Three Adivasi women stand next to Kawardah mine in Chhattisgarh where Vedanta Aluminium Ltd is expected to receive bauxite supplies from the Bharat Aluminium Company. Credit: Nella Turkki/IPS

By Ed McKenna
NEW DELHI, Oct 23 2013 (IPS)

A nationwide enquiry into illegal mining in India was aborted before it completed its investigation into the failings of the country’s mining industry. The study had prompted the government to ban mining in two states and arrest high-ranking politicians.

The government’s Oct. 16 decision to terminate the enquiry is a worrying indicator of its commitment to ending corruption and malpractice in the mining sector, says Vijay Pratap, convener of the think tank South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy.

“Our government has been overwhelmed by the corporate power of mining companies. The government had to stop this enquiry because too many uncomfortable truths were being revealed about the nexus between politics and companies,” he told IPS.

The commission, headed by Justice M B Shah, was appointed in November 2010 to investigate illegal iron ore and manganese mining practices and track the financial records of transactions in the mining industry between 2006 and 2010.

Illegal mining in resource-rich states of India spans unlicenced encroachment of forest areas, bribery, under-payment of government royalties, environmental offences and displacement of tribal communities.

Two earlier reports by the Shah Commission on illegal mining across the country led to a ban on the country’s largest iron ore mines in the states of Karnataka and Goa.

The government’s decision to end the enquiry will halt detailed hearings in three of the states listed in the commission’s terms of reference – Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

UV Singh, a member of the Shah Commission, told IPS that the government gave no justification for its decision to end the investigation before it could conclude its study.

“There is no reason. The investigation was incomplete. Major details were missing from our study, while in three states we were unable to commence any enquiry. Justice Shah is not satisfied with this outcome,” he told IPS.

According to the report on Goa’s iron ore mining sector, 90 mines had been operational without the requisite permission from the National Board for Wildlife. In September 2010 the government declared a temporary ban on all mining activity in Goa, which is still in place, and revoked all mining licences in response to a report by the commission. The small western state of Goa accounts for more than half of India’s iron ore exports.

The commission’s latest report described the state’s failings to regulate the industry as “a deliberate omission that resulted in illegal mining and a huge loss to the exchequer.”

The commission has estimated that illegal mining in Goa has cost the state financial losses of up to six billion dollars.

High-ranking government officials flagged by the commission for their involvement in bogus mining practices include Goa’s former director of mines and geology, Arvind Lolienkar, who was suspended for his alleged involvement in illegal mining.

M E Shivalinga Murthy, former director of Karnataka’s mines and geology department, was also charged, in May 2012, for illegally issuing transferred mining permits to the Associated Mining Company (AMC). A subsequent investigation found six other officials from his department guilty of collusion.

AMC is owned by former Karnataka tourism minister Janardhana Reddy, who has been imprisoned for using fake permits.

The enquiry’s findings set a precedent for the Supreme Court to ban mining in Karnataka from July 2011 to April 2013. The ban was lifted as the investigation in the state had concluded and there was strong pressure to allow mining industry activity to resume.

“Our system and its governing elite are controlled by large corporations who use bribery and intimidation to get what they want,” Pratap told IPS.

India’s iron ore exports have been in constant decline since 2009-2010, when exports stood at 117 million tonnes. In 2010-2011 exports had slumped to 61 million tonnes. According to the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, the ban on mining in Goa and Karnataka has cost the country 10 billion dollars.

The closure of the commission will prevent further evidence being compiled on illegal mining and will also perpetuate “the illegal violation of resource rights and forest and environmental laws by mining companies in the tribal dominated mineral rich and forested districts of the state,” Madhu Sarin, honorary fellow at the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global coalition that works to encourage forest tenure and policy reforms, told IPS.

India’s eighty million Adivasis – members of forest-dwelling traditional communities – are the major casualties of this decision, says Samantha Agarwal with Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, an alliance of people’s groups and mass organisations.

She told IPS that access to resources such as land and clean water will continue to be threatened by encroachment from illegal mining companies.

“Adivasis who live in areas with mining operations are the poorest by all measures, including access to electricity and drinking water,” Agarwal said.

“Their farm and forest land is taken by illegal means with particularly blatant violations of PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act) and the Forest Rights Act…then due to mining activities their ground water dries up and whatever remaining land of theirs gets destroyed by surface water effluents from the mines.”

Adivasis had their land rights curtailed earlier this year when the government overturned a key provision of the Forest Rights Act legislation to allow major linear infrastructure projects such as road building in forest habitat without consent from the affected community as previously mandated in the FRA.

In response to the decision to terminate the Shah Commission, Sanjay Basu Mallick from the All India Forum of Forest Movements told IPS: “Adivasis can no longer rely on legal process to protect their rights. Their only weapons are courage and non-violent protest.”

Caudalosa workers clean up mining tailings in Peru's Opamayo River. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Joe Hitchon
WASHINGTON, Mar 26 2013 (IPS)

Researchers have unveiled new data warning that governments in Latin America are infringing on the rights of their indigenous populations in a bid to fuel development through the extraction of natural resources.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a Washington-based organisation, says it has documented a “natural resources giveaway” in Latin America, which highlights how an outdated development model is trampling on human rights and the environment throughout much of the region.Governments are at a pivot point. Will they pursue massive resource extraction at any cost or create a detailed and regulated development plan?

“Without recognition of local rights, transparency of deals and decisions, and mechanisms to ensure accountability of governments and investors, there will be a rollback of environmental, human and tenure rights of forest communities,” Omaira Bolanos, RRI’s programme director for Latin America, told IPS from Bogota.

“Foreign investors prefer countries with weakened regulations to expand their investments. So, governments, citizens, civil society and businesspeople must work together to address the risks and opportunities of advancing the economic development and prosperity of all Latin Americans.”

She added: “But this must be done without harming the human and tenure rights of rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.”

A new study from RRI (available in Spanish here) finds that even while some governments in Latin America are increasingly looking to natural resources extraction to fuel their economic development, several are paying scant attention to the impact of mining, oil exploration and other activities on the environment or local landowners.

Margarita Florez, executive director at Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad, an environmental and human rights group in Colombia, analyses the impacts of the extractive industries on the collective land and forest rights of people and communities in Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Panama.

Florez writes that the mining activities in those countries increased in intensity and range over the last two decades, particularly focusing on lands owned by indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.

“A lot of the real impacts aren’t coming to light,” Augusta Molnar, director for country and regional programmes at RRI, told IPS.

“Governments think they can dramatically expand mining or petroleum exploration in their countries because it is a small percent of the total land area and, therefore, they believe the environmental impact will be small – despite the fact that 90 to 100 percent of these areas are in the middle of forests and indigenous lands. So in fact, the impacts are quite massive.”

All four countries, for instance, reported destruction to vital water sources for indigenous communities, due to the very high water demand for mining operations.

Little oversight

In each of these four countries, foreign direct investment (FDI) was found to be focused mainly on the extractives sector. In Colombia, for example, oil and mining investment accounted for 92 percent of FDI in 2011 – around 13.2 billion dollars.

FDI also increased in these sectors in Guatemala, Peru and Panama. Indeed, the states evidently competed to attract FDI, often reducing or eliminating restrictions or regulations in order to attract companies.

In addition, the report says little consultation appears to be taking place between affected communities and governments – let alone with the private mining companies. This sets the stage for conflict and creates precedents that undermine both legal and governance issues at the national level.

“There are some companies with high standards and some companies with very poor standards,” Molnar said.

“Broadly, we found that the institutions are not in place at the state level to oversee the environment impact assessments and their implementation. There is not a broad set of standards for prior consent, and there is a prevailing assumption that a set of consultations have been carried out when in reality there is no mechanism in place for oversight.”

Opposition movements have attempted to push back, but these have been countered by government efforts to paint indigenous communities as obstacles to eagerly awaited progress.

“If you fully recognise a people’s rights, than the engagement with these peoples and decisions to go ahead with an investment make them very much in the middle of negotiations between the companies and the state,” Florez writes.

“This will require the state to be much more accountable. We know that indigenous people are very important actors in managing forests and living in harmony with forests. We also know that poverty increases if you don’t work with these local people.”

She continues, “A company cannot just collect revenues and expect the local economy is going to grow. There needs to be a balanced development.”

Need for consultation

In 2011, James Anaya, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, published a report questioning the current development model in much of Latin America. The idea that the extraction of natural resources leads to progress, Anaya stated at the time, constitutes a violation of indigenous peoples’ cultural, social, environmental and economic rights.

Florez furthers this line of inquiry. For instance, she highlights an inequitable distribution of royalties garnered from the exploitation of the region’s non-renewable natural resources, and finds that this money has failed to translate into greater well-being for local communities.

Over the weekend in Bogota, representatives from the four governments, including leaders from indigenous and Afro-descendant groups, gathered to discuss the effects of resource extraction on nearby communities. According to Molnar, both the government and indigenous representatives were happy to be able to talk face to face.

“We hope this demonstrates that the governments are at a pivot point,” she says. “Will they pursue massive resource extraction at any cost or create a detailed and regulated development plan?”

According to Melissa Blue Sky, project attorney with the Washington-based Centre for International and Environmental Law (CIEL), it is a precedent that is gaining force. A consultation law just came into force last year in Peru, and other Latin American countries are creating similar national laws.

“An increased level of dialogue and an effort to protect the rights of indigenous peoples is being seen in Latin America as more countries are beginning to implement national consultation laws,” she told IPS.

“High oil and gas prices are giving countries new incentive to extract from previously undisturbed regions where indigenous people often live. National consultation laws are giving strength to these voices.”