Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

166 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
the North Province with an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons of
nickel in ferronickel.
The subsequent 1998 Noumea Accord, as well as creating a new
political environment, also provided for a new mining law, a new mineral
resource exploitation plan and a environment law for each province. In
2000, France transferred responsibility over mining to the provinces;
the president of the provincial government was given responsibility for
applying the regulations.
There are new projects planned. Vale-Inco are developing the ambitious
Goro Nickel project in the Southern Province of Grande Terre, which
met stiff resistance from the Kanak indigenous population after being
initially ignored (see case study in Chapter 2.4). Today, although most
of the nickel ore is currently shipped overseas as unrefined ore, new
developments plan to export more finished product to the growing metal
markets in East Asia. SLN-ERAMET is upgrading it Doniambo smelter to
meet this challenge. Also, in 2006 Falconbridge was taken over by the
Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata. There are still local concerns for what this may
mean for the project.
But the current financial and economic crisis may yet reverse the past
decade’s economic growth. If that is true, then the next self-determination
referendum may be affected. Even in the recent years of a booming
mining industry, however, France still subsidizes the New Caledonian
economy. It needs courage to stop this in order to build an independent
economy founded on real facts, which may well see more processing and
industrialization.
Indigenous Rights Flouted
Are direct foreign interests in New Caledonia compatible with the notion
of respect for indigenous rights? The answer would have to be no, with
regard to problems with Inco’s Goro Nickel Project, and with regard to
SLN attitude’s towards the Kanak people.
In 2000, when France transferred responsibility for mining to the
provinces, it perhaps thought that each provincial government would take
indigenous rights into account, as stipulated in the Noumea Accord. This
would mean that the principle of free, prior and informed consent would be
applied. So far ERAMET-SLN and Goro-Nickel SA, and the President of
the Southern Province, remain deaf to this message and show contempt
for indigenous peoples’ rights.