Dear friends,

We have redesigned our website! It now provides much more introductory material, so people who are not familiar with the mining industry or our work can learn more about the background as well as being able to find our latest news (now available at the bottom of the homepage). There is also a section where we will publish our monthly newsletters. We hope you will enjoy using it. If you find any glitches on the new site, let us know so we can sort them out.

We have also recently produced a short video based on activities around the AGM of the world’s largest mining company, BHP, last October. ‘What’s in the water?‘ concentrates on BHP’s unfortunate contribution to the problems created by the Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia and the Samarco tailings dam disaster in Brazil.

Mining disasters

We continue to follow the aftermath of the terrible tailings dam collapse at Broumadinho in Brazil. Early this month, LMN and friends held a vigil for the many people who died. We signed a joint letter to companies and investors to pressure Brazilian miner Vale to change its ways. This catastrophe has at last caused sufficient concern among investors that they are pushing for real change in the way the industry stores its wastes. Let’s see whether meaningful change actually occurs.

Glencore’s operations have been marked by two horrendous accidents in recent weeks: an acid spill in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which killed 18 people, and a fire in Zambia which killed three workers. Glencore has until very recently shown no interest in reining in its thermal coal production; now, under pressure from investors, it has finally announced that it will cap it.

Rio Tinto’s legacy continues to be felt in two places which it has left: debate swirls around whether to reopen mining operations at Panguna in Bougainville, years after pollution from the mine sparked a war of independence from Papua New Guinea; and Freeport, operator of the Grasberg mine in West Papua, a mine which Rio Tinto finance enabled to expand massively, is investing to mitigate the risk from its tailings dams.

Resistance

A legal action has just been launched in Colombia for environmental damage by the Cerrejon coal mine, owned by Anglo American, BHP and Glencore. Court actions in India stopped the reopening of Vedanta’s Tuticorin smelter but threaten the eviction of adivasis (tribal people) from many areas including parts of the Niyamgiri Hills, where Vedanta wants to mine bauxite. Anti-mining campaigners in Jerico, Colombia, have seen off AngloGold Ashanti. Community activists in Xolobeni continue to resist mineral sands mining on South Africa’s Wild Coast. A large majority of people in South African mining communities say the industry brings them no benefit. In the UK, resistance continues to coal mining in Northeast England and gold mining in Northern Ireland. But the UK government is keen to expand mining.

Costing the earth

Finally, there is bad news for all of us reading this newsletter on mobile electronic devices, especially new ones: Smartphones Are Killing the Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected. So, we have our work cut out – we need both to challenge corporate power, and rein in our own taste for new products!

And there’s plenty more news below.

All the best,
Richard Solly, Co-ordinator, London Mining Network.

In this mailout

Take action
Sign the petition: Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in any form should not be part of UK trade and investment policy.

Events
Wednesday 6 March, 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm, Daughter of the Lake’ – Film screening and Q&A with Director, Ernesto Cabellos
Wednesday, 13 March, 10:30am – 1:00pm, Open Government Week – Transparency in the world’s oil, gas and mining industries: the UK’s contribution

News
1) What’s in the water? Video of actions around last year’s BHP AGM
2) More news on the Broumadinho disaster and the mining industry response
3) Glencore’s mining accidents and decision to cap coal production
4) The legacies of Rio Tinto
5) Vedanta and the courts in India
6) Court action against Cerrejon Coal; solidarity in Ireland
7) The cost of the coal that supplies the UK
8) Mining in the UK: Part I
9) Canadian artist John G. Boehme in ‘dirty protest’ at site of proposed Northern Ireland gold mine
10) Coal, carbon capture, UK export finance, climate change and just transition
11) Damage done by mining for renewable energy and electronics
12) Uranium and nuclear power: no thanks
13) The African Mining Indaba
14) Xolobeni activist defies death threats to protect her ancestral land
15) Tanzania row overshadows Acacia’s upbeat output, cost figures
16) The coffee town of Jericó, Colombia defeats the mighty AngloGold Ashanti

New reports
UN report calls for strengthened governance to improve the social and environmental outcomes of mining
New report demonstrates significant flaws in corporate sustainability reporting across the EU
OECD Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060: Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences

Take action

Sign the petition: Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in any form should not be part of UK trade and investment policy.

ISDS corporate courts are written into thousands of trade and investment deals around the world. They give foreign companies the power to sue for millions over laws that harm their profits. Even the threat of a case is used to bully countries into backing down. We have a chance to stop this. As the UK prepares to sets its own trade policy after Brexit, we are speaking up to say ISDS should have no place in it. Read the briefing by Global Justice Now.

Events

Wednesday 6 March, 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm, Daughter of the Lake’ – Film screening and Q&A with Director, Ernesto Cabellos

Nelida is an Andean woman able to communicate with nature’s spirits. She feels she is the daughter of the lakes that provide water to her village. But just beneath her lakes, Yanacocha, Latin America’s largest gold mine, has discovered a deposit valued at billions of dollars. They have the Peruvian government’s support to mine it, even though it means drying out the lakes.

Wednesday, 13 March, 10:30am – 1:00pm, Open Government Week – Transparency in the world’s oil, gas and mining industries: the UK’s contribution 

This session will cover the current state and future actions for natural resource transparency providing an overview from the government, civil society, and private sector representatives.

Credit: Richard Kaby

News

1) What’s in the water?

BHP, the London-listed mining giant, released its half-year profit earnings this morning, on 19th February. Their net profit for June-December 2018 increased to $3.8 billion, up 90 percent from the last half of 2017. But it comes at a cost: clean water for mining-affected communities.

2) More news on the Broumadinho disaster and the mining industry response

Vigil for Brazil’s communities affected by Brumadinho dam disaster

On Friday January 25th, in the state of Minas Gerais, 12 million cubic metres of mining waste surged through the Brumadinho valley, covering homes, farmland, livestock, and people, in the process. Toxic sludge, up to eight metres deep, has been left in its wake. See photos of LMN’s vigil.

Brumadinho dam: NGOs urge companies and investors to use leverage and require Vale to remedy the situation

LMN and 85 other organisations addressed a letter to companies and investors of the mining and steel industry following the rupture of the Brumadinho tailings dam, on January 25. The letter urges the companies to exercise their due diligence regarding the situation in Brazil and to require Vale S.A. to adequately repair the victims of these events and provide guarantees of non-repetition.

Brumadinho mine disaster: We cry tears of mud and blood

Testimony from our friends in the Churches and Mining Network.

BHP urges miners to create global body to oversee tailings dams

BHP, the world’s largest mining company, has urged peers to create an independent international body in charge of overseeing the construction, integrity and operations of tailings dams, which storage mining waste, following the second collapse of a dam in Brazil in the past three years.

Will Brazil’s dam collapse lead to real, global change? 

The repercussions for the global mining industry continue from the tragic Brumadinho tailings dam disaster in Brazil. A number of insightful critiques of the industry have been published, while the issue of what mining’s financiers can do to minimise the risks has been explored. Brazil promised it will ban upstream dams, the kind of dam used by Vale. BHP’s CEO Andrew Mackenzie has said his company would welcome an international and independent body to oversee the integrity of all the dams. But will meaningful global change happen? If past experience is anything to go by the industry will do what it can to resist it.

UK trade department hosted Vale at ‘mining is great’ event weeks before Brumadinho dam collapse 

UK trade minister Graham Stuart said President Jair Bolsonaro’s election made it an ‘exciting’ time to visit Brazil.

A Tidal Wave of Mud

Useful maps and aerial photos of the Broumadinho disaster

3) Glencore’s mining accidents and decision to cap coal production

Acid Spill on Vehicles Near Glencore Mine Kills 18 People

At least 18 people died when a truck transporting sulphuric acid to a mine owned by Glencore Plc in the Democratic Republic of Congo crashed and spilled its contents onto two vehicles, a provincial health minister said.

Glencore’s Zambian unit suspends operations after three workers die in fire

Mopani is one the biggest mining companies in Zambia — Africa’s No. 2 producer of the metal — with an output of around 100,000 tonnes a year. It was not immediately clear how much production would be lost owing to the suspended production.

Glencore at last moves to cap coal output

Australia’s largest coal miner Glencore will cap its global coal output at current levels in the wake of pressure from activist shareholders as part of a pivot towards minerals used in renewable technologies.

The $32 Trillion Pushing Fossil Fuel CEOs to Act on Climate Change

Behind Glencore Plc’s decision to limit coal investment is a little-known, but powerful group of investors.

4) The legacies of Rio Tinto

Bougainville: Is it sitting on a hornets nest?

Resuming mining may not be of any benefit

Freeport investing to mitigate risk from tailings dams -CEO

Freeport-McMoRan Inc Chief Executive Richard Adkerson said his company has been investing heavily to mitigate any danger from tailings dams and is “comfortable” with engineering designs in place at existing dams.

A Long Road to Remedy

A way forward together. This was the promise made by the Rio Tinto-backed Oyu Tolgoi (OT) copper and gold mine to local herders. Now, after years of false starts and false promises, nomadic herders in Khanbogd soum, in Mongolia’s remote South Gobi, may finally have a way forward with OT.

5) Vedanta and the courts in India

India: Supreme Court refuses reopening of Sterlite plant

India’s Supreme Court has ruled out re-opening  the polluting copper smelter in Tuticorn. But Vedanta has been given permission to go to the High Court; and an environmental activist has also gone mysteriously missing, following release of a film he made, naming certain police as responsible for the killings of local citizens last year.

India’s Supreme Court – en route to destroying millions of lives

According to environmental journalist Nitin Sethi , it could be the “largest mass scale, legally sanctioned eviction of tribals in independent India“. He was referring to a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court that forest areas, inhabited by millions of indigenous people, may soon be evicted – thanks to government and corporate pressures. Historian Ramachandra Guha says  these communities are facing a “triple resource crunch”, characterised by living  in India’s “densest forests, along with its fastest-flowing rivers and atop its richest veins of iron ore and bauxite”. Meanwhile, the Dongria Khondh at Nyamgiri threaten strong resistance to any attempt to force them off their territory.

The jungles and hills cannot be saved by the politics of money: voices from Niyamgiri 

In the Niyamgiri hills and jungles people are living belonging to the Dongria Kondh and Kutia Kondh Adivasi communities. These Adivasis have struggled since a long time against the invasion of companies like Vedanta and Utkal Alumina for bauxite mining in Niyamgiri. After a Supreme Court order to stop mining, the people today are struggling for their demand to remove the police camps that had been established around Niyamgiri.

6) Court action against Cerrejón Coal; solidarity in Ireland

Legal action against Cerrejón Coal’s environmental licence

Action launched by affected communities and NGOs in Bogota, Colombia, on 21 February

Press release: Activists in Ireland manifest support for Colombian legal action launched against ESB coal supplier Cerrejón

Human rights and environmental activists in Ireland publicly manifested their support for a Colombian legal action against the Cerrejón coal mine, who supplies the ESB.

Irish activists call for end to Cerrejón mine’s human rights abuses

Campaigners based over 8000 km away from Colombia are voicing their concerns in their native Republic of Ireland, due to the country’s involvement in human rights abuses associated with Colombia’s Cerrejón mine.

7) The cost of the coal that supplies the UK

Toxic black snow covers Siberian coal mining region

Activists say ‘post-apocalyptic’ scenes in Kuzbass highlight man-made ecological disaster

Living with coal: Resisting the UK’s newest mine

Video about the struggle against opencast coal in Northeast England.

8) Mining in the UK: Part I

The UK Government and industry players are looking to revitalise domestic mining, placing communities and ecosystems under threat.

9) Canadian artist John G. Boehme in ‘dirty protest’ at site of proposed Northern Ireland gold mine

He tucked into a ploughman’s lunch covered with gold leaf, washing it down with a large glass of Goldschlager

10) Coal, carbon capture, UK export finance, climate change and just transition

BECCS: Discourse about unicorns descends into real-world farce

This month’s “breaking news” on BECCS: Small UK startup company to test some unproven new solvent nobody’s published anything about in order to help Drax put fizz into beer

Ban Ki Moon: UK must stop investing in fossil fuels in developing countries

The UK parliament’s environmental audit committee is currently holding an inquiry into UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) financing of fossil fuels in developing countries. This government agency provides financial support for international trade with the aim of boosting British companies’ exports. It is deeply concerning to note that over the period 2010-2014, UKEF provided more than 99.4% of its energy finance to fossil fuels, and less than 1% to renewable energy.

Lessons from talking climate with Albertan oil workers

Report on ‘just transition’ – the idea that ending fossil fuels should not mean punishing the working class communities that have historically relied on them for employment.

IEEFA report: Every two weeks a bank, insurer or lender announces new coal restrictions

Major financial institutions restricting coal funding tops 100

11) Damage done by mining for renewable energy and electronics

Deep sea mining threatens indigenous culture in Papua New Guinea

Valuable minerals are created as rapidly cooling gases emerge from volcanic vents on the seafloor. Mining the seabed for these minerals could supply the metals and rare earth elements essential to building electric vehicles, solar panels and other green energy infrastructure. But deep sea mining could also damage and contaminate these unique environments, where researchers have only begun to explore.

Smartphones Are Killing the Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected

Researchers are sounding the alarm after an analysis showed that buying a new smartphone consumes as much energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade.

12) Uranium and nuclear power: no thanks

Can humans ever be trusted with nuclear power?

This from the former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission: “Ultimately, I think people will never tolerate frequent accidents. The good news is that they won’t have to because carbon-free electricity alternatives to nuclear are in many cases cheaper than even existing nuclear plants and becoming even cheaper faster.”

Nukes Are No Answer To Climate Crisis

Ralph Nader speaks with former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dr. Gregory Jaczko: “There are a lot of people running around, talking about how nuclear is the only way we’re going to solve climate change. That, to me, is a real mistake.”

13) The African Mining Indaba 

African Mining Indaba: decent and sustainable work must be the future of mining in 2050

Glen Mpufane, director for mining at IndustriALL  global union, emphasized that “the social and environmental costs of mining are not reflected on companies’ balance sheets but externalised and passed on to workers, their families, poor communities and the state. Occupational injuries and ill-health have huge social and economic implications for society. Indirect costs include the costs of livelihoods lost, lost income to dependents, and the cost associated with caregiving by families and the community.”

Mining Indaba Should Address Justice for Victims

Participants at the Africa Mining Indaba in South Africa, the largest mining investment conference in Africa, should act to address justice and compensation for harm to individuals and local communities as a result of their activities, said RAID, a UK based watchdog that exposes corporate human rights violations in Africa.

Mining brings no benefit, say 79% of community members in audit

As the Mining Indaba sits in Cape Town, a new report has found few host communities believe they benefit from the R356-billion industry.

14) Xolobeni activist defies death threats to protect her ancestral land

Since 2007, Mbuthuma has helped lead the long-standing resistance of the coastal villagers of Xolobeni, a cluster of villages nestled in the dramatic, rugged cliffs of northern Pondoland on the scenic Wild Coast, against titanium mining on the coastal dunes. (See LMN website for background on the London connection.)

15) Tanzania row overshadows Acacia’s upbeat output, cost figures

Acacia Mining beat forecasts with figures for its production and costs in 2018 that lifted the gold miner back into profit, but the company is still grappling with a long-running tax dispute in Tanzania where it operates all its mines.

16) The coffee town of Jericó, Colombia defeats the mighty AngloGold Ashanti

From the moment the City council of Jericó prohibited mining exploitation on the 20th of November 2018, the mayor Jorge Pérez Hernández has been waiting patiently for AngloGold Ashanti to cease the copper explorations they were doing in the farm ‘La Mancha’.

New reports

Call for strengthened governance to improve the social and environmental outcomes of mining

The mining sector, if carefully managed, presents enormous opportunities for advancing sustainable development, particularly in low-income countries, the International Resource Panel says in its latest report. The Panel calls for an international mineral agency – or a global treaty – to address priorities of transformation and economic diversification, along with concerns about security of supply.

New report demonstrates significant flaws in corporate sustainability reporting across the EU

The Alliance for Corporate Transparency (ACT) project has today published its “2018 Research Report” analysing how European companies disclose information necessary for understanding their impact on society and the environment.

OECD Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060: Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences

This report presents global projections of materials use and their environmental consequences, providing a quantitative outlook to 2060 at the global, sectoral and regional levels for 61 different materials (biomass resources, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals). It explains the economic drivers determining the decoupling of economic growth and materials use, and assesses how the projected shifts in sectoral and regional economic activity influence the use of different materials. The projections include both primary and secondary materials, which provides a deeper understanding of what drives the synergies and trade-offs between extraction and recycling. The report projects a doubling of global primary materials use between today and 2060. Population and converging per capita income growth drive the growth in materials use. However, structural change, especially in non-OECD countries, and technology improvements partially dampen that growth. Metals and non-metallic minerals are projected to grow more rapidly than other types of materials.