Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

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10 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries 7. Supply Contracts – These may create further issues, e.g., temptation to create incentives for customs and tax officials to speed import procedures. 8. Building Mine – May require full-scale relocation of community, clearance of large areas of vegetation, significant improvements to infrastructure. 9. Commissioning – Requires a surge in local labor and some of those are likely to be retained for the life of the mine. Issues relate to pay, conditions, contracts, training. 10. Production – Mining has become part of the local community. Issues relate to long-term benefits, community relations, eventually closure. 1.1.2 Environmental Impacts of Extractive Industries on Indigenous Peoples The major environmental impacts of extractive industries on indigenous peoples tend to fall into the following broad, and interlinked, areas: water and waste, air quality, health and livelihood. Water and waste: Large-scale mining uses huge quantities of water in its operations, for activities, which include inter alia ore separation, washing, dust suppression, slurry transportation, and waste disposal. Water can also be lost to use if it is pumped out of open-pits or mineshafts that are below the water table. Particularly in arid or semi-arid areas, indigenous peoples’ access to potable water can be a serious concern. On the ancestral lands of the Western Shoshone in Nevada, the US Geological Survey has found a decline in water tables by as much as 300 meters around some of the state’s largest openpit gold mines. 18 Such a drastic reduction in the water table is likely to lead to deterioration in the local soil quality, through salination. The processing of tar sands also uses huge amounts of water. The large-scale production in the forests of Alberta, which are home to a number of First Nation peoples, has

Chapter 1.1: Overview of Impacts of Extractive Industries on Indigenous Peoples 11 been described as “the most destructive project on Earth.” 19 The oil lies under boreal forests covering an area the size of England, with four barrels of water required to extract one barrel of oil. The extraction process contaminates the water, and creates enormous toxic tailing ponds. Warner Nazile, a member of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation complained: “It’s literally a toxic wasteland—bare ground and black ponds and lakes—tailing ponds—with an awful smell.” 20 People living below the High Andes and other mountain regions, are often heavily dependent on snow or gradual glacier melt, as opposed to rainfall, for their water. Mining activities in high mountains, such as that proposed by Barrick Gold in Pascua Lama, at the border of Chile and Argentina, are blamed for increasing the melting of glaciers and polluting vital water resources and extracting excessive quantities of water primarily for industry use to the detriment of local farmers. 21 In the case of the controversial San Cristóbal silver, lead and zinc mine in Potosí Province, Bolivia, the open-pit mine already uses 50,000 liters of water a day in a region where there is only an average 100 mm of precipitation annually. The mitigation provided by the company, partly owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, is not enough to compensate local indigenous communities, who primarily rely on llama farming, salt harvesting and the production of quinoa grain. Owing to the dramatic reduction of mine-affected springs in South West Potosí, indigenous communities now had to walk their lamas some 55 km for water. These concerns are growing with the proposed advent of large-scale lithium mining in the Salar de Uyuni salt-flats in the Potosí Department. 22 In another example, the Magadi Soda Company, Tata Chemicals, mines and processes soda from the environmentally-sensitive Lake Natron on Maasai lands in Kenya. Water use is estimated at 106,000 liters of fresh water per hour, which outstrips the needs of 40,000 livestock in all of Magadi division. Access to water is a major concern, with the community having become dependent on the company for a rationed water supply. 23 The volume of waste rock involved, its chemical composition and the addition of often toxic chemical separators frequently result in adverse affects on water quality, despite the

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