Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

40 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
Is Mining Coming to an End—As We Once
Knew It?
In 2008 it seemed that global mining prospects might
have been fatally wounded as a result of the gargantuan credit
meltdown, triggered by the downfall of U.S. investment bank,
Lehman Brothers, in September of that year.
As that annus horribilis ended, the minerals industry was
saddled with the most significant reduction in equity (share)
values in living memory. Extractive companies performed
worse that year than those in any other industrial sector represented
on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)—the single
most important source of big mining capital. 2
Virtually every mining enterprise listed on other stock exchanges
also experienced falls in their market capitalization,
while mineral commodities traded at lower prices or volumes
than at any time for 10 (and in some cases 20) years. The only
exceptions were gold and silver—the former apparently sustaining
its historical role as a “store of value” and “safe haven”
in hard times or during dramatic fluctuations in dollar exchange
rates. 3
During 2010, some measure of market stability appeared
to have returned. Even so, at the beginning of 2011, virtually
every major mining company on the planet was still suffering
the fallout from what Warren Buffet, then the world’s richest
man, had provocatively dubbed “the financial nuclear winter.”
The market value of Chinese extractive companies had fallen
the most: China’s huge Shenhua Coal and Chalco dived in
worth by around a third, while that of India’s NMDC (formerly
the National Mineral Development Corporation) collapsed
by just over 50 percent.
Even those most diversified of global mineral producers,
Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, saw their share prices dip by 2.9
percent and 3.6 percent, respectively. A raft of smaller enterprises
(so-called “Juniors”) and numerous mining projects, in
the meantime, hit the dust. 4