Study and Lobby Working Group Launch

We are pleased to announce the launch of CATAPA’s new Study and Lobby Working Group. The Working Group will produce cutting edge research and lobby on the following themes;

 

Research Theme 1: Planned Obsolescence: Ctrl Alt Del Campaign

Our current linear model of consumption and production is a driving cause of the climate crisis. In this “throwaway” model, the drive for limitless production and consumption of electronics places quantity above product quality.

Products are made with a limited life span (planned obsolescence) or the design makes repair difficult or unfeasible. Some products are designed to fail, with system faults purposefully incorporated to reduce their lifespan. This is a deliberate strategy on behalf of the electronics industry to encourage users to purchase ‘new and improved’ products. This is planned obsolescence.

Ending planned obsolescence requires policy change on the Flemish and EU level. The planet urgently requires strong politicians willing to take a stand against the electronics industry and implement strict regulation obliging multinational companies to produce eco-designed products. Electronic products must be repairable and made to last, instead of disposable products made to break down quickly and be replaced. 

 

Research Theme 2: EU Critical Raw Materials

CATAPA strives towards a world in which the extraction of non-renewable resources is no longer necessary. Achieving this requires a fundamental transformation of our society and relationship to nature. 

Under the guise of ‘green mining’, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials list outlines a strategy for the resourcing of over thirty mined resources, such as lithium, deemed ‘necessary’ for the green transition.

Securing such an increased demand for raw materials requires an expansion of mining operations within the EU. More mining will lead to severe negative socio-environmental impacts, such as human rights abuses, pollution and loss of land. The transition to renewable energy must be just. 

 

Research Theme 3: Right to Say No

A just transition includes local communities having the Right to Say No to mining projects. Under the ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO), a non-binding voluntary commitment to ‘good practice’, corporations are able to greenwash their operations. Local communities have no legal instrument to oppose unwanted mining projects. 

Where local communities resort to direct action to resist mining operations, they are dismissed, labeled as terrorists and face severe repression and human rights violations. 227 environmental defenders were killed in 2020.

Additionally, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system (ISDS), embedded in international trade agreements, enables corporations to sue states, predominantly in the Global South, over opposition to proposed mining projects.

The ISDS system must be dismantled. Fairer, democratic consultation mechanisms must be adopted. Local communities must have the decisive, legally binding say over the fate of mining projects. 

 

Research Theme 4: Alternatives to extractivism

We’re living in an age of crises. The current mantra and false solutions of endless growth, consumption and subjugation of nature is pushing the planet towards socio-ecological collapse.

So, what is the solution?

To meet this moment, we must dare to imagine and embody bold alternatives such as Degrowth. Our economy must be based on social and environmental justice. We must repair our relationship with nature and recognise our co-existence within the web of life. 

 

Get involved!

Joining the Study and Lobby Working Group provides you with a means to improve your research and lobbying skills. Your work will support CATAPA’s vision and mission, and will be published on the website and social media platforms. 

There will also be an opportunity within the Working Group to develop other projects, such as an Open Journal, Book Club, Symposiums and more!

Sign up: https://forms.gle/sw7i6tm2ZmNojxzm7 

Want more information? Contact connor.cashell[at]catapa.be

Cajamarca Art and Unity

Art and unity in Cajamarca

Art and unity in Cajamarca

“What if we sing?”, she asks as she pulled a small paper with some scribbles that formed lyrics out of her pocket. She is one of the Defensoras de la Vida y la Pacha Mama from Cajamarca. We are in the middle of our latest workshop on citizen journalism and human rights and we are just chitchatting while lunch is being served. “What if we sing?”

And we sing. Not just to pass time waiting, but to get our message through, to come closer. Quickly the participants of the workshop gather together, have a look at the lyrics, and sing. About the beautiful lakes of Cajamarca, the mining projects destroying them, about their resistance, their fight and never giving up.

My mother and I wrote this song as we were protesting against Conga”, the woman tells us, “we sang it in the streets, we sang it everywhere. And it is still accurate

Human Rights

The song became the common thread during the rest of our workshop. We had come together in a training session organized by our partner organization Grufides in Cajamarca, Peru, together with Chaikuni in Iquitos, as part of a project financed by the province of Oost-Vlaanderen. It focuses on empowering rural and indigenous women for the defense of fundamental and collective rights in socio-ecological conflicts in both of these regions.

A big and important part of this project consists of organizing training sessions on two main topics: human rights and citizen journalism.

The first topic informs about human rights with the idea that “you can´t defend your rights if you don´t know them”. So that´s why for the last year and a half we have been working with people, mostly women, from different communities in Cajamarca on different matters: human rights, environmental rights, violence against women, intercultural health and so forth.

Coming together to talk about experiences in different communities is of great importance. It helps to know that people in other regions have to go through similar problems, to hear the outcome of similar struggles, and to know other communities support you in this fight to defend your rights.

Citizen Journalism

The second topic we work on during these training sessions is citizen journalism. How can these communities make sure the rest of the world knows what they are going through? How can they make sure everyone is aware of the cases they are fighting for?

Journalism and means of communication are important tools to address the violation of collective and fundamental rights in these communities. Nowadays, journalism can be one of the most powerful tools to defend your rights.

This is why during these sessions we focus on making videos, photographs, writing notes, making radio programs and radio spots. We learn about storytelling, how to use social media and hashtags and most importantly: we do this together.

Our main focus during the last few sessions was to work on a regional and national campaign between the different communities involved in this project. The participants themselves came up with goals for this campaign, with their target audience, and during this last session: their strategy.

Art as a strategy

The participants decided to focus on three specific cases for this first campaign and came up with four different strategies to reach their audience: a video, in which we could show a before and after related to the mining projects in their region, a study on the water quality, a key figure who can tell their story from their own perspective and last but not least, art.

We can paint. We can paint murals all over Cajamarca, all over Peru. We can sing, we can write more songs, like the one we just sang. We can use poetry. We can make theatre. We are all creative, we all have capacities. And we can use art as our strategy

The ideas on how to use art in our campaign kept flowing. “When Máxima Acuña was told to tell her story in the international press, she didn´t tell it. She sang it. And it was so much more powerful, it transmitted so many emotions. I still get goosebumps thinking about it,” someone said, “we can do this too. Our stories are powerful too. They just need to be heard.”

To end this day-long session, we asked the participants what they learned. “That together we are stronger”, someone said. “That we can use our art to let the world see our reality”, someone added. Art and unity. That´s what we learned today. Art and unity. We will stand together and sing. And our voices will be heard.

More info about our Peruvian partner INSTITUTO CHAIKUNI
More info about our Peruvian partner GRUFIDES
Right to Say No webinar poster

The Right to Say No: Insights and Experiences of the Global Struggle against Mining

WEBINAR:

The Right to Say No: Insights and Experiences of the Global Struggle against Mining

4th August, 2021

Last week The Thematic Social Forum on Mining and Extractive Economy explored the “Right to Say No” to mining projects all over the world during a global webinar. Speakers from four different continents were invited to speak about their own insights and experiences around the Right to Say No (RTSN).

(You can watch the full webinar on youtube here).

First up was Farai Maguwu from Zimbabwe (Centre for Natural Resource Governance – CNRG), followed by Aung Ja from Burma, Hal Rhoades from Northern Europe (Yes to Life No to Mining – YLNM) and Karina from Brazil (Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining – MAM).
———————————————

The Right to Say No has never been more pertinent. In the name of economic growth, mining projects are causing damage and pollution everywhere. Natural resources are being exploited and local communities are being devastated. Natural resources are being plundered and people are losing access to clean water and fertile land, which is impacting their livelihoods, health and wellbeing. The divide between rich and poor, the ones benefiting from the extractivist/capitalist model and the ones suffering from it, is getting bigger and bigger. This in a world where there has never been more wealth and abundance. On top of that there is the urgent reality of climate change, with this model pushing the bounds of our planet.

We also note the resistance of local communities who demand the ‘Right to Say No’ on these extractive activities. During the webinar, case studies from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America were presented, in which the ‘Right to Say No’ was the focus of this collective fight against mining.

"If not now, when? There is no planet B" sign black and white

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel in the fight for our common cause.  Local communities are resisting these mining projects and asserting their Right to Say No. These local actions are providing the foundation for strategies and alternatives needed to challenge the system. There are different contexts to be dealt with but we can definitely learn from each other’s struggles and victories and apply them to our own situation. As Hal pointed out during his talk, currently there is no real ‘Right’ to Say No. This is something we are asserting, not something we can (yet) claim.

 

Historical context

Many mining projects are a display of the historical hold of colonial power and foreign influence. Countries with a colonial past – for example the UK, which houses a lot of these large mining corps – are the same that are now putting pressure on more extraction projects. The end destination of the profits from these projects go to developed countries, the former colonizers, and not the countries that are the home to these resources. On top of that, Europe is also the main over-consumer of minerals and energy. Whether directly involved or not, these countries are the ones benefiting from it, while the countries from the Global South where these projects happen are the ones being exploited.

 

Current context

In certain countries there is the problem of limited democratic space because of repressive or military regimes. We heard from Farai and Aung Ja about the struggles people and communities face in Zimbabwe and Birma respectively. People in power are working hand in hand with corporations and investors from different countries (Australia, India, China, Bulgaria, UK,..) against their own population. The people face eviction from their lands and violence or punishments if they stand up for their rights. Protesting these actions of governments and mining corporations is an act of courage in the face of these threats.
The current European Green Deal also poses a big problem as it will incentivize and support mining expansion (read more on this subject here).

 

Common Ground

We need to be plural and refrain from taking a one size fits all approach (which is an extractive, capitalist idea) – to each situation there is a specific context. The RTSN movement is a heterogeneous collection of organizations, people and cultures. But there are certain principles that give the variety of organizations that are a part of the movement common ground (derived from Hal’s presentation):

  •  Questioning the nature of democracy: who benefits, who shoulders the burdens long term? Who defines where mining takes place, who decides the value, who benefits and who suffers…? 
  • Rejection of the instrumental relations with nature: “Nature” is a much better term than “environment” or “natural resources” as it has integrity. Right to say no is premised on ensuring quality of life
  • Advocating for local, low-impact ways of life.
  • Challenging the extractivist and growth oriented meta-politics or narratives.

 

Demands

 (As derived from Aung Ja and Karina’s talk.)

  • Firm and strong regulation of corporations on behalf of the people; we demand no harm to people, planet and our social wellbeing and livelihoods.
  • Affirmation of the society and not the interest of the state and the capital, there needs to be a people centered governance. Communities need to have authority and sovereignty. They decide what is best socially and culturally for their lifestyles. They must control their natural resources/common goods and not the governments. Because it impacts their livelihoods and their future generations.
  • A just transition and full restitution. Compensation for the degradation of the territories. The process of restitution must include the responsibility of the state and the corporations. They have to be held accountable. The transition must be diverse in how to approach this on many levels.
  • Mining free territories: If certain areas are classified as protected areas no mining should be able to go ahead. Same goes for respecting indigenous land rights.
Protester on street blowing a whistle

A rich repertoire of strategies and interventions

Here you can explore some strategies and interventions that can be utilized to assert the RTSN (collected from the different speakers). A lot of these strategies can be combined into a larger strategy (or are a necessary step eg. doing research). Keeping in mind that there are different contexts (political, cultural, …) to be accounted for that will determine which ones you use.

 

Research

Farai proposes that the first intervention is doing research: who is involved, who is going to be affected, what are going to be the likely environmental impacts, and so on.

 

Documentation, evidence and argument

It’s important to document the struggles, to document what is going on and spread this information so we can learn from each other. We need more research and documentation of the current cases. To ask ourselves what could support the RTSN campaign? An idea could be to develop a model legislation/process that could be adapted to the local/regional levels.

 

Document reviews

The environmental impact assessments that mining companies put on the table are often fraudulent documents, so there is a need to investigate those. Also in certain cases people are being tricked to meetings, signing an attendance register which is later used as a consent form.

Capacity building

Building the capacity of the people and communities. Educating them about their rights.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

 

Popular Consultations/Referendum

We heard Faraj talk about this strategy, and we know this is also used in Latin American countries. It is rarely used in Europe, but there has been a case in Trun, Bulgaria where a gold project was rejected successfully and unanimously.

 

The Legal Process

The Legal framework is often in favor of corporations, but there are also certain loopholes in laws or constitutions that can be used to our advantage. This can often be used as a delaying strategy to give some breathing space to other strategies. We can also work on fixing the laws and loopholes the corporations are using.

 

Declaring the Rights of Nature/Community

We heard the example of Ireland / Greencastle, where the community and local governments declared the rights of Nature to apply and put this in local legislation. As mining is not compatible with the Rights of Nature. 

 

Petitioning

Petitioning parliament to intervene and hold fact finding missions. Farai explained they do this by going to the affected community, raise a campaign and reach out to the media. Then the parliament is left with no choice but to intervene and they are forced to listen to the complaints and recognize the rights of communities.

 

Direct Action

We can use our bodies by placing ourselves in between – this is the most visceral and dangerous form of strategy.

Turkish woman with walking stick standing in front of police barricade

This powerful photo was shared on the day of action by allies in Turkey for the #GlobalDayAgainstMegaMining. Communities in the Kaz Mountains are resisting gold mining companies from deforestation and digging up their lands.


We can ourselves stop (or pressure our country to stop) investing by not committing trade, and by applying sanctions and boycotts. For example in regards to the current situation in Burma (or other repressive regimes) until there is a democracy that at least respects human rights.


Make it public

  • Hold public meetings, demonstrations or protests to drive media attention and create awareness in the public mind to what is happening. Mobilize public opinion in our favor.
  • Secure support of prominent, highly credible and influential leaders. These can be judges, political leaders, or even corporative leaders. Without compromising our fundamental principles.

 

Use the Media Creatively

  • Use the media: hold your own media campaign. Identify journalists who can amplify the community struggles so local can go global in terms of media awareness. We are no longer weak, voiceless or faceless. Defend the press and media from authoritarian governments.
  • Popularize our struggles using media (traditional, mainstream and social media). Harness the power of the internet and the digital lifestyle. Reaching millennials. Youth must. Inform and educate mainstream media why RTSN is important.

 

Solidarity strengthens

  • Exercise and enhance solidarity, building big national and international networks and alliances. We need an international movement to amplify our struggles. Popular community organization and permanent actions of solidarity that strengthen emancipation are essential.

“Solidarity was the movement that turned the direction of history, I think.” – Jeane Kirkpatrick 

 

  • Putting international pressure on repressive governments, fe. the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil. Popular engagement and organization is so important in these situations.

Company Engagement

  •  In Selkie (Finland) the community contacted multiple companies that were prospecting the area and told them “we reject this outright so save your money and go away”. This worked in their case but it has a very specific context.
  • Holding community engagements meetings between communities, corporations and governments.

Propose alternatives

There are better options possible that are already currently existent or that exist as potential opportunities. We can’t continue in the same way as has been happening in the patriarchal capitalist system. There is small-scale farming, fishing, eco or nature based tourism. Karina also proposes to use the inputs of women and youth, to employ their creativity for coming up with new economic alternatives and ways of living.
Restoration of nature can provide new options for people. Nature recovery is so necessary. Good examples are Finland or Northern-Spain.

Check out some examples of community-led post-extractive ‘alternatives’.

“The environment and the economy are really both two sides of the same coin. If we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves” – Wangari Maathai 

 

Challenging the narrative

  • We need to call out the narratives that are being told. Pointing out the irony in justifying demolishing rural communities that are already low-impact and sustainable in the name of climate action and so-called ‘sustainability’.
  • Calling out the Green Deal’s greenwashing tactics. RTSN as a response to the green washing narrative.
  • Questioning the ‘economic recovery of Covid’ story. Often this is used as a reason to start up mining projects as a way to reactivate the economy.
  • Mining happens because there is demand that comes from the growth narrative. We need to move towards a narrative based on wellbeing instead of the illusion of continuous growth.
  • Nature is being reduced to commodifiable minerals. There is a clash between short term, instrumentalist view of nature as a collection of dead commodities to be extracted for the greater good. We need a longer-term vision of Nature which is holistic and takes in account the  cultural and spiritual relations with a territory.
  • Understanding free territory not just as a physical space free from extraction and mining. But also the non-material reality of the territory. The full spectrum. The bodies, spirit, culture, ways of living and thinking.

“We don’t inherit the earth, we borrow it from our children.” – Chief Seattle 

We hope you got some inspiration from this collection of strategies and interventions collected from the different speakers from The Right to Say No Global Webinar!

You can check out the final declaration of the Thematic social Forum on Mining and the Extractivist Economy who organized the webinar  here.

If you have some other interventions or tactics that can be useful feel free to share them with us in the comments, via the contact form or e-mail info@catapa.be

Virtual classes, but no Internet access: Education during a pandemic in Peru

Virtual classes, but no Internet access: Education during a pandemic in Peru

Webinar:

Virtual classes, but no Internet access: Education during a pandemic in Peru

May 11th, Online

Registration

Imagine living in a rural community where there´s no Internet, no cable TV, close to no means of communication, and still being expected to continue your classes virtually. This is the case in many rural communities in Peru.

The situation regarding COVID-19 exposed many underlying problems in the country, which is why in May last year, Grufides and CATAPA started a new project tackling these issues with the help of the City of Antwerp.

The main goal of this project was to strengthen access to information and communication technology in rural communities in the context of COVID-19 in Cajamarca, Peru.

Join us for this webinar as we showcase the results of the project work, which focused on four communities in Cajamarca, Peru.

Discover how local citizens learned about their rights and how to claim them. Learn how citizen journalism can play a role via drawing attention to the communities internet and educational problems and reality. And see whether the government actually improved their access to ICT over the past year.

Excited to learn more about virtual education in smaller rural communities in Peru?

Excited to see the public denouncement through video and radio which the communities themselves made during this project?

Then join on Tuesday the 11th of May!

 

You can view, invite friends and share the Facebook event here

You can find the Registration form here

This event will take place online, don’t forget to register online in advance, as only registered participants will receive a zoom link.

 

Organized by Catapa & Grufides

Watch: The Case for Degrowth

WEBINAR & BOOK LECTURE:

Watch: The Case for Degrowth

27th February, 2020

Join expert and author Federico Demaria as he presents his new book ‘The case for Degrowth’.

On Friday 19th February CATAPA in partnership with Oikos and The Centre for Sustainable Development, Gent University saw over 100 participants join the Book Lecture: The Case for Degrowth with Author Federico Demaria.

Watch now, The Case for Degrowth on Youtube. 

 

Overview

Federico opened by presenting his book and making a compelling case for degrowth economics. This was followed by an interesting panel debate featuring Hanne Cottyn of CATAPA, Irma Emmery of Centre for Sustainable Development, Gent University and Dirk Holemans of Oikos in conversation with the Author Federico Demaria.

The panel discussion ranged from, key and critical reflections on the book, the role of the state in a degrowth economy, the commons and much more.

To close, there was an audience Question & Answer session, after which the panelists gave their final thoughts on where can we find inspiration for a future in which degrowth is part of the transformation needed to tackle the contemporary challenges of ecological and climate breakdown.

You can watch the full recording here.

Linking the Bolivian minerals to the European Industry

Executive Summary:

Linking the Bolivian Minerals to the European Industry

 

The Executive Summary is also available in Spanish and Dutch.

 

Introduction

 

Although indium might be a rare metal, it is not rare at all in your daily life. No smartphone can be produced without its use. Flatscreens, touchscreens, LED lights, photovoltaic panels and even the high efficiency glass of the windows in your house can contain this element.

 

Indium is a metal that has grown in importance since the 21st century. Lots of new technologies are based on its use, as it has the particular property of being transparent in thin coatings and still acting as an excellent conductor.

 

The source of this raw material is not always easy to track. The indium market is very opaque. This Executive Summary is part of a fact-finding mission by the European Union project ‘Make ICT Fair’. It tries to reveal a considerable part of the supply chain of indium by starting its research in the very beginning of the chain: a few mining cooperatives on the Bolivian highlands extracting silver-lead-zinc polymetallic ore; and it traces the supply chain beyond, feeding the European industry.

Figure 1. San Jose Jallpa has limited mechanical equipment to carry out the ore concentration process. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Supply Chain Summary:

 

  • It is remarkable that official Bolivian data registers the export of indium as zero (MMM, 2019). This implies that neither the Bolivian miners nor the Bolivian state is paid for the extraction of this metal, indispensable for the technology of the 21th century.

 

  • Bolivia is estimated as the 5th largest extractor of indium worldwide (Zapata, 2018).

 

  • Bolivian silver-lead-zinc ores contain valuable concentrations of indium. 

 

  • A first concentration of the zinc ore from the remaining rock is in some cases done by the mining cooperatives themselves or, if the cooperatives do not have the necessary equipment, it might be done by local traders.

 

Figure 2. Miners sell their mineral individually or collectively with the entire cooperative, depending on their own rules. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
  • On an individual level or collectively with all members of the cooperative, the minerals are sold to local traders. Based on the analysis carried out on behalf of the local trader at the moment of sale, the miners are paid for their materials.

 

  • The local traders then further supply some of the largest commodity traders in the world. The minerals from different suppliers can be mixed to provide the concentrations required by the international traders who manage the purchase contracts and set up the conditions of sale.

 

  • Bolivian actors have no control over the treatment charges (TC) applied, which are set by a small international oligopoly of zinc refiners and commodity traders. No smelting of zinc ore takes place in Bolivia itself despite the completion of a metallurgical plant for refining these concentrates in 2013.
Figure 3. Zinc concentrate is transported in bulk to the port of Arica and a lesser extent in containers to the port of Iquique, both located in Chile. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
  • After almost 500 kilometers of transport by truck, the freight arrives at Chilean ports.

 

  • 13.000 kilometers by sea transport brings part of the exported concentrates to the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
Figure 4. The general cargo vessel Jan Van Gent transporting Bolivian minerals to the Port of Antwerp, Belgium. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
Figure 5. The quay of the Antwerp Bulk Terminal of Sea-Invest receives and prepares the mineral for transport to the different metallurgical plants.August 2020. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
  • On average every year 150.000 tonnes of Bolivian zinc ore arrives at the Port of Antwerp (Eurostat, 2013-2019).

 

  • The Bolivian zinc ores rich in indium are very likely processed in Auby (owned and operated by Nyrstar), where also indium is being refined. 
Figure 6. The metallurgical plant of Nyrstar Balen (Belgium), above, does not have the process to recover indium, while the Auby plant has. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
  • Umicore refines rare metals in Belgium at its Hoboken and Olen metallurgical plants (both in Belgium – the company also operates in other countries). 

 

  • Umicore bases its production processes on secondary sourcing, which consist of recycling or slag from other refiners, such as Nyrstar. It means that the waste from primary materials processed by other smelters are further processed at Umicore’s installations.

 

  • The Hoboken based copper smelter, lead blast furnace and lead refinery perform the extraction of metals such as indium, selenium and tellurium. Also the Bolivian silver and lead can be further refined by the Hoboken complex.

 

Figure 7. The Lorca inland cargo vessel brings indium rich concentrates from the Port of Antwerp to Nyrstar’s metallurgical plant in Auby. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA
  • In 2018, the metallic indium and indium powders produced in France (Auby, Nyrstar) and Belgium (Hoboken, Umicore) were mainly exported to the United States of America, Japan and South Korea (Eurostat, 2020 – see Figure 11). Both countries represent 85% of the European Union export on indium. The articles of indium produced in Germany (where Umicore also has production facilities) are mainly exported to China.

 

  • It is still very challenging to recover the indium from the recycling of the end products. It is estimated that only 1% of indium is recycled worldwide from end of product waste (UNEP, 2013) and inside the EU the rate for End-of-life Recycling was recently reported at 0% (EC, 2020).

 

  • The production of indium in Belgium for the year 2018 was estimated at 22 tonnes (USGS, 2020). The export data of unwrought indium and indium powder equals 16 tonnes for 2018 (Eurostat, 2020).

 

  • Since Nyrstar was taken over by Trafigura Group, a prominent international commodity trader, is it challenging to track exactly where the flow of indium from the Auby smelter (in France) goes to. Two companies in France produce intermediary products of indium.

 

  • In general flat-panel displays are by far the most frequent application for indium, making up for 60% of its end-use.
Figure 8. Summary of the supply chain of Bolivian indium bearing ore to the ICT industry. At this point we can better understand the supply chain of one of the many metals used in a smartphone or a laptop. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Conclusion: 

 

The EU’s Due Diligence framework is not working and will not work because it lacks four key components, that are necessary in order to avoid the ongoing human rights violations and environmental damage: 

 

  1. It is not comprehensive; the EU’s Due Diligence framework lacks detailed information that can allow a standardised or homogenous way for its implementation (e.g., What is the list of requirements to decide if the case studied is in a CHARAs?). 
  2. There is no transparency; there is no mandatory, defined structure for the companies to collect the data and make it accessible to the public so anyone can check its veracity. 
  3. There is no accountability towards workers and communities, there is no way for other involved local actors to add more information about the local mining or metallurgical site besides the company itself. 
  4. There is no governing body; no institutions have the mandate to take decisions on Due Diligence, nobody is able to monitor its implementation, no one can enforce or request anything about it.

 

Minor metals like indium, which are increasingly needed in the ICT industry, are extracted mainly as a by-product of the processing of ores rich in base metals such as zinc, lead and copper. In order to understand and track the supply chain of these scarce metals, it is necessary to start working from the extraction sites.

 

Taking into account the complexity and opacity in the industrial sectors, the existing approach based on the tracking of supply chains from the consumer end-products cannot reach the original sources of the raw materials being used. Therefore, it is neglecting the problems occurring in the first stages of the supply chain.

Figure 9. One of the final products of the supply chain; touchscreens, contain a thin Indium tin oxide (ITO) coating. © Silke Ronsse / CATAPA

Recommendations:

 

There are few smelters and refining facilities in the world that have the technical know-how and metallurgical capacity to recover these metals. Therefore, a fairer and responsible supply chain would be today already possible if sufficient efforts were being made in the setting up of obligatory monitoring frameworks between the competent public institutions (at national and supranational levels) and the very few refiners and commodity traders dominating the market. The establishment of monitored supply chains is necessary if end-product consumers – whether from the public sector or the private – want to stop human rights violations, and prevent increasing environmental damage in the early stages of metal supply chains

 

The Bolivian State needs international transparency and supportive tracking systems in order to enforce its own legislation to tax minerals rich in indium – and other valuable rare metals it may be exporting – that currently leave Bolivian borders without any financial contribution. Without royalties for their minerals, the Bolivian Administration will hardly be able to independently afford the costs of the social and environmental services that mining activities cause in the short and long terms. This socio-environmental debt shouldn’t be left in the Bolivian hands alone, but corporations profiting from these minerals have to contribute to the mitigation and remediation of the ongoing human rights violations and environmental pollution included in the minerals they purchase, process and sell.

 

In summary, these are the authors key recommendations:

 

    • The creation of a fair supply chain is urgent and needs the collaboration between public bodies that can legislate and enforce the law, international monitoring institutions that can report on the supply chains and community-based organisations that can give local information to contrast the data provided by the companies.
    • Traders that cannot guarantee transparency on how the production of metals meets human rights and environmental standards, should not be able to sell in the international market, especially not EU companies. But first we need a legal structure to collect, access and monitor that information.
    • Tax contribution by the companies exporting indium-rich minerals should be reported to and requested by the Bolivian state.
    • The refining process of zinc and indium should be taking place in Bolivia to generate the added value locally and to cover the costs of remediating the environmental damage of the mining activities. It would also avoid the negative effects of the global transport of heavy mineral concentrates.
    • Bolivia should implement the mitigation of its historical tailings at sites rented to cooperatives and enforce the treatment of wastewater from acid drainage. The Government has to ensure access to water as a fundamental right; water for domestic and agricultural use should always be prioritised over extractive and industrial activities. 

 

The current situation also gives the large companies involved the ability to make a real difference through their sourcing process, by taking responsibility along their supply chain and by being transparent with their customers.

ICT products are the result of many actors throughout a long and complex mix of supply chains in several countries. Therefore, governments need to implement an appropriate global framework that can track this complexity and stop environmental damage and human rights violations wherever they occur. However, industrial efforts will still be required to drive the necessary change towards fair and responsible metal(s) production.

 

Read the Research in full here.

This article is part of the European Commission funded project “Make ICT Fair – Reforming Manufacture & Minerals Supply Chains through Policy, Finance & Public Procurement”.

CATAPA is one of its 11 co-applicants, which also include the University of Edinburgh (UK), Electronics Watch, Südwind (Austria), People and Planet (UK), SETEM Catalunya (Spain) and Swedwatch (Sweden), among others. The project aims to mobilise EU citizens, decision makers & ICT purchasers/procurers working in the EU Public Sector to improve the conditions of workers & communities along the ICT sector.

Thesis 4 Bolivia

WEBINAR:

Thesis 4 Bolivia

27th October, 7-9pm, Online

Registration

 

We invite you to an evening of presentations to hear from researchers and graduated students on the results of their thesis conducted in Bolivia.

Learn about their motives, challenges and results from their research and have the opportunity during the Q&A to ask for advice for your own thesis and research proposals.

The topics are very broad, from environment to anthropology and sustainable development.

Are you interested to learn more about Bolivia – a vibrant and diverse country which spans from the South American Andes mountains, down to the tropical lows of the Amazon?

Perhaps you are even interested in carrying out your own research project / thesis?

 

Join our evening and get inspiration for a thesis!

You can view, invite friends and share the Facebook event here

You can find the Registration Form here

[Only registered participants will receive a joining link]

What is CATAPA?

CATAPA is a social and environmental volunteer movement which works towards social and environmental justice focusing on mining related issues in Latin America. We conduct research about mining issues, organise sensitizing events on the impacts of mining and support our local partners in Latin America by capacity building and internationalising their struggle for environmental and social justice.

Each year we supervise several students writing their thesis about mining related issues and about ICT public procurement.

Make ICT Fair Webinar Series 2020: Sustainable ICT Future?

Make ICT Fair

Webinar Series 2020: Sustainable ICT Future?

In these dynamic and challenging times, when digitalisation is an urgent and quickly progressing phenomenon, the discussion about the sustainability of our electronic devices is timelier than ever.

Three years after launching the project Make ICT Fair, some of the main partners (CATAPA, Swedwatch, CEE Bankwatch Network and the University of Edinburgh), together with KU Leuven and with the support of Fair ICT Flanders, organized three webinar sessions, in order to present the most relevant research conducted since the beginning of the project.

The webinars which took place on the 28th of September and the 1st & 2nd of October 2020 did not only aim to sensibilise public institutions and private consumers on the subject of human rights violations, environmental impact and labour rights in the ICT Sector, but also put forward policy recommendations and initiated an open dialogue with the industry itself. Some of the highlights included the results from the last 3 intensive years of research, capacity building and campaigning.

In what follows, we have tried to summarize the most important conclusions on what is still missing in terms of legislation, implementation and transparency in the minerals supply chain for electronics.

At the bottom of this page you can find a key reflections and recommendations summary.

You can watch the Make ICT Fair Webinar Series here

 

 

Challenges in the Copper Supply Chain

The first webinar on 28. September focused on the supply chain of copper, which despite being excluded from the current EU Conflict Mineral Regulation list, is a vital component in many ICT devices.

Moderated by Charlotte Christiaens, an experienced coordinator at CATAPA, the first to present was Linda Scott Jakobsson, a researcher for the not-for-profit organisation Swedwatch and the main author of the report “Copper with a cost”. The presentation centred around a fact-finding mission in Zambia, which included a visit to one of the largest open-pit mines in Africa. Linda emphasized the high-risk context in the country, due to weak public institutions, low enforcement of law, high poverty and corruption. Therefore, in spite of holding the largest copper reserve in Africa, the majority of Zambia`s population does not benefit from the richness of minerals. What is more, large-scale copper mining comes with a high price of environmental pollution and human rights violation: soil contamination, water pollution and abandoned local communities among others. The main conclusion put forward was that the scope of the new European conflict minerals legislation coming into force in 2021 is too limited and the current mining practices completely contradict the EU`s Sustainable Development Goals. Linda also prompted the mining companies and ICT brands to take responsibility of improving waste management, restoring livelihoods of the affected communities and assuring transparency in ICT supply chain.

The second investigation was presented by Daniel Popov, who is a national campaigner for Bulgaria at the CEE Bankwatch Network. The focus of his investigation was Dundee Precious Metals Inc., which currently owns the Chelopech mining project in Bulgaria and the smelter facility in Namibia. In this case study the connection between the global supply chain illustrated how European toxic pollution is being exported to Africa and how corporate logic causes big environmental impact due to transporting materials all over the world in order to avoid unfavourable legislation and minimize costs.

The main issues in the case study which Daniel closely examined were missing permits and documentation for the dumping site of Namibia`s smelting facility, bad communication with the company, as well as health risks like arsenic poisoning among the local population. Nevertheless, the striving for continuous dialogue and putting pressure on the company and the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), which was investing in the project, led to promising results like the modernization of the Namibian smelter, better management of the hazardous waste facility and detailed studies on soil and underground waters pollution. Daniel Popov concluded his presentation with the critical reflection that the extraction and treatment of the metal ores more often than not has human health implications and leads to environmental degradation, while the transparency of the minerals supply chain still needs major improvements.

At the end of this first webinar, Dr. Xiaohua Li (PHD researcher in the SOLVOMET Group at KU Leuven) offered everybody a more scientific perspective on the technological innovations regarding the primary copper extraction. She introduced us to the solvometallurgy, a more environmental friendly and low energy consumption alternative for current copper primary production. This insteresting field is producing promising results, however the results are still based on the laboratory research and need to be applied at a larger scale, in order to become more viable for industrial implmentation.

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining in a Fair Global Supply Chain

During the second session of the webinars, the participants gained important insights into the topic of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and its significant role in the global supply chain for electronics.

The webinar was moderated by Piet Wostyn, who is currently a project manager at the KU Leuven SIM². The critical introduction to the topic was prepared by Boris Verbrugge, a senior researcher at HIVA (KU Leuven). He reminded the attendees that the phenomenon of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is no longer an opportunity to get rich easily and nowadays “the key driving factors of the ASM expansion are poverty and subsistence needs, mostly in developing countries”. The main issue, which Boris pointed out is the “indecent work”: hazardous, informal and often underpaid, but often seen as emancipatory for the local population. At the end of his presentation, he mentioned the existing legislative frameworks like conflict free minerals (against funding armed conflicts) in the EU and other initiatives like the Fair Trade Gold or Clean Gold (cyanide and mercury free), which unfortunately are not always common place initiatives among the small-scale miners or where decent working conditions are not a reality. To end on a positive note, Boris mentioned “a new generation of sustainable mineral supply chain initiatives” like the Fair Cobalt Alliance (FCA), which tries to situate the ASM within the entire supply chain and relies on working closely together with the local communities.

The second speaker, Prof. Erik Smolders (environmental chemist and professor at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven) presented some of the many case studies he conducted during his long career with a main focus on exposure and health assessments around cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  One of the most important discoveries he shared during the webinar was that the main pathway of human exposure to cobalt in DRC is the dust, due to the extraordinary high ingestion levels in the region. Furthermore, Prof. Smolders drew our attention to the multiple negative health and social impacts of metal mining. However, he finished his intervention with the reflection that despite of being a very important metal for our future technologies, we still don`t know the true risks of cobalt extraction at larger scale.

Finally, Alberto Vázquez Ruiz, Project Coordinator for NEMO at CATAPA and researcher in the Make ICT Fair project, discussed his research mission in Oruro (Bolivia), where mainly zinc-silver-lead ore and tin are extracted. During his stay in one of the biggest mining regions in the country, Alberto observed the reality of environmental issues (river contamination with arsenic and decreasing levels of ground water), which have destroyed many of the local communities, not able to live from agriculture anymore and forced to join the mining sector in order to provide for their families. However, the structure of artisanal and small-scale mining is very specific, based on the cooperative model, which Alberto described as a ¨system of self-exploitation¨, where the workers do not comply with the minimum safety standards and survive on living wages.

At the end of his presentation, Alberto uncovered the link between the Bolivian export of metal ores and the European ICT Sector: “The zinc concentrate coming from Bolivia is one of the world’s richest in indium and indium tin oxide is part of the ICT industry: all the flat screens, LCD, touch screen have a very thin layer of indium tin oxide”. Alberto Vázquez Ruiz ended his presentation with some decisive conclusions: the due diligence process is currently not being implemented in the ICT Sector, but the traders do have the complete data to do so and that requesting it does not imply a lot of resources are needed. Therefore, his clear message to all the private sector companies is: ¨Your company can drive a real change, because nobody in the zinc, lead or indium sector is doing any better”.

Trade Union Rights in the Global Electronics Industry: The Case of Indonesia

Last, but not least, the third session of our webinar series examined the right to organise in the global electronics industry, with a special focus on Indonesia. This last session was moderated by Dave Gorman, director of the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability at The University of Edinburgh. The first speaker, Jeroen Merk, is currently a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh as part of the Make ICT Fair project. He interpreted the concept of freedom of association as a fundamental workers right, but often facing multiple barriers like the nature of the industrial production, political repression and corporate resistance. Moreover, Jeroen emphasized that “most electronics manufacturing takes place in countries that undermine or repress the workers’ capacity to freely organise¨. His main reflection was that even though Indonesia provides a few optimistic developments, especially compared to other electronics producing nations like China or the US, the country still has to overcome many barriers.

The following presentation came from Hari Nugroho, lecturer at the Department of Sociology of the Universitas Indonesia. Hari first talked about the Indonesian trade union transformation after the fall of the authoritarian regime in 1998, which brought both democratisation and economic restructuring with new challenges like precarious labour and flexible work.  Focusing on his case study of the metal trade union (FSPMI) in the region of Bekasi, Hari Nugroho concluded with the remark: “In comparison to many Asian countries, the [Indonesian] trade unions` achievements in two decades are remarkable, but neoliberal agencies constantly encourage market flexibility, increasing precariousness and eroding union power.”

Finally, Fahmi Panimbang, a labour researcher and activist at the Sedane Labour Resource Centre (LIPS) provided critical feedback about the situation of the workers in the electronics production sites. Fahmi pointed out that the concept of Freedom of association is often insufficiently implemented in Indonesia, due to the lacking will from big technological companies, which “try to suppress the workers and limit their space to speak up”. According to Fahmi, one of the most urgent issues at the ICT assembly and production sites are the occupational health and safety standards. During his presentation, Fahmi Panimbang revealed that many workers in the electronics industry died or become ill due to the use of toxic and hazardous chemicals at the production sites. What is more, the medical check-ups conducted every year are often used as a reason to dismiss very ill workers.

Our most important reflections and recommendations:

  • The transparency of the ICT supply chain needs to be improved considerably, since it is still very difficult to monitor the safety, health and environmental standards in the small mining communities, which are the weakest link in the sector.

  • Artisanal and small-scale mining currently provides a significant part of the global primary mine input, with a big percentage of the poorest population depending on it. Therefore, any future initiative on improving the current situation should be done in a collaboration with the affected communities and accompanied by social measures.

  • The revised EU Conflict Minerals Regulation coming into force in 2021 urgently needs to be widened in scope and not just include 4 minerals (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold), because there are 75 elements present in a smartphone.

  • Making the Human Rights Due Diligence and Sustainable Supply Chains legislation mandatory inside the EU could be an important step forward, but it should not just apply for smelters and refineries importing minerals to the EU market, but also to the ones producing the finished product: all the large technology brands and other electronics companies should be forced to report on these issues.

We would like to express our special thanks to the graphic illustrator Iris Maertens, who invested a lot of inspiration and motivation to create beautiful visual recordings of our webinar series.

The End of Naïve Europe,The Rise of Green Imperialism

Image: CRM deposits EU-27 (2020). Source: European Commission’s M(2020) 474 final.

ARTICLE:

Re-published from: Vázquez Ruiz, A. 2020. “Op-Ed: The End of Naïve Europe, The Rise of Green Imperialism.” Commodity Frontiers 1: 56-59. doi:10.18174/cf.2020a17975.

The End of Naïve Europe,The Rise of Green Imperialism

Author: Alberto Vázquez Ruiz

On 29 September 2020, the European Commission officially launched the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA), a publicly supported “industrial alliance dedicated to securing a sustainable supply of raw materials in Europe”. In other words, firing the starting pistol of public funding for the race to explore and extract mineral deposits outside the European Union and especially within its borders.

Until now, the EU had only been financing mining and metallurgical private companies under the pretext of technological innovation and market competition. Since the launch of Horizon 2020 in 2014, the Commission has been assembling the institutional tools (e.g. EIT Raw Materials, the Partnership Instrument) allowing to finance private technology developments inside the EU for exploration, exploitation and metallurgy. Horizon 2020 is finishing this year, but the instruments created remain and the technological excuse seems no longer needed.

“The era of a naïve Europe that solely relies on soft power is behind us”. With these words, Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, announced earlier this month the “EU action plan for critical raw materials”, which is the EC’s strategy to face the consequences of the commercial war between the USA and China and to encourage EU nation states to focus on raw materials as part of a post-COVID19 ‘green’ recovery plan.

The pandemia has indeed created the perfect momentum to call for support for this industry. However, resource extraction and its processing together represent 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress in the world. Bad news, as many experts have already pointed to the relation between  the pandemia and biodiversity loss.

It is impossible for the EC to ignore last year’s report by the International Resources Panel (UNEP), which clearly warned humanity that metal extraction and production has doubled health and climate change impacts from 2000 to 2015 solely. And today, mining and metallurgy are representing already 20% of all health impacts from air pollution and more than a quarter of global carbon emissions. So why is the Commission actually making this change of course?

The shift in its position has been justified as the “access to resources is a strategic security question for making the green and digital transformations a success”. Although the Commission claims to share the widespread will to combat climate change and to leave no person and no place behind in the process, the Commission also openly calls for an increased mining boom which will reinforce the pressing systemic problem facing people and planet.

While green technologies are based on energy sources which are renewable, their machines are not. Electricity generation based on solar, wind, tidal… generators rely on metals (many metals if you consider off-grid technologies). The planned transition without socio-economic restructuring towards schemes that push for drastic reduction in consumption of energy, will just move us from an energy matrix based on the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels towards a loop of increasing extraction and processing of metals for the manufacturing of metal-based solutions.

It could be argued that a society based on metal-based technologies is a sustainable scenario because we would be able to recycle these elements in the future, but the reality is very far from this. The IRP-UNEP also warned us that “only 18 metals have recycling rates higher than 50%”. For the rare earths elements (REEs) needed in most green energy technologies, the recycling rate reaches just 1%.  What will happen in 30 years when the energy machines are already obsolete and fossil fuels are no longer efficient to be extracted? Mining, metallurgy and manufacturing industries are the biggest energy consumers. “What is happening today is nothing less than a massive PR campaign to sell the idea that mining is not only necessary but it can also be sustainable,” said Nick Meynen, Policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

While the EC’s Action Plan does recognise the need for improving recycling rates and the importance of reinforcing the circular economy, it lacks a coherent set of proposals that could tackle the reasons behind the low recycling rates and the slow implementation of a circular economy. There are no regulations for recyclability (yes, but more importantly there are no restrictions on production, so materials can be mixed in a way which make the products poorly recyclable, but cheaper – it is not a end-of-use technological issue), repairability (modularity in products and regulations to end the monopoly on spare parts production), reusability (plans on how to proceed with older machines). 

Breton recognises that the “post-war world architecture is faltering”, but the proposed treatment seems to be confusing the disease and the cure. His decision will accelerate the process, shaking the social foundations of our civilization even harder, instead of rebuilding our system by attacking the true causes of our current crisis. It can be seen both as a symptom of political negligence or as a part of a more complex agenda towards green imperialism.

Europe has expressed its aim to become the green energy superpower. However, the amount of minerals that the EC considers necessary for the future transition is extreme and the global metal demand already increased by 87% from 1980 to 2008. “Critical raw materials” (a techno-political rebranding of the elements the EC considers necessary today) are increasingly required for batteries in electric vehicles and off-grid generation and storage, among others. There is no way of getting that huge amount of resources without pushing social peace to its limits – also inside the EU.

“The transition to a low-carbon economy – and the minerals and metals required to make that shift – could affect fragility, conflict and violence dynamics in mineral-rich states”, reported the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in 2018. A similar and simpler analysis was made by the EEB that year: “More mining leads to more fighting”. This is the reality that local communities and civil societies organisations are facing all around the world. Global Witness has even accounted mining as the main sector responsible for the killing of land and environmental defenders across the globe. This reality has been commonly associated with the Global South. Further evidence that the due diligence voluntary process, which is supported by the EU to guarantee responsible sourcing of metals, is far from useful in avoiding human rights violations.

Now, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, Europe seeks to compensate its weaker commercial share, and to reinforce the aim to secure its supply,  with insourcing. Breton mentions that the Action Plan seeks to “protect our democracies against the menace of disinformation”, but at the same time points out that the major barrier to develop the insourcing is a lack of “public acceptance” in the European society to allow new mining projects to start operating. Therefore, several EC financed research projects have been looking for increasing “public acceptance” for this sector in local communities across the Union affected by proposed and/or operating extractive projects.

There is still no democratic capacity to decide by local communities nor their municipalities on the mining projects that will drastically change their land and very possibly leave tonnes of mining waste landfilled in their towns waiting. The discourse of the EC is that there is a lack of understanding of the mining sector by local communities and that there is a need to educate the European society on the current reality of the mining sector (a false mantra by the sector is that the environmental issues of mining and metallurgy are a matter of the past). This discourse which mixes the real needs of our planet with the demand for resources caused by the Commission’s plans for an ominous EU Green Deal will lead down the path where destruction of the environment, land and societal configurations, is forced through for Europe’s future.

“By building, today, the foundations of tomorrow’s autonomy, our Continent has the opportunity to establish a set of rules, infrastructures and technologies that will make it a powerful Europe, without ostracism or discrimination”, states Breton. This sentence provides an insight into the future the Commission is implementing in Europe. A “powerful Europe” directed by the few privileged ones living in the “civilized world” of Europe’s main cities enjoying access to green energy, but an inequality nightmare for local communities worldwide which will be affected by the increasing environmental, social and political issues on which the Green Empire will rely. To prevent this upcoming reality, today many organisations state “We can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis”.

You can find more articles from the Commodity Frontiers journal this op-ed was published in, here.

Profile

Alberto Vázquez Ruiz holds a MSc. in Conflict and Development (UGent, Belgium) and is specialized in topics related to mining and electronics. Since May 2018 he has been Project Coordinator at CATAPA (Belgium), researching on metal supply chains, on socio-environmental impacts of mining operations on local communities and on extractive waste in the EU.

Deep Sea Mining: How Belgium is Sinking to the Bottom

WEBINAR & TRAINING:

Deep Sea Mining: How Belgium is sinking to the bottom

17th October, 2pm, Online

Registration

Our deep blue oceans are home to an unprecedented wealth of biodiversity, most of which is still undiscovered to the human race. However, Deep Sea Mining is threatening to destroy that. Experts and environmental movements fear irreparable damage.

Already over a million square kilometres is licenced for exploration in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Belgium is one of the frontrunners in this field. The company DEME-GSR and the Belgium government are lining up to mine one of earth’s least known and untouched ecological habitats.

Find out about what Deep Sea Mining entails and which kind of threats it’s posing to ocean life. What part is the Belgium government playing in the birth of this destructive industry? And can we still stop this?

Arm yourself with knowledge on the threats Deep Sea Mining is posing and what we can do about it in Belgium, with speakers An Lambrechts from Greenpeace, Sarah Vanden Eede from WWF and Ann Dom from Seas at Risk.

Programme:
14:00-16:00 Webinar – Deep Sea Mining: How Belgium is sinking to the bottom.
16:00-18:15 OPTIONAL – Online public action training* (more info below)

You can view, invite friends and share the Facebook event here

You can find the Registration Form here

[Only registered participants will receive a joining link]

Online Public Action training workshop – Deep Sea Mining

*We have 20 spaces available for a separate Online Public Action training workshop.

This workshop is for citizens who are passionate about protecting our oceans and would like to become more involved in taking action to protect our blue planet from Deep Sea Mining and are already attending ‘Deep Sea Mining: How Belgium is sinking to the bottom’.

If you feel committed to taking action for a healthier blue planet for now and future generations to come and would like to be part of a passionate and active group of people with similar shared values working on the topic of Deep Sea Mining in Belgium, apply using the event registration form (found above).

The workshop will be held by CATAPA. The Deep Sea Mining Public Action workshop will follow on after Deep Sea Mining: How Belgium is sinking to the bottom ends.

It will take place from 16:15 – 18:15, 17th October 2020.