleased to stand with others in the jewelry industry today in announcing our support for protecting Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed from large-scale mining," said Jon Bridge, Co-CEO/General Counsel of Seattle-based Ben Bridge Jeweler. "As retail jewelers, we want to be able to tell our customers that the precious metals we use are mined responsibly—that the materials used in the jewelry they purchase have been mined in environmentally friendly ways, respectful of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery and the communities that depend on it."
The controversial Pebble mine is highlighted in a new report released today by the No Dirty Gold consumer campaign led by EARTHWORKS and Oxfam America. The report, “Golden Rules: Making the Case for Responsible Mining,” documents the toll of irresponsible mining on people, water, and wildlife at a time when soaring metals prices are driving new mining development globally. The report describes human rights violations and environmental concerns at metals mines in the United States and around the world. (To download a copy of the report, visit www.nodirtygold.org.)
The retailers are among a group of 28 jewelry retailers, representing 23 percent of US jewelry sales, who have endorsed the No Dirty Gold campaign's "Golden Rules"—human rights and environmental criteria for mining. Today’s announcement takes those commitments a step further.
“Some of the world’s leading jewelers have recognized that the Bristol Bay watershed is a treasure worth protecting. We applaud their principled position and commitment to not source metals from areas of high conservation value,” said Payal Sampat of EARTHWORKS.
The proposed Pebble mine is backed by the UK-based Anglo American, one of the world’s largest metals mining companies, and Canadian firm Northern Dynasty Minerals. The Bristol Bay watershed, where the proposed mine would be located, supports the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery—which is critical to the state’s economy and to the livelihood of many Alaska Native communities.
"We want to express a sincere thank you to these jewelry companies,” said Bobby Andrew, a spokesperson for Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of the Land), an association of eight Alaska Native corporations. “The proposed Pebble mine threatens the wild salmon fishery that has sustained the region's economy and our people for generations.”
Last year, Nunamta Aulukestai and a diverse group of Alaska Native communities, commercial fishermen, businesses, and sportsmen publicly invited jewelry retailers to express support for the protection of Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed from large-scale mining. The invitation ran as a full-page ad in National Jeweler magazine. (For a copy of the ad and jeweler pledge, see www.protectbristolbay.org.)
Consumers today are more aware of the human and environmental costs of the goods and services they purchase than ever before. While other business sectors have responded to demand for cleaner, ethically produced goods and services—such as sustainably harvested wood products and fair trade coffee—the mining sector lags behind in terms of embracing an independent system for standards and verification. Some 100,000 consumers in more than 100 countries have signed on to the No Dirty Gold pledge, urging mining companies to provide alternatives to “dirty” gold.
“Consumers and jewelry retailers across the country have clearly signaled their desire for certified, more ethically produced metals,” noted Raymond C. Offenheiser of Oxfam America. “The question is: when will mining companies step up to meet this obvious demand?”
The No Dirty Gold campaign urges mining companies to find solutions and implement best practices that can be independently verified—at both existing and new operations. According to the campaign’s new report, mining practices in places like Ghana, Indonesia, Nevada, and other parts of the world continue to pollute air and water, damage farmland and forests, and, in some parts of the world, fuel violent conflict. The report describes damaging practices at 17 metals mines around the world. These mines include:
There are promising signs within the industry that some operations are responding to community concerns and consumer demands for more responsibly mined gold. For example, a number of firms have adopted a policy against dumping mine wastes in rivers, while others have publicly committed to disclosing payments made to foreign governments.
]]>According to an Associated Press story, President Correa publicly pledged government support for the case, which began nearly 10 years ago in the United States and was thrown out on appeal in 2003. Since then the court in Ecuador has been conducting judicial inspections of polluted areas, gathering evidence a judge will use to make a decision, possibly in the next year.
During the same week, indigenous leaders representing the people affected by the pollution in the Orellana and Succumbios region of Ecuador attended the annual meeting for shareholders of ChevronTexaco in California. Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Secoya indigenous people, called for the company to resolve the case and help clean up the environment. "We want you to give us back our lives," Piaguaje said. "We want you to let us live in peace and harmony with nature. We want you to repair the damage so that our children do not have to continue suffering."
Oxfam America has supported the Amazon Defense Front's legal case for nine years, and assisted in the creation of the Assembly of Delegates of Communities Affected by Texaco, a community-based organization that has ensured those most directly affected by the pollution have a voice in the legal strategy.
"We think it is positive that President Correa has declared his support of those affected by pollution in the Lago Agrio region," said Javier Aroca, who coordinates programs related to indigenous rights for Oxfam America in South America. "We consider this is a signal that the government is interested in investigating and sanctioning those who are responsible."
"It is important to remember that the people affected are demanding compensation for almost 10 years now," Aroca said. "The pollution has affected the health of indigenous peoples and peasants... there have been cases of skin diseases and cancer. Furthermore, the lands are not as productive as they used to be, which has affected the agricultural economy. From our point of view, the government of Ecuador should support the affected population to complete the legal procedures, which are very expensive."
A win for the Amazon Defense Front in this precedent-setting case could change the landscape of the oil industry, and further establish the rights of communities to be compensated for negative social and environmental effects of oil operations.
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