Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

60 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
Conclusion
It would be a rash analyst indeed who claimed they could
predict what shape the minerals industry will be in, at the
dawn of 2013. Will there be further mergers and acquisitions
in order to reduce operating costs and consolidate existing
leases?
Will the Chinese government fulfill its aim of reducing
excess metals-based consumer exports, and restrain parts of
its “over heated” domestic economy? And, is it remotely likely
that so many mineworkers around the world—laid on the
scrap heap in recent years—will be reemployed?
These are important issues, but not necessarily the most
urgent ones to address, especially if you are a poor farmer
living in a mineral-rich district, or belong to a community
where livelihoods are in grave jeopardy from a proposed
mine.
Undoubtedly, many communities will depend on income
from some type of mineral extraction, for some time to come.
Meanwhile, citizens of “mineral-dependent” states will certain
expand their struggles, either to overcome such dependency,
or squeeze much greater income from extractive enterprises,
before “all the wells run dry.”
But, if we have learned one lesson from the past four
year’s descent into financial chaos, it is surely this: never to
trust again those who promise us the world, when the very
lineaments of Our Earth have already been stretched to
breaking point.