AFRICA

• Chad/Cameroon: Impacts and broken promises of oil-pipeline project

• Madagascar: Rio Tinto mining project goes ahead... for the worst

• Sao Tome and Principe: Promises and dangers of oil wealth

• Senegal: Government limits mining as a means to protecting forests

LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

- Chad/Cameroon: Impacts and broken promises of oil-pipeline project

We have already reported extensively the pervasive environmental and social impacts that the Chad-Cameroon oil-pipeline is likely to have (see WRM Bulletins 66, 45, 41, 35, 14 and 2), but there's already a lot to be said of the present impacts of the three-year long World Bank-sponsored project to build a 670-mile pipeline. The pipeline will channel oil from fields in Chad, through thick rainforests inhabited by Pygmy people in Cameroon up to this country's shores at the Atlantic Ocean.

The consortium formed by ExxonMobil Corp and its partners ChevronTexaco Corp. and Petronas of Malaysia, came to the area with rosy promises of "development", employment and progress. However, most of the jobs have been temporary and lasted not more that a few weeks or months. Only some 400 Chadians will get regular low-paid jobs (as drivers, security guards and the like), while in Cameroon the figure would not surpass 100. Average wages for Chadians working on the pipeline reach $225 a month, much less than the income of foreign workers though three fold Chad's minimum wage. Now that the works --scheduled to be completed by July 2003-- are almost finished, the promises made about the pipeline's economic and social benefits seem elusive.

An article from Los Angeles Times journalist Ken Silverstein reported: "In Mpango, a village of about 600 people a few miles from the pipeline's end on the Atlantic coast of Cameroon, a bulletin board nailed to the wall of Chief Savah's mud-and-wattle hut offers jobs on the pipeline. But the chief, wearing the matching shorts and jersey of England's national soccer team, said only 10 residents were able to land jobs, all short-term. The consortium has promised to replace Mpango's one-room schoolhouse, a termite-damaged, tin-roofed building, to compensate the village for the loss of land to the pipeline and disruptions caused by construction, including pollution of a stream used for drinking water. 'The new school is badly needed, and that's what we'll remember most from the pipeline,' said Savah. 'There have been some positives and some negatives, but the changes have not been great. We thought this was going to be a development project, and that is not what has happened'.

Silverstein goes on to say that: the centerpiece of the consortium's social efforts is its compensation plan, which has paid $10 million to thousands of people in Chad and Cameroon. Anyone displaced by the pipeline, or whose farming is temporarily disrupted, is eligible. Recipients can take cash or select goods from a glossy catalogue of items that includes plows, carts, sewing machines, bicycles, water pumps, peanut de-hullers, mattresses, cooking pots and construction material. However, most of the compensation payments are spent to cover short-term needs.

The Pygmy living in Cameroonian rainforests have been also affected by the oil pipeline since it has disrupted their communities with negligible economic benefits on return. The referred article conveys the feelings of the Maboulo village's chief: "During construction of the pipeline, the chief said, small game fled deeper into the bush, communal fruit trees were cut down, and medicinal plants were lost. Only three men out of about 20 in the village got temporary work. The chief said the oil consortium sent representatives to Maboulo several times and has promised to build new housing as compensation. 'They have been making promises for two years, but we are still waiting,' he said. 'It's like a tree that dies and falls in the forest. You can wait and wait, but it will never rise again'."

Lately we are witnessing a sort of conjuring on the part of transnationals. It seems that now they are not profit-driven any more but go into business moved by their social commitment towards poor people. They claim to bring development projects -not business. They want to look nice.

But people are not deceived so easily. Oliver Mokum, of the Cameroonian offices of Catholic Relief Services, a U.S.-based organisation that is monitoring the pipeline, interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, acknowledges that "The consortium made all sorts of claims about this being a 'development project,' and how it would reduce poverty. In the end, this is just an oil project."

Article based on information from: "Pipeline's Profits May Bypass Africans", Ken Silverstein, June 17, 2003, Los Angeles Times, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0617-06.htm

top

Madagascar is widely recognised as one of the most ecologically rich countries in the world, hosting unique plant and animal species. However, dating from French colonisation, the export-led production pattern was introduced in the country. Logging of primary rainforests for use in railroad construction and timber exports, and major forest clearance of the most fertile areas for cash-crop plantations was carried out, throwing a mainly subsistence farming society into famine and scarcity (see WRM Bulletin 66).

Now, Madagascar is amidst the poorest countries. However, it would be wise that language reflects the truth: the Malagasy people are not poor but have been impoverished, as has happened with most of the southern peoples.

At present there are no foreign countries overtly holding reins of the government, but colonialism still has its clutch deeply rooted in the country's economy. The modern pirates have come to "save" the country: the IMF has paved the way (through liberalisation requirements conditioning credits) for the Anglo-Canadian mining giant Rio Tinto to implement a project in the island (see WRM bulletins 22, 54 and 55).

QIT Madagascar Minerals S.A., (QMM) a Malagasy company owned 80% by Rio Tinto and 20% by the State, began to carry out a feasibility study and in November 2001 was granted an environmental permit for the project. The proposed project will require that hundreds of millions of tonnes of soil over 6,000 hectares will be dredged to extract ilmenite, a mineral that is usually treated with sulfuric acid to obtain titanium dioxide which is used to make pigment, which, in turn, is used extensively for paint and plastics manufacture. It will mean carving an artificial lake in what is left of the woodland and moving it, at about a metre a day, while a machine sucks up the earth and another sifts the ilmenite. The mining could last 60 years.

Within the framework of the new "greenwash" push of transnationals, Rio Tinto is eagerly trying to prove the unprovable: that mining is sustainable for the environment and the people! But everybody knows (or should be aware of) the real aim of any business company: to make profits. According to The Handbook for Corporate Action, this project "forms a key part in maintaining Rio Tinto's future share of the titanium dioxide feedstock supply".

Madagascar's government has given the go-ahead and the company has spent US $ 41 million in anticipation of work starting in 2005. The election last year of Marc Ravalomanana brought to the presidential palace a young, self-made tycoon promising progress. A darling of the west, he is keen on Rio Tinto's proposed ilmenite mine, in the hope that it will generate jobs and funds for the exchequer. Marc Ravalomanana has recently met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on May at the US. Powell said Washington would support President Ravalomanana in his "efforts to institute political and economic reforms". The news a month later is of the World Bank granting $32 million International Development Association (IDA) credit to "help Madagascar manage its mineral resource more effectively".

Interviewed by a journalist from The Guardian, Serge Lachapelle, executive director of QIT, announced that: "We will keep going, no matter what". The warning came as the project has arisen strong opposition from environmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Conservation International, and WWF.

The company's "sustainable scheme" is that each of the three proposed mining sites would leave untouched a conservation area totalling 10% of the mined area. In addition, the company would restore another 10% of forest and in the remaining area plant fast-growing trees, such as eucalyptus, to provide charcoal and timber for local people. Rio Tinto hopes that it "will help create ecosystems from scratch." What took nature millennia could be restored with a recipe: save top soil from the dredger, plant 50% so-called pioneer trees which like the sun, followed later by 40% which like sun and shade, followed by 10% which like just shade. It just makes seem so easy to play God!

Friends of the Earth has already made a report where it concluded that the mining project would not be compatible with true sustainable development in southeast Madagascar, or for the country as a whole. During a decade and a half of intensive preparation and study, this supposedly "green" project, backed by an impressive array of global experts, has failed to prevent the escalating degradation of the environment which the company claims the mine will address and dramatically mitigate. Is this intentional? Is QMM/Rio Tinto deliberately holding back on initiation of conservation and restoration measures now, in order better to promote the idea that the mine project is indispensable to this purpose?, asks Friends of the Earth.

Also WWF will issue a report on the mine later this year. A member of the organisation living in Fort Dauphin, a town which will be affected by the mining project, said that the research stations shown to the Guardian amounted to a "dog and pony show". The conservation areas were too fragmented to be viable and would pressure certain species. Nor had the company thought about the potentially explosive conflict of placing at least 800 foreign labourers in a small town of 3,000 unemployed young men.

A tour of the surrounding villages yielded conflicting views: most people, barefoot and in rags, knew a mine was planned, but exactly where and when, and its likely impact were a mystery. "It will destroy traditional agriculture, no way," said Karae, head of Houtotmotre village. After conferring with other elders he added: "Though, with the drought we don't have any crops, so then again maybe we have nothing to lose." Albert Mahazoly, 45, was recently laid off from a sisal plantation which was just about the only way of making money in Ankitry village. Now his family were among those queuing up for sacks of maize from the World Food Programme. This was a humiliation Mr Mahazoly was not planning to tolerate for long. "I'm ready to go to the mine. I'll do whatever they ask me," he said. The possibility that his unskilled labour might not be wanted came as a shock. "But I'll do anything," he said. And so the circle is closed: deprived, impoverished and plundered.

Article based on information from: "Mining giant threatens to scar island paradise", Rory Carroll, The Guardian, June 23, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,982989,00.html ; "The case against QMM/Rio Tinto in Madagascar", Nostromo Research, London, November 12, 2001, report commissioned by Friends of the Earth, http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/foemadagascar2.htm ; QIT Madagascar Minerals Ilmenite Project, http://www.hatch.ca/Sustainable_Development/Projects/madagascar-qit_minerals_ilmenite_project.htm ; "Rio Tinto in Madagascar", Rio Tinto homepage, http://www.riotinto.com/news/showMediaRelease.asp?id=473 ; "Malagasy President Meets With Colin Powell", VOA 27.05.2003, http://www.madagasikara.de/2003/Mai/030527voara8usa.htm ; Madagascar: World Bank credit will help manage country's mineral resources, IRIN, http://www.africahome.com/annews/categories/economy/EpVFpukAyEkZvQmzvh.shtml#Author

top

Sao Tome and Principe is an archipelago covering 1001 km², a tropical paradise located in the oil rich Gulf of Guinea, approximately 300 km from the west coast of Africa. It is made up of the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, which are 150 km apart. The islands of the Sao Tome and Principe archipelago are of volcanic origin, with steep slopes clothed in dense and varied vegetation due to the high rainfall. The country gained its independence from Portugal in 1975.

Sao Tome and Principe is one of Africa's poorest countries, thanks to the plummeting of revenue from the cocoa industry and the break-up of the cocoa plantations, the mainstay of the islands' economy. Within that context, discovery of oil in this small country has raised both hope and fear in the former Portuguese colony.

Oil has been found in waters within the Gulf of Guinea. As there does not exist a bilateral agreement on the exact delimitation of the maritime borders between Nigeria and Sao Tome, both countries decided to exploit the limited part of the Gulf jointly.

In 2002, both governments signed an agreement to go ahead with the explorations and investments related to oil. They established a Joint Development Zone in waters between the giant experienced oil producer and the small state of Sao Tome. The two countries were to jointly explore and exploit the oil resources in the zone, with most of production controlled by Nigeria (already the biggest oil producer of Africa). Nigeria, having the infrastructure for offshore oil development, would receive a 60 percent of the revenues and 40 percent going to Sao Tome and Principe.

However, under the advise of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the Sao Tomean government asked to re-negotiate the deal shortly before it was going to be signed, on the grounds that it was disadvantageous. Nigeria reacted by cancelling the entire deal. Finally it seems that the differences have been re-negotiated and the deal re-established. It is said that the President "was thought to have benefited from the re-negotiations of oil contracts."

The twin islands of Sao Tome and Principe are believed to be sitting on about two billion barrels of crude oil. They have already attracted the attention of multinational oil companies as well as powerful countries like the United States and Nigeria. The United States are considering setting up a military base in Sao Tome, and there have been exchanges of visits between officials of the two countries.

Maria das Neves, Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe declared while opening an international conference on Africa's extractive industries: "We, in Sao Tome, will be very careful. We are not going to repeat the mistakes of other African nations where natural resources turned into a curse rather than a blessing for them". "We will be transparent as much as we can in our dealings and ensure that the people of Sao Tome directly benefit from their country's oil wealth," she said.

Raul, a political commentator in Sao Tome, added: "we have seen how such revenue from natural resources end up destroying other African states, so we will rather stay poor than being plunged into anarchy."

A look at neighbouring Nigeria is sufficient to conclude that in oil producing countries it is not the communities which benefit from this activity. On the contrary, the beneficiaries are tiny elites. Even worse, human rights violations, displacement of communities, environmental destruction, high levels of corruption, destabilization of democracy are among the "riches" that this fossil fuel generates for the vast majority of the population.

Unfortunately enough, the warnings contained in the above paragraphs were proven correct. Shortly after they had been written, a coup d'etat took place in Sao Tome. A military junta seized power in the island. The rebels declared a "junta of national salvation", saying the deposed leaders had no solution to the nation's problems and that they had acted in response to the "continuing social and economic decline of the country" and also denounced corruption in the government. According to declarations from experts to the BBC World, it is suspected that control of the oil money is behind the coup.

The bloodless coup has threatened the $200 million bidding round for nine oil blocks put on offer by the Sao Tome-Nigeria Joint Development Zone (JDZ) in May this year. Investors including Royal Dutch/Shell Company, ExxonMobil Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation, ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy Corporation among others, may have decided to watch the turn of events in the island nation before making any commitment to the bidding round.

On July 24th and as a result of concerted diplomatic efforts, democracy was restored, but for how long? Maria das Neves' warning that oil can be more a "curse rather than a blessing" and Raul's fears about being "plunged into anarchy" are now much clearer --and ominous-- than before.

Article based on information from: "Sao Tome and Principe: Oil raises hope and fear", by Lansana Fofana, Inter Press Service (IPS), 30. June 2003 ; http://www.equators-line.com/English/ST_informacao.htm ; Afrol News, http://www.afrol.com ; BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk ; AllAfrica , http://allafrica.com/saotomeandprincipe/

top

Senegal has announced it will not grant any new permits for quarrying and mining in the country's 233 forest conservation areas. The government of Abdoulaye Wade has said it will encourage companies already operating there to move out as part of efforts to reduce deforestation and protect the environment.

Environment Minister Modou Fada Diagne said that his department would begin talks soon with quarrying companies that already operate in the country's five million hectares of forest reserves and national parks with a view to moving them elsewhere. He added that the granting of all new mining and quarrying permits would be conditional on the approval of social and environmental impact studies and an undertaking by the firms involved to restore the environment to its original state once the extraction of minerals ceased.

The new policy is particularly aimed at reducing deforestation around the capital Dakar and the towns of Tambacounda, Louga, Thies and Kaolack. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Senegal lost over 45,000 hectares of forest between 1990 and 2000. According to environmental experts, the uncontrolled expansion of quarrying in Senegal has led to coastal erosion, a reduction in the area of available farmland and skin and lung problems for people who live nearby. However, President Abdoulaye Wade has not granted any new mining or quarrying permits within Senegal's forest reserves since he was elected three years ago.

It is hoped that the stance of President Abdoulaye Wade and his Environment Minister Modou Fada Diagne encourage other African leaders to follow suit and struggle to not let their countries bleed to death. The so called African "conflicts", who actually are outright wars with hundreds of thousands of people killed, in most cases are triggered and fuelled by mining interests, where in many cases foreign corporations play a leading role.

Excerpted from "Government bans quarrying in conservation areas", 14 July, IRIN , sent by ECOTERRA International, Nairobi Node, e-mail: NATURAL_FORESTS@ecoterra.net