One of the world’s biggest mining companies has been given permission to open up an enormous mine on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar which will involve digging up some of the world’s most unique forest.
The decision has outraged campaigners at Friends of the Earth, who had opposed the plans from the outset. It is all the more poignant because one of their leading directors, Andrew Lees, died 10 years ago in the same forest while investigating the controversial plans for a mine.
Madagascar is unique for its wildlife _- of its estimated 200 000 plant and animal species, three-quarters exist nowhere else in the world. Its beauty and coastline are also beginning to make it a popular tourism destination and its popularity has been further boosted by the film Madagascar, the animated movie which features animals escaping from a New York zoo and ending up on the island.
But the company, mining giant Rio Tinto, which has the backing of the World Bank for the plan, is adamant that environmental damage will be kept to a minimum. It says it will bring much-needed economic growth to an impoverished region.
The project in the Fort Dauphin region of the island is being developed by QIT Madagascar Minerals, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, with 20% owned by the government.
Up to 1 000ha of land and coastal rainforest bordering the Indian Ocean will be dug up in different phases of the £430-million project to extract ilmenite, a mineral which can be used to produce titanium dioxide pigment. Around 750 000 tonnes of the ore will be extracted each year at the start of the operation, which could last for 40 years.
The huge economic growth of China has led to enormous demand for the white pigment, which is used in paper, paint and plastics, at a time when other ilmenite mines in Australia and South Africa are being exhausted.
The first production will begin in 2008, once a new port has been built, partly with $35-million of funding from the World Bank.
The decision comes 10 years after Lees died while investigating proposals for the controversial mine. His disappearance in 1995 sparked a search and he was found in the forest where he had collapsed and died from heat stroke.
Ten years ago, The Observer revealed how worried Lees was by the project and the impact it would have on the island. A botanist with a special passion for waterlands, he was investigating the effect it would have not only on its wildlife, but also on the Malagasy people, many of whom live in the forest.
Madagascar has more groups of unique animals that anywhere else on earth. There are 24 families of species that are found only on the island. Best known of Madagascar’s animals are the lemurs, monkey-like creatures with large eyes, of which there are 32 different species. Other creatures under ecological stress are the ploughshare tortoise, the world’s rarest tortoise, of which only a few hundred survive today, and the sideneck turtle.
Tony Juniper, head of Friends of the Earth, is aghast that the project has got the go-ahead. He said on Saturday night: ”This is a very sad day and very bad news for the people of Madagascar. Rio Tinto is exploiting natural resources in the developing world and, once again, it is the local people who will pay the price.
”This mine will not solve the terrible problems of poverty on the island, but it will damage its precious biodiversity.
He said that it was time international laws were introduced to protect the interests of people and the environment. ”It is becoming increasingly clear that companies cannot be trusted to do so.”
Christine Orengo, Lees’s partner, has been working with her sister Yvonne and the Andrew Lees Trust to help the Malagasy people to improve their income, and live in a sustainable way.
”Andrew would have been so saddened by this decision,” she said. ”There is terrible poverty in Madagascar, but this is not the best way to alleviate it. Thousands of foreigners will come in to take the jobs, and there are worries about the spread of diseases such as HIV. I fear it’s going to destroy one of the most beautiful regions in the world.”
Rio Tinto, highly sensitive to conservation criticisms, set up an independent biodiversity committee in order to assess any likely damage and to see how much could be avoided or minimised. As a result, the company decided to set aside a conservation area on land it was previously going to mine, so that some of the plants and species could be protected. It also worked with experts from Kew Gardens in London to preserve the seeds from threatened plants. Kew received sponsorship money from Rio Tinto as part of the deal.
Roger Smith, formerly head of the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew, said it was neutral on the decision, saying it was not its role to criticise what was essential a decision for the Madagascar government.
”We wanted to see the least environmental damage possible from this project. With our expertise we can do a great deal to protect their species, and we have nursery skills which will ensure that the plants have the best possible chances of growing.”
He pointed out that Britain was in no position to criticise the environmental damage. ”Look what we have done to our country. If we apply the same rules, shouldn’t we be covering Britain with oak forest and wild boars? We have an odd view about what is right and wrong.”
Andrew Mackenzie, head of Industrial Minerals, the product group of Rio Tinto responsible for the mine, said on Saturday: ”We believe we have done everything we can do to minimise the impact on what I would say was an inevitable decision.”
He said if it was not his company developing the mine, it would be someone else: ”It is so attractive for the quality of the ore and the opportunity in the market place that someone would have done this.”
Mackenzie pointed out that much of the forest in the south has already disappeared because local people have chopped down many of the trees for firewood. ”We will actually restore the forest to them, by planting seeds and saplings in areas that have been denuded.”
He said that, working in areas of 50ha at a time, they would remove the ore from the sand and then replace the sand and replant it with trees.
But Juniper said no company could guarantee that its plans would work out in the best way possible. ”You might have lots of plans for environmental protection, backed by lots of experts, but we are looking at a mine which will operate for 40 years.
”What are we going to do if, at the end of it all, there are species which become extinct and a habitat that is ruined and people who are still impoverished? Who’s going to be held accountable for that? No one. It’s the age-old story of multinationals getting exactly what they want, whatever the environmental cost.” – Guardian Unlimited Â