- Ghana: Gold Rush in Forest Reserves Resisted

An expanding international coalition of public interest, human rights, labor and environmental groups has vowed to resist mining in Ghana's forest reserves.

At a press conference on Thursday 8 of May, to launch a campaign against mining in the reserves, the coalition expressed outrage at the decision of the Ghana government to open up some of the reserves for surface mining. Coalition members called on the government to rescind its decision and withdraw licenses it has already given to some of the mining companies to mine in the forest reserves.

The coalition comprises 13 civil society groups and includes FoodFirst Information Action Network (FIAN), Friends of the Earth, Third World Network, Centre for Public Interest Law, Green Earth Organisation, Abantu for Development, The General Agricultural Workers Union, Wassa Association of Communities affected by Mining, Friends of the Nation, Ceres, and the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC).

The coalition contends that the country's total forest cover has dwindled from 1.8 million hectares at the dawn of independence in 1957 to 1.2 million hectares today, with less than two percent of its native tree cover remaining.

Coalition members said that every year two million acres of forested land is lost to mining. Currently very little closed forest remains outside the forest reserve network with much of it in small scattered patches in swamps and sacred groves. Granting the miners permits to enable them operate in the reserves will result in the decimation of the remaining forest tucked away in the reserves, they warned.

In a country that is already experiencing one of the world's highest rates of deforestation, the coalition accused the Ghana government of prioritizing commercial development over ecological concerns. Speakers pointed out that an ultimate goal of achieving increased investment in Ghana at the cost of environmental and social performance is dangerous.

Speaking on behalf of the coalition, George Awudi of Friends of the Earth said the affected forest reserves include the Subri River Forest Reserve, a Globally Significant Biodiversity Area, which is also the largest forest reserve in the country and a critical watershed between major rivers.

Also affected are Supuma Shelterbelt, Opon Mansi, Tano Suraw and Suraw Extension, and Cape Three Points reserve in the Western region. In the Eastern region forest reserves at risk include Ajenjua Bepo, and the Atewa Range forest reserve, a Special Biological Protection area believed to be the most mineralized reserve in the country.

Awudi said the Atewa reserve contains many unique species such as two endemic kinds of tree as well as six endemic butterfly species and several bird species.

In Tano Suraw, Australia's Red Back Mining got a permit in April to develop its million ounce Chirano Gold Project. The company has been granted a mining lease for the project which includes portions of the Tano Suraw and Tano Suraw extension productive forest reserves. The Chirano Gold project is expected to produce 120,000 ounces to 130,000 ounces of gold a year over a mine life of eight years.

Other companies involved in the gold rush in the forest reserves are Satellite Goldfields Limited of South Africa, Ghana's Ashanti Goldfields Limited, and the Denver based Newmont Mining Company, the world's largest gold producing company.

Already, Newmont, and Ashanti Goldfields have been granted permits to operate in the Ajenjua Bepo and Kubi Forest reserves.

Awudi said the government's action in granting these permits is a stab in the back to efforts to conserve and maintain forest reserves and other protected areas in Ghana. The government's decision to allow the mining contradicts its own policy on natural resource conservation and is a dangerous precedent that could set a bad example for other loggers, miners, and poachers, he said.

The government's decision will undermine the economic environmental and social development of the people and the country, said Awudi. He pointed to particular resources that would be damaged such as fresh water, plant genetic resources, supply of medicines, climate control, agriculture, food production and food security.

Pulling down the forest reserves could result in multiple ecological and social consequences such as soil erosion due to the removal of tree cover, the loss of valuable top soil, extensive flooding in rural areas and urban areas caused by excessive silting of river systems, and climate change due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of the loss of trees, Awudi explained.

Mining in forest reserves contravenes the principles underlying the establishment of forest reserves in the first place, the coalition says, and it violates several international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity to which Ghana is a signatory.

Citing examples from Ghana's Western region, Awudi said that mining in Ghana has had a detrimental effect on the country's tropical forests which once covered one-third of the country.

Sixty percent of rainforests in Ghana's Wassa West District have already been destroyed by mining operations. Cyanide and other chemicals have contaminated water supplies, and buildings have been cracked from blasting in the mines.

In many cases, Awudi said, the land used for mining operations in Ghana has been forcibly acquired from farmers, sometimes with no compensation. In some instances, the mines have been responsible for the dislocation and forced resettlement of communities numbering in the thousands. Several cases of human rights violations such as beatings and shootings related to mining have also been documented.

The coalition is urging the government to enact a clear cut regulatory framework that prohibits mining in forest reserves. The coalition is also requesting that the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation not fund the mining companies seeking to operate surface mines in the country's forest reserves.

Awudi said he suspects that the true aim of the government's decision to grant mining permits in forest reserves is to prepare the grounds for the opening up of the country's entire forest reserve system to gold mining.

He called on Ghanaians and the international community to take a keen interest in the looming ecological disaster in Ghana and join the coalition in its campaign to resist mining in the country's forest reserves.

By: Mike Anane, e-mail: lejcec@ghana.com

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- Global Gluttony: Mines feeding on forests in South Africa

The colonial period of South African history has left a mindset that encourages the exploitation of anything that can be dug out of the ground and shipped off to feed the rapacious appetites of first world industries and consumers. This is what drove the colonial imperative of England, Portugal, France and Spain in centuries gone by, and although there has been political transformation in previously colonised African countries, the economic forces remain largely unchanged. If anything, achieving independence has resulted in a worse situation, where new governments, under pressure to balance their budgets, have allowed the exploitation of mineral and other resources to accelerate, yet still without achieving economic independence.

South Africa is most famous for its gold and diamonds, but has many other minerals. The bulk of these are exported in their unbeneficiated state.

Early mining was mostly with excavated shafts that required timber supports. The gold boom caused massive demand for timber for mining needs, housing, transport wagons, and railway sleepers; which was drawn from forests that were then abundant in eastern South Africa. When it became apparent that the resource was limited, alien tree plantations were established. Theoretically, the pressure on forests has been transferred to plantations, but there are many ways in which they impact negatively on the few remaining patches of natural forest.

Modern equipment and technology have made it possible for mining to take place on a far greater scale. Where minerals are located close to the surface, there are massive open pits from which ores are excavated. South Africa's most famous open pit is the Great Hole of Kimberley, now exhausted. Open mining has been common along the west coast, in the beautiful Namaqualand area, as well as in Northern Cape (Sishen), and Northern Province (Phalaborwa).

There has also been strip mining on the eastern seaboard, which is geologically active in the sense that there is movement of the coastal interface caused by the natural process of sand dune establishment. This process has been active for over 100 000 years, but more recent dunes (up to 25 000 years) have presented an opportunity for the extraction of minerals. The first large-scale mining of these minerals --mainly ilminite, zircon and rutile-- took place on the KwaZulu Natal south coast in the 1950's. This operation had limited economic value and was abandoned.

In the early 1970's, RBM (Richards Bay Minerals) started mining the forested dunes along the northeastern coast of KwaZulu Natal. This development took place in an era of political isolation when South Africa was under pressure, both internally and externally, to end Apartheid. The country became a victim of the illegal government and its foreign allies' plans to exploit whatever raw minerals were available. Foreign companies that wanted minerals were given incentives in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and export rebates. Environmental costs arising from these artificially driven operations were ignored and effectively passed on to local communities. As a consequence, future generations of South Africans will have to bear the cost of a grossly damaged environment, and the loss of the use of the resources that have been stolen. The only tangible benefits of these activities, was the foreign currency that was so desperately needed by South Africa for sanctions busting; and the low cost to the miners, boosting the profits of processing and manufacturing operations in countries like Canada.

Whilst all mining creates some problems in terms of environmental destruction and exploitation of resources (including people), the Richards Bay example must be one of the worst.

The scale and extent of the deliberate environmental destruction that is part of the mining process continues today. It is of a vast scale that is difficult to imagine --the expression "moving mountains" might give an idea of the amount of soil that is moved and processed in the course of extracting the minerals that occur in the dunes.

The mining company obtained prospecting and mining leases from the South African government (either directly or through the surrogate Kwa Zulu homeland state). The initial agreements appeared to favour the local people who had been moved from the mining area, but over time, the aspects of the agreements that were designed to protect and to compensate local communities, have been systematically eliminated.

The natural environment, which was primarily pristine forest with trees hundreds of years old, has been destroyed. Thousands of hectares of this rare forest type have been replaced with an experimental effort to restore vegetation, that may one day resemble the original forest, on the sand dumps that have been created where the mining has already proceeded.

The mining company has spent astronomical amounts of money on propaganda claiming that their vegetation efforts have been successful. If one looks behind the public relations façade, there is a very different picture, that of an ecological Frankenstein. The mining operation has failed to abide by the conditions of the leases that stipulated the area along the frontal (facing the sea) dune that was not to be mined. Similarly, areas along natural waterways and lakes that should have been protected have been mined illegally, and no penalties have been imposed on the company by the government.

There are many downstream and off-site impacts of the mining that are also largely ignored. Dune slumping resulting from the failure to observe the setback line along the coastal dunes, has created serious erosion and effectively made beaches unusable for tourists and other recreational activities. The authority concerned, the National Dept. of Mineral & Energy, has apparently ignored other problems, because the perceived benefits from the mining outweigh the damage to the environment.

There is a very poor understanding of the intrinsic value of natural forests and the benefits that are derived by humans from the ecological functions of these forests. The company's unproven assertion that their vegetation programme will eventually enable the original dune forest to re-establish on their mine dumps has reduced public antipathy towards their operations. The same lie has been told so often that it now appears that even fairly well educated individuals have been blinded to reality. The mining company has entered into funding agreements with academic institutions such as the Mammal Research Institute of the University of Pretoria, which has consistently delivered research findings that appear to support the company's claims of success. There are however, many contradictory views, and research by scientists from the University of Cape Town has challenged the claims of those paid by the mining company. In terms of empirical evidence, there is very little to support the notion that the current experiment will lead to the re-establishment of the forest and thicket that has been destroyed.

Future generations that inhabit the area presently being mined will have to pay a large price for what has happened during the last 30 years. There will be no mineral resource after the mining ends, and the intrinsic value of the landscape will have been virtually eliminated when the mining company packs its bags and moves on to greener pastures. The area that has been mined at Richards Bay is now essentially a heap of homogenous sand that no longer has the capacity to function ecologically or hydrologically in the manner of the original dunes. The land will be unable to support agriculture as before. There will be no hardwood resource to supply wood for implements and housing. The plants and animals that supplied medicines and food will have been wiped out. Two thirds of the area will be planted with alien Casuarina plantations which may have some value as fuel wood to local people but this will have very limited benefit. Indigenous Acacia natalitia trees that have been planted will also have limited use as firewood, and the undergrowth may provide some browse.

Another public relations ploy of the mining company has been to establish "community projects" that are supposed to help develop skills to enable local people to sustain themselves after the mining comes to an end. The training offered includes basic trades and agricultural activities, which may help to some extent but at the same time, traditional skills and knowledge have been lost. The intricate relationship between local people and the natural environment will have been replaced with the exploitative mindset of the multinational corporation that has dominated the local economy since mining began.

But then there will be nothing left to exploit.

By: Wally Menne, e-mail: plantnet@iafrica.com . Photos of the mining area are available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/SouthAfrica/global.html

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- Tanzania: World Bank supports Canadian mining plunder

In August 1996 the Tanzanian government authorities in collaboration with a Canadian-owned company called Kahama Mining Corporation Ltd. (KMCL), forcibly removed over 400,000 artisanal miners, peasant farmers, small traders and their families from their land in an area called Bulyanhulu in Shinyanga Region, central-western Tanzania. KMCL was then a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sutton Resources, based in Vancouver, Canada.

The removals were the culmination of a two-year struggle pitting the miners and the company over the control of gold deposits at Bulyanhulu. Within days of the operation to remove the miners, serious allegations emerged that over 50 artisanal miners were killed after they were buried alive in mineshafts when the authorities and company officials decided to backfill the shafts.

The Tanzanian government refused to investigate the alleged atrocities when they were reported. No compensation for loss of property or life was ever issued. Conversely, Tanzanian attorneys Tundu Lissu and Rugemeleza Nshala, of the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT), who spearheaded a campaign about the alleged killings, had faced charges of sedition for their advocacy on the grounds that they should provide evidence supporting allegations.

In March 1999, Barrick Gold Corporation, another Canadian mining giant acquired the Bulyanhulu deposits through its acquisition of Sutton Resources and its Tanzanian subsidiary. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the World Bank Group's political risk insurance arm, and Canada's Export Development Corporation (EDC) guaranteed the project, covering the investment against the risks of transfer restriction, expropriation, and war and civil disturbance.

Barrick Gold has since built an ultra-modern underground gold mine at Bulyanhulu, which was opened amid great fanfare by Tanzanian President Benjamin W. Mkapa in July 2001.

However, in a submission to the Extractive Industries Review of the World Bank, held in Maputo, Mozambique in January 13-17, 2003, the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team provides ample proof about the negative social, environmental and economic impacts of this mine (see internet address below). The submission summarizes its findings in this manner:

"The investment stands as a monument to the plunder of the natural resources of poor countries such as Tanzania by the multinational corporations of the rich industrial countries of the North; and the impoverishment and further marginalization of the mostly rural communities in mineral rich areas of Tanzania and elsewhere. It is a living testimony of the proposition that where multinational corporate interests are at stake, notions of rule of law, good governance and a respect for human rights take on a secondary importance to be swept aside whenever expedient. It provides the proof to the charge that the World Bank Group almost always acts against the interests of the vast majority of the poor and the marginalized groups of society. The Group cannot, therefore, live up to its poverty alleviation credentials while at the same time maintaining support for socially ruinous projects such as Bulyanhulu Gold Mine."

Article based on information from: "Robbing the Poor to Give to the Rich. Human Rights Abuses and Impoverishment at the MIGA-Backed Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, Tanzania", Submission to the Extractive Industries Review of the World Bank, Maputo, Mozambique, January 13-17, 2003, http://www.leat.or.tz/active/buly/eir.submission ; "Tanzanian Attorneys Face Charges of Sedition", Issued jointly with the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, U.S. Office EUGENE, Oregon, May 17, 2002, http://www.leat.or.tz/about/pr/2002.05.17.sedition.php , Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT), e-mail: leat@twiga.com