Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 1.1: Overview of Impacts of Extractive Industries on Indigenous Peoples
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creating the phenomenon known as Acid Mine Drainage
(AMD). The ongoing legacy issues can be cumulatively huge,
with noted problems in historical coal and gold mining areas
in the USA. They are particularly acute in South Africa, where
according to a recent study AMD from nearly 6,000 abandoned
mines is acidifying rivers and streams, raising metals
levels and killing fish. 27 Another recent study from Canada
stresses how in one case a more modern mine may have a
mine closure plan to deal with waste for up to 50 years, but
actually the effects are likely to be felt over tens of thousands
of years. 28
Upon reaching the sea, mine wastes can cause bleaching
and killing of corals by contact with mine chemicals even in diluted
form, smothering of corals by silt resulting in the death
and migration of fish. Dumping waste into the sea has caused
pluming: the release of fine particles into the ocean that choke
and drive away sea life and spreads, blanketing large areas
of the sea floor. This has recently caused great controversy,
for instance, around the Newmont Minahasa Raya gold mine,
which dumped 2,000 tons per day of wastes into the tropical,
coral-rich waters of Buyat Bay, Indonesia. Concerns have also
been raised, and court action taken, on the plans for dumping
waste from the Ramu mine in Papua New Guinea. 29
Air quality: Mining and ore processing often generate
high levels of dust. This dust may contain toxic chemical particles,
which potentially contaminate the atmosphere around
a mine. Unless monitored and controlled the emissions from
mining activities and processes may threaten the health and
well-being of peoples and the environment.
Dust from mining and particulates from related vehicles
create health, cleanliness and agricultural problems for
nearby communities. In China, an ethnic Mongolian herder
was shot dead in a protest in 2011 against the dust created by
the coal trucks near his village, while in Pachuwara in India
locals agriculture has been so blighted by coal dust that they
have been forced to steal coal from the trucks to survive. 30
The original Maranao communities, whose land was
taken for the limestone quarrying and cement manufacture