Ecuador: Extractivism in the midst of an Economic and Sanitary crisis – COVID-19

Ecuador: Extractivism in the midst of an Economic and Sanitary crisis (COVID-19)

Author: Kim Baert

Ecuador is one of the most affected countries in Latin America by COVID-19, after Brazil and Peru. At the time of writing (14 May 2020) the official figures show 30,502 confirmed cases and 2,338 deaths. These numbers are questioned from different angles, because they probably do not represent reality. Ecuador, but also other countries in Latin America, have a huge backlog in testing large parts of the population for the virus, and the death toll is expected to be much higher than indicated.

The epicentre of the epidemic in Ecuador is located in the harbour city of Guayaquil, the second-largest city in Ecuador. At the end of March, the first images appeared of corpses wrapped in plastic and left behind in streets and rubbish bins as well as images showing cardboard boxes used to store the bodies. These shocking images were shared all around the world. In March, the city counted more than 70% of all confirmed cases in the country, a number that has since fallen to 55%. Quito, the capital city (province of Pichincha) is the region hardest hit after Guayaquil, but like other parts of Ecuador has been spared of similar disaster scenarios.

ecuadorpost2 — Photo: Streets in Guayaquil and cardboard boxes, April 2020 (Photo © Ivan Castaneira)

Sanitary emergency plan vs. economic malaise

President Lenin Moreno came under heavy pressure. Numerous organisations and members of the civil society wondered how the government would deal with this health crisis. After all, COVID-19 is a major challenge for a country that is already in an economic and political crisis. The towering external debt and falling oil prices place Ecuador in a particularly vulnerable position.

The huge external debt and a scheduled repayment in March 2020 led to a petition from civil society and the Ecuadorian parliament to postpone the debt repayment to be able to spend more resources on the health system. The Ecuadorian government did repay $325 million on 24 March 2020. The most important creditors are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and China. This repayment caused a lot of criticism in Ecuador because it made clear to many that the current Moreno government does not consider the health of its citizens a priority. After several negotiations between Ecuador and the creditors, other debt repayments were put on hold. Additionally, emergency financial assistance was requested from the IMF to deal with the current health crisis.

The falling oil price caused additional damage to an already fragile national economy, which is mainly dependent on oil exports. The sector has suffered quite some losses in recent months. The corona crisis, the falling demand for oil, and the subsequent conflict between Saudi Arabia and Russia, led to a fall in the global oil price and dealt a severe blow to all oil exporting countries, including Ecuador.

Moreover, the further course of the corona crisis has led to an historic event. On 20 April 2020, the oil price of the American WTI (West Texas Intermediate) fell to as much as – $37 per barrel, a price well below zero. The WTI serves as a benchmark for the oil price in Ecuador, where the same trend occurred. This negative price can be explained by a low demand for oil products and the lack of storage space to store the oil barrels.

ecuadorpost1 — Photo: The Corona Epidemic in Guayaquil © Ivan Castaneira

Oil spill in the Ecuadorian Amazon

On top of the crash in oil prices, the oil industry suffered another heavy blow with a major ecological impact. On 7 April 2020 – in the midst of the corona crisis – an oil spill caused serious damage to the northern Amazon of Ecuador, more specifically on the border between the provinces of Napo and Sucumbios.

The cause of the leak was the rupture of several oil pipelines, including the SOTE (Sistema de Oleoducto Transecuatoriano), OCP (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados) and Poliducto Shushufindi-Quito. The rupture occurred because of erosion in the river Coca causing landslides and damaging the pipes.

The companies Petroecuador and OCP immediately announced the suspension of oil production. Now, a month later, they are increasing the production rates again even though no clear measures have yet been taken to remedy the social and ecological damage caused by the leak.

ecuadorpost3 — Photo: Oil spill in the northern provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon (photo: campaign #DerrameCrudoAmazonía)

The region, where the oil spill occurred, is considered a high-risk zone. Already during the construction of the oil pipelines, environmental organisations such as Acción Ecológica and experts in geology had warned about the possible adverse ecological and social consequences. Indeed, the oil spill is considered a huge risk as its course is passing the active volcano Reventador as well as three protected national parks (Cayambe Coca, Sumaco Napo Gelaras and Yasuni). The social impact of the rupture is also significant: the spill’s course crosses populated centres and pollutes not only the Coca river but also its tributaries, leaving more than 35,000 people without clean water. A disaster that has become all the more critical during the COVID-19 crisis.

Mining in times of Corona

In response to the current economic and sanitary crisis, the Ecuadorian mining sector has put itself in the spotlight as the only salvation from this precarious situation. Compared to the long history of the oil sector, mining is a relatively new industry in Ecuador, although it has a similar social and environmental impact.

The government took fairly strict measures to protect public health from COVID-19 in mid-March, but they appear not to apply to everyone. The mining companies operating in Ecuador indicated that they would temporarily suspend their activities because of the COVID-19 outbreak. In practice, however, operations continued.

Moreover, the mining sector abused the quarantine measures in order to put material for further exploration and exploitation on their sites. This happened at various locations in the country. In the province of Pichincha and more specifically in the Pacto region (DMQ), a mining company used the emergency situation on 16 March to install new machinery. These developments would not have been possible under normal circumstances, due to resistance from the local population.

ecuadorpost4 — Photo: Installation of mining machinery during the first Corona measures in Pacto, located in the north-east of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ), known for its great biodiversity (Photo: campaign #QUITOsinMINERÍA).

The mining and oil industries are considered strategic sectors in Ecuador and have therefore been given a ‘carte blanche’ to continue their operations. This provoked a lot of criticism because this way mining companies are putting local and indigenous communities at risk. According to MiningWatch Canada, mining camps pose a major risk to the further spread of the coronavirus, despite current measures. Moreover, the regions where mining takes place are often remote from adequate medical facilities and there is less access to safe drinking water. For example, the indigenous Shuar community, located in the southern provinces of Ecuador (Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe), reported that the presence of mining companies puts them in a very vulnerable position.

The two largest mining projects in the country, Fruta del Norte (gold mining) and El Mirador (copper mining), which officially started the excavation and production of gold and copper in 2019, have reduced their number of employees on-site by more than half. Local authorities in the province of Zamora Chinchipe, where the projects are located, had called for a temporary suspension of production in order to reduce transport and relocation in and out of the site. El Mirador responded to this call and in the meantime decided to focus on building a second tailings dam (‘Tundayme’) to store chemical waste. Once the corona measures are lifted, El Mirador will again increase its production to full capacity.

ecuadorpost5 — Photo: 'El Mirador' project and the tailings dam 'Quimi' (right side of the picture), the second tailings dam 'Tundayme' is currently under construction (photo CATAPA vzw).

The recent collapse of the oil industry in Ecuador raises questions about the dependency on crude materials and the rigid adherence to non-renewable and finite energy sources. There are also concerns among environmental organisations about the rapid rise of the mining sector, which promises to lead the nation out of the crisis, but which, like the oil industry, is causing enormous damage to local communities and the environment. In the past decades, Ecuador has suffered enormous impacts because of its dependence on the extractive industry, a reality that has been confirmed once again by the current economic and sanitary crisis.

Read more about how the COVID-19 health crisis is affecting Peru, from the first Ten days of quarantine till the current situation in the Peruvian Amazon.

Towards a fairer ICT supply chain – Bolivia’s Case

Towards a fairer ICT supply chain

Research and fact-finding mission in Oruro, Bolivia in the context of the project ‘Make ICT Fair’

Executive report also available in Spanish, Dutch and French.

Executive report

With literature on metal supply chains beyond trade being very limited, CATAPA’s investigation on polymetal mining in Bolivia aimed at unraveling the subnational, national and transnational actors and processes involved in mining activities. Field research was carried out in the department of Oruro, Bolivia. The fact-finding mission provides elements to assess the local implications of the global ICT industry. This helps to shape a specific meaning of what “Making ICT Fair” would mean in each part of the supply chain by providing a framework to determine labour, community, environmental and legal issues involved in this targeted context.

In Oruro (Bolivia), the supply chain for tin, silver, lead and zinc – metals that are (amongst others) required by the electronics industry for the production of its devices – involves multiple actors. Before export, minerals here are extracted mainly by mining cooperatives (beside state mines and large and small-scale private mines) and sold to local trading companies, that are therefore the first suppliers within the international supply chain of these metals. Ore minerals are then concentrated. Tin is smelted by one of the two industrial smelters located in Oruro and then exported, mostly to the USA and The Netherlands. Silver, lead and zinc concentrates are directly exported to metallurgical plants in Asia (South Korea, China and Japan) and Europe (Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain).

Investigations were conducted from extraction, processing and smelting to export. Case studies provide concrete examples of six mining cooperatives, some local suppliers, the state smelter and the main international traders active in the area. This research revealed the consequences of the lack of mandatory social and environmental quality standards that could be imposed at the relevant scales to the companies when buying these metals; and the absence of traceability criteria that could create a link between the different actors and therefore a possible “social responsibility” of the buyers towards the local actors.

Mural painting on the walls of a former tin smelter in Oruro (Bolivia) © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Assessing the implications of mining in Oruro:

The fact-finding mission aimed at collecting data on the impacts of mining in different stages of the supply chain.

Poor health and safety conditions in the mines

The specificity of Oruro relates to the major role played by small-scale cooperatives in Bolivia’s local mining economy, as this type of mining involves a large amount of the region’s workforce. These cooperatives are indeed a system of “self exploitation” as they don’t have direct contact with the companies that are buying their minerals. If the cooperative framework implies a certain freedom for the workers (who are supposed to be associates of the cooperatives), it also leads to operations being conducted in a very traditional way, i.e often still relying on manual work, despite a relative increase in mechanization the last decenia.

At the extraction stage, cooperative workers are subjected to irresponsible safety and health conditions, the most significant being the limited protection with respirators, which leads to a number of cases of silicosis (also known as the miners’ disease, caused by silica dust in the lungs).

Cooperative miners working in the areas of the concentration process are impacted by the uncontrolled and careless use of toxic substances such as xanthate, cyanide and kerosene, which cause direct irritation of the eyes but also long-term effects for the nervous system and internal organs. Health and skin disorders are caused by working in direct contact with acids and heavy metals as well as excessive exposure to sun and dust.

Another major problem within local mining activities is the lack of long-term planning. As miners expand their mining explorations, the lack of information available can lead to dangerous situations whereby an area is accessed that had previously been marked as a “no-go-zone”.

Mining bin for load next to Morococala's mine entrance (Oruro, Bolivia) © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Endangering food sovereignty and biodiverse ecosystems

Despite the laws for the protection of “Mother Earth” in Bolivia and the requirement (in most cases) of acquiring an environmental license prior to conducting mining extractions, all mining activities imply large environmental damages. The main impacts are mine byproducts like acid water, the mining waste dumped into open air and the discharge of the chemicals used in the concentration processes (a pH of 3 or lower is common for the water flows around mining areas).

The mining exploitations have a serious impact on agriculture nearby and downstream. The environmental consequences often force farmers to become miners since their lands are too contaminated. It is hard to calculate all the impacts on the ecosystems stemming from the many mining sites and it is just as hard to remediate.

Women in a particularly precarious situation

Women in cooperative mining in Oruro are mostly elderly widows, having lost their husbands in mining or related activities, or single mothers with children. Their access to the cooperative membership is restricted because women are traditionally believed to bring bad luck inside the mines. Thus, they mainly work outside smashing discarded rocks or in other areas with less income possibilities.

The miners’ income depends on luck – either they find metal-rich minerals or they don’t. In the selling process, women are particularly tricked and paid an unfair price. Many women work informally, even outside the cooperative framework. They do not have health insurance or a pension fund. They are generally the main caregivers of their families, hence, women almost always carry the double burden of productive and reproductive work.

Woman leaching tin from waste rock in Machacamarca (Oruro, Bolivia). © Isabella Szukits _ Südwind (1)-min — Woman leaching tin from waste rock in Machacamarca (Oruro, Bolivia) © Isabella Szukits / Südwind

Consequences for the generations to come

The environmental degradation caused by mining activities has an impact on agricultural activities, making it impossible in many areas to grow crops, raise cattle or fish. This has led to the migration of farming communities towards mining sites and cities.

The lack of capital in this cooperative model makes it difficult to sustainably manage the mining activities. The short-term perspective creates uncertainty regarding the incomes of the miners, especially in periods of low prices, but also due to the finiteness of the ore they extract.

Due to low metal prices, cooperatives may have difficulties investing in improving productivity of the mine through machinery, engineering and exploration for future ore veins. International commodity trading companies benefit from their oligarchic position by using strategies to unfairly reduce the price of minerals at the origin, a strategy which directly impacts the cooperatives – the weakest link of the chain in international trade. The cooperatives face losses as a result.

Main street of Japo (Oruro, Bolivia) © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Make ICT Fair in Oruro: a multi-scale framework

Complex situation for Bolivia to respect the human rights at stake

The investigations in Oruro have shown that there is a need to raise awareness on human rights violations in mining areas at State level in order to call for an improvement of their conditions. This is necessary to provide resources and controlling personnel in order to guarantee the enforcement of laws regarding the protection of “Mother Earth” and the different environmental regulations, but also for the monitoring of human rights regarding social, labour and safety standards.

Bolivia has ratified different international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which obliges States to provide “just and favorable conditions of work” (Article 23) as well as “the right of everyone to a standard of living that is adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family (…) and the right to provisions in the event of unemployment in circumstances beyond his control” (Article 25 § 1).

The 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) obliges States to guarantee “safe and healthy working conditions” (Article 7 ii b) as well as the “highest attainable standard of health” (Article 12 i).

The American Convention on Human Rights (also known as the Pact of San José) also provides protection for Bolivian miners, which foresees the right of “Just, equitable and satisfactory conditions of work” (Article 7) and “the right to health” (Article 10).

Acid water outlet on surface from Japo's galleries (Oruro, Bolivia) © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Need for monitored fair and responsible criteria in the international trade

The international trade of Oruro’s zinc-silver-lead concentrates is dominated by a small group of international companies importing and reselling or smelting these minerals: Korea Zinc, Trafigura and Glencore. Even if these companies are not legally bound by the human rights treaties mentioned above, they are the core stakeholders within the chain and are responsible for these violations through a controlled fulfillment of the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains.

Tracing the supply chain aims at shaping a more responsible framework for the relations between the global companies and their different suppliers, as part of a growing call for social responsibility of transnational corporations. This would mean, regarding the ICT supply chain, that extracted minerals which fail to meet minimal social and environmental standards can not be traded on the international market anymore.

The OECD Guide Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas specifically defines “Due Diligence” as an “on-going, proactive and reactive process through with companies can ensure that they respect human rights and help them ensure they observe international law”.

“Risks” are defined in relation to the potentially adverse impacts of a company’s operations, which result from the company’s own activity or its relationships with third parties, including suppliers and other entities in the supply chain. This very broad scope considers that International trading companies are bound to respect this due diligence obligation towards all parties involved in the supply chain, including the mining cooperatives.

Tin smelter Empresa Metalúrgica Vinto (Oruro, Bolivia) © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Call for international action

Making ICT fair would require that the international metal trading companies in Oruro follow the different steps of due diligence as requested in the Guide:

Identify the factual circumstances involved in the extraction, transport, handling, trading, processing, smelting, refining and alloying and manufacturing of products.
Identify and assess any actual or potential risks by evaluating the factual circumstances against standards set out in the company’s supply chain.
Prevent or mitigate the identified risks by adopting and implementing a risk management plan, which may result in a decision to continue trade throughout the course of risk mitigation efforts, temporarily suspend trade while pursuing ongoing risk mitigation, or disengage with a supplier either after failed attempts at mitigation or where the company deems mitigation not feasible or the risks unacceptable.

In order to achieve satisfactory results for the local actors, the different stakeholders in the supply chain should become partners in a new monitored framework, where public institutions must have a role to push and control the different initiatives.

Assessed cooperatives as well as local suppliers showed clear interests in a monitored system aiming to improve the management of the supply chain, which is a starting point to be optimistic about the development of a fair and responsible ICT sector, which would need to include:

Set up a fair price for the metals based on a fair minimum wage for the miners, not on the production costs of the smelters companies.
Enforcement of the national laws as well as the international standards regarding environmental management in order to avoid – at least- further infiltration of the heavy metals into the soil.
Investment in local multi-stakeholder frameworks to support local alternatives to mining in order to revitalize and diversify the damaged local economies.
Invest in training and monitoring capacities of the local workers.

Read the full report below.

Covid-19 in the Peruvian Amazon: Challenges for the most vulnerable communities of Loreto

Author: Mirna Fernández

If there is one thing which the Covid-19-outbreak has brought to the surface in a very clear way, it is the existing global inequalities. To which extent communities are able to withstand the crisis, depends a lot of their access to healthcare, sanitation and food systems.

The reality in the region of Loreto, located in the Peruvian Amazon, shows that this pandemic and its socioeconomic implications will pose severe threats to some of its most vulnerable communities.

An already collapsed Health Care System

When the first positive cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Loreto, the hospitals were already close to collapsing. The Peruvian Health Minister, Victor Zamora, announced that Loreto was facing two “big problems” at the same time: Coronavirus and Dengue.

Before the arrival of Covid-19 the region of Loreto was victim of one of the worst episodes of a dengue epidemic in the history of the region. According to the National Center for Epidemiology, Prevention and Control of Diseases (CNE), only in the first 3 months of 2020, the number of cases of dengue in Peru reached 8 times the amount of cases compared to the same period last year. Loreto has reported the biggest number of cases, with 3,925 in total, which is 31 times higher than the same period last year. This was already a heavy burden for the weak regional health care system. In the hospitals, few beds were available for the many patients that needed to be covered by mosquito nets to prevent the spread of the disease to other patients in the hospitals.

Loreto Peru COVID19 — Patients with dengue with mosquito nets to avoid the spread of the disease. Photo © DIRESA Loreto

The Covid-19 outbreak disrupted Loreto, as the region doesn’t have enough beds ready to use in Intensive Care Units (ICU). The Regional Hospital of Loreto – the biggest and most equipped hospital of Loreto – has only 12 ICU beds for Covid-19 patients, of which 10 are already in use. The other hospitals in the region all together have only 9 extra ICU beds and all of them are in use already by non Covid-19 patients. This should cover a population of 884 000 inhabitants. Belgium, in comparison, has a population of 11.46 million inhabitants and 1864 ICU beds, of which 785 remain free for future patients needing Intensive Care. The fact that only 2 ICU beds remain free for the whole region of Loreto is a hard reality check.

While the pandemic is spreading in the region, everyday we hear reports from health personnel dropping out due to a lack of protective equipment. A hospital called ESSALUD had to close temporarily when 4 health workers were tested positive, and improvised health centres had to be put in place to continue the medical attention for its patients. The president of the Medical Federation of Loreto, María Huilca Chambi, pointed out the lack of biosecurity for the personnel taking the samples for Covid-19 testing. “We are putting our lives at risk”, she said.

Loreto is currently the region with the fourth highest amount of most positive cases in Peru, with 619 to date. This is the result of 2876 tests performed in the region since the beginning of the outbreak, according to the official government data. There is an obvious lack of tests, labs and equipment for the personnel’s health, which did not improve much since the beginning of the outbreak. This raises questions about the credibility and transparency of the local authorities.

Increasing food prices

Loreto does not have a diversified agricultural production, due to the hard conditions that the Amazon ecosystem poses on peasants. With mainly poor, infertile soil where crops are often suffering from erosion due to heavy rains and from different plagues, only a limited variety of crops can survive. Therefore, the region needs to import massive amounts of food, especially vegetables, from other regions of Peru.

The transportation of imported food is especially complicated for Loreto. Its main city, Iquitos, which has about one million inhabitants, is the only major city in Peru that is not accessible by road. The imported food from other regions needs to arrive either by air or by ground transportation until Yurimaguas, and from there by boat for more than 3 days. The regional food supplies reach Iquitos by boat, coming from local communities settled on the river sides.

Family agriculture produces 70% of the food supplies that are consumed in Peru. In many cases, this means that the surplus food production of small families is sent to other regions by means of passengers’ transport, which is now prohibited by the State of Emergency. The cargo transport of food supplies is allowed, and people working in the food supply sector are officially allowed to pass by regularly. However, to obtain the necessary permits with the National Police, you would need to provide certain certifications that many small producers don’t have.

Therefore, if prices of basic food in the region have increased, it is directly linked with the State of Emergency declared by the government of Peru and its transport restrictions. Basic fresh food items like eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas and onions have doubled in price since the beginning of the lockdown.

Speculation is another cause of increasing food prices. There was a wave of panic among the inhabitants of the country, especially during the first days of the lockdown, so the markets and stores were wiped out of some products. The resulting demand in turn increases the prices. While the Peruvian government is trying to send positive messages to the population ensuring that there will not be a shortage of food supplies, the outcome is nonetheless that the prices of some products might take a while to stabilize after the panic-buying.

There are also very strict and inconvenient rules put in place during the State of Emergency regarding groceries shopping. In Iquitos, markets start business around 5 am and the police force the vendors to start closing by 9:30 am. The result is a major assembly of people trying to buy their food in the very early hours of the morning, which absolutely poses more risks for mass contagion.

Threats to Indigenous Peoples and Native Communities

There is no national action plan for Covid-19 focused on Indigenous Peoples, despite the demands from the largest national indigenous organization, Aidesep, and the regional organization of indigenous federations, Orpio. They demand the participation of indigenous peoples’ representatives in the planning and implementation of measures to avoid scenarios of mass contagion in the indigenous communities.

Indigenous peoples’ organizations from Loreto such as Fediquep, Feconacor, Opikafpe and Acodecospat have proposed sanitation protocols to be urgently implemented, but they are still waiting for a response from the government. Loreto compasses more than 24% of the Amazon indigenous population in Peru according to the latest national census. It is the region with the most indigenous communities in the country, which count about 1200. But in most of these communities, health posts have a shortage of supplies, even more so during this sanitary crisis.

There is only one lab in the region that can process the Covid-19 molecular tests: it is located in Iquitos. The Regional Health Director, Percy Minaya León, mentioned that his main concern is the population in remote areas and close to international borders, which includes indigenous and native communities. In these areas, the health care personnel that takes samples for example in Santa Rosa o Caballococha (near the borders with Colombia and Brasil), must travel by boat on the Amazon river for more than 12 hours and then go back to the lab in Iquitos with the samples for testing. There are not enough tests, nor enough personnel to cover these areas appropriately in terms of Covid-19 testing.

Out of fear of getting infected by the virus, several native communities took the decision to block all entrances to their territories in order to isolate themselves. They prefer not to receive any donation rather than exposing themselves to possible infection. However, not everybody is respecting their decision. There are unscrupulous merchants, hostile public officials, rapporteurs, illegal loggers and miners, uninformed military and police, and other outsiders who do not understand that their decision falls within their right to self-determination and is valid and well-founded.

There are many basic needs which lack coverage for indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon, now representing major obstacles for their wellbeing during this health crisis. According to the census for native communities conducted in 2017, only 9,8% of the indigenous population in the Amazon has access to the Internet, where they could consult the most recent prevention and protection measures. Moreover, only 25,8% of these communities have access to a public drinking water system, complicating washing hands to prevent infections.

To overcome this crisis, the national and regional governments have a huge amount of work to do, especially in these remote areas, to avoid the worst-case scenarios, in which the most vulnerable communities become infected on large scale. After the crisis it will be necessary to evaluate to which extent the government failed to meet the needs of the indigenous population during this pandemic.

You can also read more about the COVID-19 situation in Peru in our other blog post Caning, arrests and social issues: Ten days of quarantine in Peru.

Open MinEd – International Speakers Tour 2020

Open MinEd 2020:

The extraction of life, gold and oil

We again reached a record. The amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100 billion tonnes every year*. At the same time the percentage of materials recycled is lower than the years before. In short, we are overconsuming. To satisfy our increasing demand of goods companies look for the lowest production cost, which means bad labor conditions and the generation and accumulation of tons of waste only to get the highest amount of profit. Let’s think together about solutions before there are no resources left!

During the 11th edition of CATAPA’s Open MinEd international speakers tour we focus on the impacts of our constant demand for products and the resources we need to produce them. We will zoom on workers in China, producing our electronic devices in awful labor conditions. We will go to Colombia where everything starts with the extraction of gold, a basic resource in all our ICT products, creates all kinds of problems for communities. And lastly, we put the ecological and social consequences in the spotlight of one of our most important resources: oil. During the diverse events of the speakers tour we will look for answers, search for alternatives to our current way of producing and consuming, highlighting fair initiatives and inspiring movements.

We are glad to host three speakers, witnesses of exploitation and struggle, who are fighting for a just world:

– Lap Hang Au is a member of the Labour Education and Service Network in Hong Kong. He will talk about the workers’ conditions in ICT factories in China and he has specific expertise in the impact of lithium-ion batteries used for electric cars. These are considered fundamental for the Green Transition.

– Antonella Calle Avilés is an Ecuadorian feminist and ecologist. She is active in our partner organization, Acción Ecológica, an environmental organization engaged in campaigns on the impacts of extraction. For years, Antonella has been an environmental rights defender and, at the moment, she is mainly focused on the oil extraction project in Yasuní national park, one of the most biodiverse places on earth.

– Yefferson Rojas Arango is the co-founder of our partner organization COSAJUCA in Colombia. It’s a youth collective successfully fought against a huge open pit-gold project called ‘La Colosa’. Now the collective and Yefferson are focusing on alternatives to mining in the region, such as organic farming. He is particularly interested in agro ecology and medicinal plants.

From 8 – 15 March our international guest speakers will participate in events and lectures in different cities and universities of Belgium, telling their stories and sharing their knowledge.

AGENDA

THURSDAY 5th March

Evening tbc | Opening exhibition: Activism and feminism | ES, NL
@Antwerp – Mundana, Paardenmarkt 74

SUNDAY 8th March

9:30 – 11:30h | ANTONELLA | Ontbijt met een Rebel (Belmundo) | NL
@Ghent – Bond Moyson, Vrijdagmarkt 10 (take the entrance through the door in the street ‘Meerseniersstraat’)

MONDAY 9th March

20h | ANTONELLA | GEC Talks (Belmundo) | NL
@Ghent – Lekker GEC, Koningin Maria Hendrikaplein 6

14:30 – 17h | ANTONELLA | Guest lecture | EN
@Ghent – Universiteitstraat 4, auditorium B

16 – 17:30h | AU | Guest lecture | EN
@Heverlee (Leuven) – KU Leuven Celestijnenlaan 200C-01.06 (aula D) (Campus Heverlee)

8:30 – 9:45h |YEFFERSON | Guest lecture | ES
@Gent – UGent, Abdisstraat 1, auditorium A410

13 – 14:30h | YEFFERSON | Guest lecture | NL
@Gent – Campus aula, universiteitsstraat 4, auditorium D (straatkant, vlak aan kalandeberg)

TUESDAY 10th March

11 – 12h |AU | Webinar from Fair ICT Flanders: Labour conditions in Battery factories in China | ES
@Online

14 – 15:30h | AU | Guest lecture | EN
@VIVES Brugge

18 – 19:30h | AU | Guest lecture | EN
@Gent – address + auditorium to be confirmed

20h | ANTONELLA | Cinema Belmundo, movie screening of By the name of Tania | NL
@Gent – Studio Skoop, Sint-Annaplein 63.

WEDNESDAY 11th March

12:30 – 13:50 | YEFFERSON | Spanish Class | ES
@Antwerp – Universiteit Antwerpen Stadscampus – auditorium tbc

THURSDAY 12th March

9 – 10:30 | YEFFERSON | Guest lecture | EN
@Leuven – KULeuven HIVA Parkstraat 47

13 – 17h | AU | Conference: “Green Transition Challenged by the Metal Supply Chain” | EN
@Flemish Parliament, Brussels https://kuleuven.sim2.be/registration-for-green-transition-challenged-by-the-metal-supply-chain/

FRIDAY 13th March

14:30 – 17:15h | ANTONELLA | Guest lecture: Political issues of sustainability: ecology, justice and North-South relations. The case of mining | NL
@Ghent – UGent, Universiteitsstraat 4, auditorium tbc

10:45 – 12:15h | AU | Guest lecture: Car technology & automotive engineering | EN
@Sint-Katelijn-Waver- KU Leuven Technology Campus De Nayer, Jan Pieter de Nayerlaan 5, ROOM A002

Evening tbc | ANTONELLA & YEFFERSON | Fun(d)raising concert |NL, ES, EN
@Gent – to be confirmed

SATURDAY 14th March

17:30 | ANTONELLA & YEFFERSON | Benefit Dinner Ecuador – Colombia | NL
@Gent – Louisaal (Buurtcentrum Macharius), Tarbotstraat 61A.

SUNDAY 15th March

Morning tbc | YEFFERSON | Brunch with Farmers |
@Brussels – address to be confirmed

Facebook event

*The Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative: a global score for circularity

8th - 15th of March Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Leuven

Lithium exploitation is drying out the world’s driest desert

*This article is a summary of a longer investigation project from Danwatch, published in collaboration with CATAPA and SETEM. More information at the end of the article.

The Acatama Desert in Chile, the world’s driest desert, is gradually losing its last water resources. Indigenous communities have been sounding the alarm for several years and are now being strengthened by scientific research and environmental organisations. Cause of this dehydration? Lithium mining.

Lithium is essential for the batteries in our phones, our computers and the explosive increase in the number of electric vehicles that are often seen as the key to a green energy transition. Chile, which has half of the world’s lithium reserves, has been declared the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’ and almost all of its exports are currently extracted from the Atacama Desert, the driest place in the world. But extracting Atacama’s lithium means pumping up huge amounts of scarce water resources. Water resources that have enabled indigenous peoples and animals to survive in the desert for thousands of years.

According to researchers, extraction is already causing lasting damage to the area’s fragile ecosystems. In the Atacama and elsewhere in Chile, indigenous communities are now protesting against current and future plans for lithium extraction. Many communities claim that they were never consulted before the mining projects, although the Chilean authorities are obliged to do so under international treaties ratified by the Chilean state. The Danish research centre Danwatch can document that companies like Samsung, Panasonic, Apple, Tesla and BMW get batteries from companies that use Chilean lithium.

With the country’s incomparable lithium reserves and the increasing importance of the metal for the energy sector, Chile has occasionally been awarded the label ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’. Nearly 40 percent of the global supply comes from Chile over the past 20 years and, as Danwatch can reveal, it ends up in some of the most popular electronics and electric cars. The metal is one of the most popular products of the Chilean energy sector.

However, the Atacama’s indigenous communities were caught up in speed. Chile has signed ILO Convention 169, which obliges governments to consult indigenous people when major projects are carried out in their area. However, according to the people of Pai-Ote, they were not consulted before the lithium projects were presented in the media. “We found out from the press that an agreement had been made that allowed SQM to start lithium mining here. Nobody asked the Colla people if they wanted the mining on their territory,” says Ariel Leon, representative of the Colla community.

Chilean lithium can be extracted at low cost: miners pump lithium brine from a massive reservoir under the Atacama salt plain to huge puddles on the surface of the desert. The highest solar radiation in the world causes the water in the brine to evaporate quickly, causing the lithium to be scooped up together with other salts and minerals.

During this process, 95% of the extracted brine evaporates into the air. This accelerates the water scarcity in the Atacama, says Ingrid Garces, a professor of technology at the Chilean University of Antofagasta, who conducts research into salt pans. “In Chile, lithium mining is considered to be a normal form of mining, as if you were mining a hard rock. But this is not regular mining – it’s water extraction,” she says.

The two companies behind lithium mining in the Atacama, the Chilean Soc. Química & Minera de Chile (SQM) and the American Albemarle Corp. have permits to extract almost 2,000 litres of brine per second. In addition to the brine, lithium miners also extract significant amounts of fresh water along with the nearby copper mines. “The result is an impact on biodiversity in general. And that effect is already visible – the wetlands are drying out,” says Ingrid Garces.

Atacama’s indigenous communities have been sounding the alarm about water scarcity for years. According to the Atacama People’s Council, which represents 18 indigenous communities, rivers, lagoons and meadows have all declined in water over the past decade. However, the Chilean authorities have largely relied on the environmental impact assessments of the mining companies themselves. And, in general, these studies have not found any significant impact on water levels or the surrounding nature.

“For the locals, the change is very clear. They notice that there is less water for their animals, and they see how the rivers dry out. This anecdotal knowledge is not taken seriously by the companies or the state,” says Cristina Dorador, biologist and associate professor at the Chilean University of Antofagasta, who studies the microbial life in the Atacama.

In August 2019, an analysis of satellite images by the satellite analysis company SpaceKnow and the scientific journal Engineering & Technology came to a similar conclusion. Based on satellite images from the period 2015-2019, they saw a strong inverse relationship between the water level in the lithium ponds of SQM and the surrounding lagoons: “As the water level in the SQM ponds increased, the water level in the lagoons would drop”.

Ironically, the Atacama salt plain was once a large lake before it dried up thousands of years ago due to severe climate change. Scientists are studying the desert today as an example of what can happen to ecosystems elsewhere on the planet if global climate change becomes effective. But in an effort to mitigate rising temperatures with electric cars, industries are sucking away the little water left in the world’s driest desert with all the social and ecological impact as a consequence.

Companies are often greenwashing. This greenwashing narrative is based on the claim that a substantial increase in metal mining is necessary to meet the material needs of renewable energy technologies and associated infrastructure. However, the renewable energy sector will under no circumstances consume the majority of the metals’ annual production. Nevertheless, this narrative let mining companies sacrificing new sites to explore

Danwatch, SETEM and CATAPA did research to the impact of lithium exploitation in the framework of the European project: Make ICT Fair. This project wants to make the supply chain of electronics more visible and influence public buyers to ask their ICT suppliers, both mining companies and manufactures, to improve environmental and labour condition. Lithium, as one of the most important metal in the transition to green economies, became the focus of this article.

Danwatch has been to Chile to investigate the country’s growing lithium extraction industry. In the process, they have interviewed numerous scientists, companies, politicians and the people who live closest to the extraction sites. They have reviewed the mining companies’ impact studies as well as the few independent research papers on the topic. They especially base the investigation on a 2019 study on lithium mining in Chile by researchers from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability.
The investigation is supported by the EU-funded project Make ICT Fair and published in collaboration with SETEM and CATAPA.

DEVICES DRAINING THE DESERT

Check all the articles from the investigation project below.

ARTICLE 1: Our demand for batteries is drying up the world’s most arid place.

ARTICLE 2: Much of the world’s lithium is being extracted from indigenous peoples’ territories against their will.

ARTICLE 3: Indigenous peoples face charges as they resist future lithium projects across Chile.

ARTICLE 4: There’s probably Chilean lithium behind the screen you’re reading this on.

ARTICLE 5: How much water is used to make the world’s batteries?

ARTICLE 6 / INTERVIEW: The mining companies only see water. But water is life for us.

Interview with 67-year old Clementino López, one of around 20,000 indigenous Likan Antai living in the Atacama Desert

ARTICLE 7 / VIDEO: Watch the surreal lithium extraction landscapes from above.

Watch the surreal lithium extraction landscapes from above

Written by Aäron De Fruyt and Charlotte Christiaens.

Photography: ©Pablo Rojas Madariaga / Danwatch

Art as a Form of Protest – Peru

As all neighboring countries of Peru are stuck or have been stuck in violent protests recently, Peru seems calm. Cajamarca, known for its huge protests to stop the mining project of Conga, seems calm.

Those protests happened only about 7 years ago, in 2011 and 2012, and still have a special taste in everyone’s mouth. Everyone in Cajamarca today has lived them profoundly. Everyone has somehow been part of the cruel protests. But looking at Cajamarca now, it seems like the idea of protesting has died. It seems like people have quietly accepted legal and illegal mining activity in the region. For example, there seems to be no reaction to the new mining project Michiquillay of the company Southern Copper, which they hope to start using in 2022. And there is very little reaction to the contamination of the Valle de Condebamba, where vegetables most Cajamarquinos eat get produced and are severely contaminated with toxic metals.

Why is that? Why do people stay calm? Is it because there are too many protests in Peru? Because they got tired? Because of the number of social conflicts that never get resolved? Because of the 279 people that died defending human rights until 2018 in Peru? Because of the horrible criminalization of protests in Peru in all its forms – both direct attacks as methods like states of emergency? Because of the memory of the horrible protests in 2012?

All very good reasons to not take to the streets anymore. But the truth is – the protests have never really stopped. They have just taken different forms.

Silent protests

Calm, silent protests are happening everywhere. Protesting doesn’t mean aggression. Protesting means showing how things can be different, making people think, for example through art, photo exhibitions, music, whatever you feel like. Protesting can be as silent or as violent as you want it to be. It’s your fight.

So yes, people in Cajamarca – or in Peru – might be tired of protest marches. It’s easy to see that the protest marches for women rights are smaller every year. The three climate change actions we’ve organized this year shrunk every time, and in June, when bull fights came back to Cajamarca after years, we were just a small group screaming outside of the arena holding up cardboards and getting laughed at.

But almost no one came to see the bull fights. The stadium was empty, which made the government cancel the second day of fights. And isn’t that a sign that Cajamarca doesn’t want bull fights anymore? Isn’t just not showing up a form of protest too? Isn’t silent protest, protest too?

Cross boundaries

Protest is what you want it to be. And using art as a form of protest isn’t something new. In fact, it represents the way of protesting in Peru. In the world. And all through history.

It’s said that art as a form of protest or activism was first seen with Dada, an anti-war movement which openly outed critiques to the First World War. Picasso protested with paintings based on for example the Spanish Civil War. The Vietnam War formed a base for many works of art in the sixties, and also gender issues, feminism, immigrant problems, and so on, got addressed through art. And then we haven’t even mentioned Banksy yet with all his work on all kinds of global issues, or the Russian feminist punk-rock band Pussy Riot that dealt with themes as feminism, freedom of speech, LGBT+ rights, etcetera, through their music.

Art is political, and art can be a powerful weapon. Art can make you think about things you hadn’t thought about before. Art can make a political statement, can be some sort of critique on a political or social situation. Art often looks up boundaries, or crosses them.

Art and activism

Also during the awful protests against mining project Conga in 2011 and 2012, art was used. The Plaza de Armas in Cajamarca changed into an art gallery, there were concerts, people were singing and dancing on the street. The Marcha del Agua towards Lima was beautiful with everyone singing together. And that has never stopped. That’s still part of Peru’s – or Cajamarca’s – culture. Art is protest.

As Carlos, founder of an environmental organization in Cajamarca says: “Art has a great impact on people. People get conscious about the environment, and on top of that about the beauty of the art and the people.” Art has an incredibly creative power to move people emotionally, while activism sets a goal, shows us the social or political change we need to see in the world. Art moves a feeling, while activism creates an effect. And in order to make that change, in order to get that effect, we need some sort of stimulation. We need to be moved. Emotionally. Art and activism combined, can lead to many, many things.

On top of that, art used as a form of protest, outside of actual protest marches or political spaces, gets you a surprise effect. It makes people think about serious, maybe political, issues, without them maybe realizing it. It gets in your mind, and slowly, gets you to that effect activism wants to reach.

Changing minds

Murals for example, big paintings on walls, are widely used as a form of protest or activism in Cajamarca and in Peru. In the province of Celendín the streets are full of colourful walls. And also in Cajamarca the city is covered in painted walls, leaving powerful messages. Something we could already see in the beginning of the 20^th century in Mexico.

And I have to admit, while painting one of those murals, thinking about the load of work waiting for me on my desk, I did think to myself that I could use my time better. That I could actually do something useful to help the environment, instead of just paint. That I shouldn’t waste my time painting a wall with a message probably no one would read. But was I wrong. All the people passing by that day stopped to check out our message. To see what it was about. And still very often, as I walk passed that wall, I see people talking about the painting. Maybe the mural didn’t gain the change immediately. But it is changing people’s minds, slowly, daily, firmly.

The same happened when we used a beautiful Cajamarcan tradition as a form of activism. On Corpus Christi, the whole Plaza de Armas gets covered in alfombras, or flower carpets. We focused on animal rights and protested against the bull fights with our carpet, whereas some others used it to address gender inequality, for example. And in between the beautiful art works, those pieces of art showing some sort of social or political issue, were the alfombras where most people stood around, discussing what they saw. Not what was actually there, but what they saw, what it meant to them, what they understood the message was. It made people rethink their own actions.

Happiness in protest

And that’s not all. Ecological fairs keep popping out of the ground like mushrooms, focusing on economic alternatives to mining and environmental issues, and that way making passengers-by think about the impact of mining activity without them realizing that’s what it’s about. Wakes are organized to mourn the death of our environment, combined with a beautiful piano concert, to focus on environmental issues in a different way. Theatres are held all through town showing the effects of gender inequality or climate change. Movie nights focusing on social themes are a big thing.

The lyrics to the typical cheerful carnival music of Cajamarca get changed to songs defending human rights and are being sung whenever the opportunity shows.

A few weeks ago a protest action was held at Cerro Quilish. Only about 30 people showed up, hiking to the top of the mountain from where you could look out over Yanacocha. But those 30 people brought up their giant speaker, singing and dancing their way up. And after the talk on top of the mountain, the volume of that same speaker was turned up a bit more.

People opened their bags, uncovering bowls of food, giving everyone a spoonful of whatever they had brought. Sharing. Dancing. Singing. Turning a protest into a beautiful moment together, showing their strength, their traditions, their bond. Showing they are one. Unstoppable. Finding happiness in protest.

Beautiful protests

There’s loads of centers that open their doors for all kind of social movement or activity, for free, supporting artists. There’s a cultural magazine made entirely by volunteers that also hold events every few weeks addressing for example topics as cultural identity, traditions, history. There’s movies or poetry in Quechua to make people rethink their roots and history. There’s dozens of bands in Cajamarca singing about animal rights or human rights or violence against women or any topic you can think of.

Lots of youth organizations take charge and organize fun activities for all ages such as actions on recycling with quiz questions and prices to win. Photo exhibitions focus on what nature should look like and shows the work of different human and environmental right defenders.

Of course, protesting is hard in Peru. And it’s sad that there’s still so much to protest about. But at least we know it will always be here, in its own way. And protesting can be so, so beautiful.

There’s resistance. There’s hope. In all its forms. Don’t underestimate the power of art. And don’t underestimate Cajamarca.

Armenia: Amulsar, the Mountain where Water is more Precious than Gold

On the 2nd of October, CATAPA had the honor of receiving Armenian activist Anna Shahnazaryan, from the Armenian Environmental Front. She is part of the Save Amulsar campaign, which for years has been opposing the Amulsar gold mine by Lydian International. The Amulsar mine is the second largest gold deposit in Armenia. Shahnazaryan travelled to Belgium to have conversations with EU lobby groups and managed to give a short presentation with CATAPA.

During this gathering, we also met Laura Luciani (author of this article), who is a PhD student at the Centre for EU Studies of Ghent University, where she researches human rights and civil society in the South Caucasus.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE in the East Journal in Italian, by Laura Luciani.

Armenia: Amulsar, the Mountain where Water is more Precious than Gold

In 1986, a group of 350 Armenian intellectuals wrote an open letter to Mikhail Gorbačëv to denounce the catastrophic consequences of pollution caused by heavy industries, whose repercussions had long been ignored by the Soviet authorities. Even though for over thirty years environmental protests have been taking place in an almost cyclical way in Armenia, and the damages caused by irresponsible industrial practices are constantly monitored, today citizens still have to take to the streets to prevent yet another ecological disaster.

For seven years, local communities and environmentalist groups have been opposing the construction of a gold mine in Amulsar – a mountainous area in the South of Armenia, located in the centre of the national water supply system. But in the last year, in the wake of the political changes that affected Armenia, this local protest has taken on a transnational dimension: now, the “post-Velvet-Revolution” government led by Nikol Pashinyan finds itself having to handle it with caution.

The project and its impact

Armenia is a country rich in mineral resources including copper, gold, but also lead, silver, zinc and other industrial minerals; these constitute more than half of the country’s exports. With a surface of less than 30,000 km2, Armenia counts today around 27 authorized mineral sites, of which 17 are active. However, the exploitation of these deposits has for decades been at the centre of controversies due to mismanagement and to these extractive projects’ extremely negative environmental effects.

In 2012, a mining company called Lydian Armenia (subsidiary of the offshore company Lydian International) signs a first deal with the Armenian government, at that time led by the Republican Party. In 2016, the company receives the final mine operation permit, even though the project is highly problematic. Amulsar, which is the 2nd largest gold deposit in Armenia, is in fact located only 6 km away from the spa town of Jermuk, famous for its thermal water: the inhabitants (who were not consulted about the project and its impact) fear that the proximity of the mine and the pollution resulting from it may discourage tourist flows to the town, thus affecting the community’s main source of income.

Scientists also indicate that the project could have ecological repercussions on a much larger scale: the Amulsar deposit is located within a seismic area, which increases the risk that acid drainage processes, accelerated by the excavations, leak in and contaminate the surrounding rivers (Arpa, Vorotan and Darb), with negative consequences for agriculture and livestock. Furthermore, contamination threatens to reach Lake Sevan – the largest freshwater reservoir of the country and an almost sacred place in Armenian popular culture. Last but not least, the project would alter the Amulsar ecosystem, which hosts different protected species including the Caucasian leopard (or Persian leopard) – of which only 10 specimen remain in Armenia.

A turning point

After years of protest, in June 2018 the local communities decided to seize the window of opportunity opened by the “Velvet Revolution” that took place over one month earlier (thanks to an unprecedented wave of mass peaceful protests) to undertake direct action and block the streets leading to the mining site. The #SaveAmulsar campaign was born: for over a year and a half, local people supported by environmental activists have been supervising the entrance to the mine, doing shifts in checkpoints they built for this purpose, and managed to effectively stop the works in the construction site.

However, the citizens’ euphoria suffered a severe blow on 9 September this year: after opening an investigation and commissioning an independent assessment of the project’s environmental impact, prime minister Nikol Pashinyan unexpectedly gave the go-ahead for the digging in the Amulsar gold mine, asking protesters to clear the streets. As Anna Shahnazaryan, Armenian Environmental Front’s activist, explains in an interview for Kiosk (T.N. Italian radio programme), “the independent report, published in August, stated that Lydian’s estimations about the mine’s impact on water resources were incorrect, and that the project contained several evaluation errors – including intentional ones. Therefore, the environmental impact mitigation measures envisaged by Lydian were not adequate”.

Nevertheless, the Investigative Committee and the prime minister himself concluded that the company would be able to manage all the environmental risks. “For this reason, – Shahnazaryan continues – in the last two months the situation has become hectic: the prime minister took the side of Lydian and organized different meetings with the company’s representatives, while we activists took to the streets both in Amulsar and in Yerevan”.

“Post-revolutionary” Armenia and its problems

Experts suggest that Pashinyan is defending the private interests of Lydian Armenia and its investors (among which the USA, the United Kingdom and several international financial institutions) to prevent the company from having recourse to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). This is an international mechanism which allows a foreign investor to request arbitration by a corporate court if the “host-state” violates its rights: this decision could cost Armenia around two billion dollars, that is two thirds of its state budget.

However, there are also people who believe that Pashinyan’s ambiguous position is symptomatic of some criticalities of Armenia’s post-revolutionary government: first, the lack of an ideology going beyond the mere overthrow of the corrupt political system, which for ten years had been in the hands of former president Serzh Sarghsyan. According to Anna Shahnazaryan, “the current government uses many slogans, but behind the slogans there is little action. And one of these slogans is ‘we will not follow the economic path traced by the previous government, which focused on the mining industry, but we will try to develop new sectors such as tourism and the IT sector’”.

In reality, the “economic revolution” that Pashinyan wants to bring about in Armenia seems to be based on the same neo-liberal approach of the previous government, aimed at “opening up the country” to multinationals and foreign investors (with the 400 million dollars destined for Amulsar, Lydian would be the largest single investor in the history of independent Armenia). An understanding of “development” which disregards ecological considerations, human rights and the citizens’ well-being.

Another problem, Shahnazaryan points out, is that “with the revolution in Armenia people developed a certain idolatry of the current prime minister, who is considered the leader of the revolution. Many former activists who participated in the revolution and were then elected to Parliament have now expressed ‘unconditional support’ to Pashinyan’s position on Amulsar”. According to Shahnazaryan, this raised many doubts, even among those who were not necessarily opposed to the project, “because it is something that undermines the democratic structure of the country: the legislative body should not be ‘unconditionally supporting’ the person that it is in charge of supervising”.

#SaveAmulsar continues

Last year, the Armenian Environmental Front launched a petition requesting municipal councils in Jermuk and other towns in the region to ban all mining activities and declare Jermuk an ‘ecological area’. Although the petition has collected 12,000 signatures so far, the government has recently appealed against this initiative. Lydian Armenia is also putting pressure on protesters through legal channels.

Meanwhile, activists are trying to internationalize the movement, with the aim of exposing the responsibilities of international financial institutions (in this case, the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development) and other project funders (notably, the Swedish government which channelled money to Amulsar through state export-credit funds) in the global phenomenon of extractivism – namely non-sustainable development practices based on the extraction of mineral resources at the expense of local communities’ interests and the environment on which they depend.

Anna Shahnazaryan is convinced that the government cannot give a definitive authorization to Lydian “because the citizens are firmly opposed to the project, and if Pashinyan decides to use violent methods this will only turn against him”. The stakes in Amulsar seem to be very high: they do not “only” touch upon the protection of the environment and natural resources, but also the legitimacy of Nikol Pashinyan and the future of democracy in Armenia.

Press Release: Make ICT Fair Breakfast at the European Parliament

Raising Awareness of Human Rights Violations in ICT Supply Chains

On the morning of the 1st October, the Make ICT Fair consortium held a breakfast event at the European Parliament in Brussels attended by around thirty participants. The event was hosted by Austrian MEP Monika Vana of the Greens/EFA and Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani of Renew Europe in the Members Salon of the Parliament. The breakfast was organised to raise awareness of sustainability and human rights abuses in the supply chain of information communication technology (ICT) products, as well as facilitate the discussion on the role of MEPs in promoting EU policies on human rights, European development banks and public procurement.

MEP Abir Al-Sahlani said: “Our societies have benefited greatly from globalization. But it is important to raise awareness of human rights risks associated with the production of some of the most popular products that many of us enjoy – like smartphones. People should never be in danger when doing their jobs.”

The breakfast began with a video testimonial addressed to MEPs from Pak Kin Wan, a worker in the Labour Education and Service Network in Hong Kong, and a speech by Anna Shahnazaryan who works in the Armenian Environmental Front in Armenia and had experienced first-hand the violations to human rights. Following this, speakers from SETEM, Bankwatch and Südwind gave talks on the priority EU areas of action: business and human rights, European development banks and public procurement.

“The situation of workers in ICT supply chains demands our immediate attention,” said MEP Monika Vana. “Human rights and labour rights are violated every day, alongside severely negative impacts on the environment in many countries. We as politicians have a responsibility and the possibility to act efficiently. It is us who can help to ensure that a legal framework is in place, that guides companies and financial institutions to carry out human rights due diligence before business or financial decisions are taken. We can also make sure that the European Parliament applies the same level of scrutiny towards its own ICT procurement.”

Make ICT Fair participant organisations presented the MEPs with a list of case studies conducted by members of the consortium, as well as a briefing document outlining the key actions MEPs can take to ensure the implementation of fair and sustainable EU policies on the priority areas.

Participants could upload photos and footage using the hashtag #MakeICTFair and #fairelectronics on social media.

For more information contact the Executive Director of the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, Sergi Corbalán, at corbalan@fairtrade-advocacy.org.

Notes

Make ICT Fair is an EU-wide project that aims to improve the lives of workers and communities affected by the production of ICT devices such as smartphones and laptops. We target EU citizens, public procurers, development banks, decision-makers, and companies to improve their purchasing practices and to align policies. The partners: SETEM Catalunya, CATAPA, ICLEI, the University of Edinburgh, Le Monde Diplomatique, People & Planet, CEE Bankwatch, Swedwatch, Electronics Watch, Towards Sustainability Association, and Südwind.

Mining in Azuay: a David vs. Goliath story

Azuay, a province in the south of Ecuador with Cuenca as its historic and cultural provincial capital, has rapidly developed into an emblematic region in the fight against mining.

In the canton of Girón, in the province of Azuay, a public consultation (Consulta Popular) was organized on the 24th of March 2019 about the large-scale mining project Loma Larga. An historic event, because it was the first local referendum in Ecuador on a mining activity.

During the Consulta Popular in Girón, the inhabitants were asked whether they agreed with extracting gold in the Páramo of Kimsacocha, located in the Cajas National Park. A páramo is a fragile ecosystem in the Andes High Mountains that is vital for water supply in the region and in the country.

The result of the referendum was convincing! 87% of the community preferred water to gold and said “si a la vida, no a la minería”. An important precedent in Ecuador, because after this victory, other provinces tried to follow suit. Imbabura and Carchi, two provinces in the north of Ecuador, recently submitted an application for a Consulta Popular, but unfortunately this has been rejected by the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court.

Also in terms of political leadership, the importance of the province of Azuay should not be underestimated. In May 2019 the inhabitants elected Yaku Pérez Guartambel as the new prefect. Since then, he has led the autonomous government of the province of Azuay.

Yaku Pérez is known for his strong statements against the mining sector and his ambition to legally clear the province of Azuay from metal mining, in particular by organizing referendum. Yaku Pérez quickly became a symbolic figure in the country.

Ecuador Post-Kim1-min — Yaku Pérez at the demonstration in Quito, 16 September 2019 © Iván Castaneira

A constitutional problem

Following the victory of the referendum in the canton of Girón, Yaku Pérez called for a general referendum on mining activities in the province of Azuay. This question was submitted to the Constitutional Court, but after a hearing on the 17th of September 2019, this request has been rejected.

Pérez clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with the nature of the hearing. According to him, the President of the Court must hold a public hearing before taking a decision, as is customary in constitutional matters. “We want a public hearing so that we can look the judges in the eye and speak from the heart. To demonstrate in a factual and legal way the need for a public consultation,” according to Pérez.

Ecuador post-Kim4-min — Demonstration in front of Constitutional Court in Quito, 17 September 2019 © Iván Castaneira

Moreover, there is a conflict of interests within the Court. One of the constitutional judges, Dr. Ramiro Avila Santamaria, was not allowed to take part in the hearing because of earlier statements against extractivism. Other judges, who clearly have ties with the mining sector, were allowed to participate. Judge Carmen Corral is a lawyer at Solines Asociados, a law firm that provides advice and support to mining companies. Another judge, Hilda Nugues, is a member of the mediation committee of the Guayaquil Chamber of Commerce, which has spoken out against the referendum.

There is clearly a lot of pressure from the national government and the large multinationals. There is great concern about what happened in Girón and fear about the outcome of such referendum at provincial and national level.

Ecuador post-Kim3-min — 'SOMOS AGUA', demonstrators from Azuay in Quito, 16 September 2019 © Iván Castaneira

Campaign against Yaku Pérez

It was no coincidence that on the same day as the hearing, the pro-mining sector distributed a campaign on Twitter in which they attacked Yaku Pérez.

They claimed that Pérez would have had mining concessions in the period 1999-2000 because his name was found in the mining register.

Yaku Pérez disclaimed this argument. At the time, as a lawyer, he would have signed documents for the extraction of sand and stones for construction works in the province. This type of mining also is registered, but it doesn’t concern metal mining.

The battle continues

Following the negative decision of the Constitutional Court, Pérez announced that he would step up the resistance and open a wider door by organizing a referendum at national level.

The Ecuadorian Constitution recognizes the Consulta Popular as a legal citizens’ initiative. However, the mining industry and the Ecuadorian government argue that local consultations on mining cannot take place because the natural resources in the subsoil are a matter of national concern.

Ecuador post-Kim2-min — 'SOMOS AGUA', demonstrators from Azuay in Quito, 16 September 2019 © Iván Castaneira

Moreover, the constitution states that the powers of various policy bodies are not exclusive, but competitive. “You may be the owner of what is in the subsoil, but you have to pass over the soil,” says lawyer Verónica Potes, expert in environmental law and human rights.

“It’s a battle of David vs. Goliath”, says Yaku Pérez, “There aren’t many of us, but we have the truth, the reason and the legitimacy to our advantage. We continue the resistance and if necessary, we will denounce this issue before the international courts.”

New report: A just(ice) transition is a post-extractive transition

War on Want and London Mining Network, supported by the Yes to Life, No to Mining network, have launched a new report: Post-Extractivist_Transition

A just(ice) transition is a post-extractive transition

Centering the extractive frontier in climate justice

While the global majority disproportionately suffer the impacts of the climate crisis and the extractivist model, the Global North’s legacy of colonialism, the excess of the world’s wealthiest, and the power of large corporations are responsible for these interrelated crises.

The climate change mitigation commitments thus far made by countries in the Global North are wholly insufficient; not only in terms of emissions reductions, but in their failure to address the root causes of the crisis – systemic and intersecting inequalities and injustices. This failure to take inequality and injustice seriously can be seen in even the most ambitious models of climate mitigation.

This report sets out to explore the social and ecological implications of those models with a focus on metal mining, in six sections:

Climate justice, just(ice) transition locates the report’s contributions within the broader struggle for climate and environmental justice, explains the reasoning for the report’s focus on mining and emphasizes the social dimension of energy transitions.
Extractivism in the decades to come discusses projections for total resource extraction over the next four decades and raises concerns about the interconnected ecological impacts of increased resource extraction.
The transition-mining nexus section places in perspective the significance of renewable energy technologies in driving demand, by examining the share of critical metal end-uses that renewable energy technologies account for relative to other end-uses.
Greenwashing, political will and investment trends expose how the mining industry is attracting investment and justifying new projects by citing projected critical metals demand and framing itself as a key actor in the transition.
Metal mining as a driver of socioenvironmental conflict offers a sense of the systemic and global nature of the social and ecological impacts of metal mining.
Moving beyond extractivism offers a sense of possibility in suggesting different ways forward, by addressing both the material and political challenges to a postextractivist transition.

This report finds that:

Current models project that as fossil fuels become less prominent in the generation of energy, metalintensive technologies will replace them. The assertion that economic growth can be decoupled, in absolute terms, from environmental and social impact is deeply flawed.
Central to these models is the unquestioned acceptance that economic growth in the Global North will continue unchanged, and as such, will perpetuate global and local inequalities and drive the demand for energy, metals, minerals and biomass further beyond the already breached capacity of the biosphere.
The assumption that economic growth is a valuable indicator of wellbeing must be challenged. Scarcity is the result of inequality, not a lack of productive capacity. Redistribution is the answer to both social and economic injustice and the threat that extractivism and climate breakdown pose.
Reducing fossil fuel energy dependence on its own is not a sufficient response to the intersecting socio-ecological crises, the extractivist model as a whole must be challenged.
There is a need to address the extractivist model because mineral, metal and biomass extraction threaten frontline communities and the interconnected ecologies that sustain life and wellbeing.
This need is particularly urgent because the mining industry is driving a new greenwashing narrative by claiming that vast quantities of metals will be needed to meet the material demands of renewable energy technologies.
This greenwashing narrative serves to obscure and justify the inherently harmful nature of extractivist mining. International financial institutions and sectors of civil society that have embraced these assumptions are complicit in the mining industry’s greenwashing efforts.
Increased investment and political will for large-scale mineral and metal extraction is not an inevitable consequence of the transition, it is one of the fundamental contradictions within a vision of climate change mitigation which fails to understand extractivism as a model fundamentally rooted in injustice.
Around the world, frontline communities are pushing back the expansion of extractivism and offering solutions to social and ecological injustice. But unfortunately, their voices, demands and visions are far too often absent in climate policy and campaigning spaces and agendas.
Justice and equity need to be understood as cross-cutting issues that touch every aspect of the transition. These principles are fully compatible with ecological wellbeing and mutually enhance one another. Increasing access to energy, food and public services goes hand-in-hand with reducing excess consumption through processes of redistribution. The solutions are fundamentally social; technical fixes and increases in efficiency do not bring about justice or ecological wellbeing on their own.