Dark floors, white walls, conference participants in ties and formal dresses. From the red armchair in the lobby of a hotel in central Cape Town the surrounds do not immediately bring to mind an alternative to the high-profile investors meeting that takes place five kilometres away in the International Convention Centre. Much like the G7 summits, the Mining Indaba provoked the formation of a counter-summit.

The Alternative Indaba initiated by faith-based groups eight years ago is a forum to discuss alternatives to the mining rush that brought more doom than gloom over the African continent and beyond. Today the meeting assembles a plethora of civic organizations from around Africa trying to call for the mining industry to become more accountable to their constituents or otherwise to stop mining altogether. The meeting is a counter-summit to the Mining Indaba – the “world’s largest mining investment conference, dedicated to the capitalisation and development of mining in Africa.”

Large-scale mining started in Africa with the gold rush around the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg towards the end of the 19^th century. Since then mining has become the centre piece of South Africa’s political economy. Mining is not only contributing around six percent of the annual GDP but stimulates other economic sectors up- and downstream such as transport, energy, and manufacturing. Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, highlighted (during the investors meeting in Cape Town) that mining in South Africa would last for another 150 years. He estimated that minerals worth $2.5 to 3 trillion can still be mined in the country.

Resource curse or blessing?

Delegates from the Alternative summit do not necessarily believe that mining should stop overnight, but argue that extraction has not benefitted mining-affected communities around the African continent as much as it should have. Many delegates therefore speak of a resource curse in Africa, including South Africa where most of the mineral endowments are currently mined by foreign-owned companies.

International financial organizations such as the World Bank have in past years shifted their privatisation-centred discourse towards calls for good governance in the mining sector. The open society of Southern Africa speaks of two contracting economic realities on the African continent. Fostered by the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank the first reality feeds into the “Africa rising” narrative with African countries growing their economies on their rich resource endowments. The second reality – the one that the Alternative Mining Indaba broadly purports – looks at the conundrum of Africa still being the poorest continent despite its large-scale mining activities.

At the beginning of the alternative conference, CEO of the International Council on Mining & Metal Tom Butler addressed the participants representing corporate interests and tried to persuade his audience that “there is a lot of common vision in the mining industry.” Some participants applauded the fact that there was a delegate from “the other side.” No minister has ever addressed the Alternative Indaba, which has long wanted more engagement with decision-makers.

Just when Butler seemed to have persuaded some participants to his way of thinking a woman from the floor rose and shared her story from Marikana where in 2012 police shot 34 miners in cold blood. She accused the mining organisation operating around her home of not having built houses for which they have received funds from the World Bank. “We are still living in shacks.” An embarrassed Butler responded by pointing to the failure of government to play its role. Thereafter the Indaba became a colourful exhibition of civil society organizations (some of which might proudly self-identify as uncivil society organizations.)

Taking ownership

One of the most contentious issues was the African Mining Vision which was adopted by African heads of states in 2009. David van Wyk, communist firebrand and presenter on a panel discussing the merits and shortfalls of the vision, hailed the document for not being legally binding and not challenging foreign ownership. More importantly, from a community perspective, is that the vision does not afford an explicit right for communities to say “no” to mining.

Some further confusion was caused by Paul Msoma, a technical advisor to the AU commission, who claimed that the African Mining Vision was in fact “not about mining, but about development.” Christopher Rutledge from Action Aid South Africa insisted that the vision was indeed an elite-driven extraction agenda.

The meeting showed that there are multiple approaches to challenge the extractive industries that appear to fast-track mining on the backs of affected communities. Faith-based organization Bench Marks from Johannesburg has learnt that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of mining houses amounts to “fiction” and “fake news” according to the group’s director John Capel. Bench Marks is helping communities monitor the impacts of mining operations through a schooling scheme. The first-hand experience that comes out of this has been collected from Southern African community monitors and presented in book format under the title We are Activists at the Alternative Mining Indaba.

The closing session of the Indaba was aimed at drafting the declaration that gets habitually handed over to the conveners of the investors meeting. After a protest march that ended in front of the International Convention Centre (ICC) the declaration was amicably received by Tom Butler who joined the protesting crowd outside the premises.

While Butler was offered a podium in the midst of the Alternative Indaba, civil society activists had to hand over their memorandum out of sight of the investors, corporates and ministers inside the building the entrance to which was blocked by police and security. Butler gestured to a small delegation that he had brought along and promised to answer to the resolution before the next Indaba. “Thanks for the singing”, he added.

If the Alternative Mining Indaba wants to be more than a singing side event of the investors meeting it might be better to think of a more autonomous space to work on alternatives to unleashed extractivism. Some activists were calling for moving the Alternative Indaba to those mine-affected communities and I agree, it might be the right time now for the Alternative Indaba to leave Cape Town’s air-conditioned lobbies.

This Author

Jasper Finkeldey is a PhD researcher from the University of Essex. He is currently visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society in Durban studying the social and environmental impacts of mining. This blog is his report back from the Alternative Mining Indaba which took place in Cape Town earlier this month (6^th & 8th February, 2017)

The Canadian government has increased protection for fragile 9,000 year-old glass sponge reefs to prevent their destruction by fishing trawlers.

The ancient reefs, which were discovered off the country’s Northwest coast only 30 years ago, are the only large-form, living examples of their type in the world. The reefs reach the height of an 8-storey building in parts and cover 1,000 km2 of ocean floor.  

Fossilized remains of the whole reef system today form giant cliffs that stretch across much of the European mainland from Russia, through Germany, France and all the way to Portugal.

The reefs were discovered in 1987 by a team of Canadian scientists surveying the seafloor in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, off the North coast of British Columbia.

The new designation bans destructive fishing activity near the reef structures following pressure from the Canadian public and marine scientists around the world. Scientists estimate that about 50 per cent of the glass sponge reefs have already been destroyed by bottom trawlers and other heavy fishing gear.

www.glassspongereefs.com

It looks like Donald Trump’s ‘great, great wall’ is actually going to happen.

Its likely impact on human society has been well-noted, but in the longer-term a barrier across an entire continent will also have severe ecological consequences.

The US-Mexico border is around 1,900 miles (3,100 km) long and some of it has already been fenced off. According to Trump the proposed wall will cover approximately 1,000 miles and ‘natural obstacles’ such as rivers or mountains will take care of the rest.

Aside from the debates over whether or not the wall will do much to stop drug trafficking or illegal immigration, how much it will cost the US taxpayer, or whether Mexico will pay for it, a 1,000-mile wall has significant environmental costs.

For a start, all that concrete will generate millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions. And then you have the fact the wall will ravage a unique desert habitat that straddles the two countries and will prevent the movement of local animals.

US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has estimated that the wall will threaten 111 endangered species as it passes through four key wildlife reserves on the US side of the border and several nature reserves on the Mexican side.

Some of the affected species are obvious: animals with cross-border populations include bighorn sheep, ocelots and bears. Splitting plant and animal populations by building a concrete wall promotes inbreeding and a decrease in genetic diversity, which makes many species susceptible to diseases and epidemics.

The wall is also likely to wipe out the few jaguars still lingering in Arizona and New Mexico by cutting them off from breeding populations south of the border.

Other species are more unexpected: the bald eagle, America’s national bird, can obviously fly over any barriers yet the disruption to its habitat means it makes the FWS’s list of affected migratory birds. Even marine animals such as manatees or sea turtles can’t escape the wall’s impact.

Long division

The Trump wall may never become anything more solid than a metaphor for increased border surveillance, aided by technology, to keep illegal immigration under control. However, if a vast concrete wall really is built, and if it is as tall and impenetrable as Trump hopes, it will presumably last for thousands of years. This will have long-term ecological consequences.

The glacial and interglacial cycles of ice ages and warm periods unfold over thousands of years. Over the past 11,000 years we have had a relatively stable climate, but anthropogenic warming is delaying the arrival of the next ice age.

As species start to feel the pressure of a warming climate, they will need to move towards the poles as their habitats shift. Plants and animals currently found in central Mexico may find their ‘natural’ home moves north of the border. The wall will make such movement impossible and will make these species vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Equally, in the much longer term, if or when the next ice age eventually begins and ice sheets start to expand southwards, species from the north of the wall will need to move south to escape the freezing temperatures. The Trump wall will pose a significant obstacle for such movements.

On evolutionary timescales of millions of years, such an obstacle in the movement of animals and plants will drive extinctions and the emergence of new species. A political act of this kind can have far-reaching consequences for the ecological and even evolutionary landscapes.

Build bridges instead

Preexisting security barriers across the US-Mexico border are already making life difficult for local wildlife, according to peer-reviewed research.

Scientists across the world consistently call for more permeable border fences in order to allow animals to move through them. One 2011 study even looked specifically at the US-Mexico border. The authors warned species were being forced into risky unfenced ‘bottlenecks’ and called for better planning tailored towards wildlife movement.

Our knowledge of how to conserve animals across international borders has come a long way. Many nations have embraced shared responsibility for shared wildlife, and a number of international legal instruments also set out the ‘dos and don’ts’ for conservation in transboundary regions.

If Trump really wants to show his prowess in construction, and wants to leave a long-term infrastructure legacy, then he should build bridges for wildlife on the US-Mexico border – not walls.

Shonil Bhagwat is Senior Lecturer in Geography, The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

With the prospect of yet more areas being opened up to the cruel and unscientific badger culls this year, badger groups are wondering how they can encourage more people to come out on patrol during the culls.

The many thousands of people who support badgers, do the marches and sign petitions, does not translate into thousands of ‘boots on the ground’. Why?

Perhaps people don’t understand quite what patrolling to protect badgers involves. They’ve read the horror stories on social media, think it’s all in the dark and facing threatening men with guns – scary stuff. Some of it can be, but it’s mostly walking, endless walking.

People walk during the day, on lanes and public rights of way, noting any signs of preparation for night-time killing, spotting cage-traps being transported or locating bait points. These are peanuts hidden under flat stones or turf. Badgers find them and stay to eat, making a nice easy target for a gun.

Others walk in the late afternoon, locating cage-traps that have been set ready for the night and passing the information on to others who remove the traps (borderline legal) or damage them (illegal and not part of patrolling).

Or there’s the very early morning walk, finding cages with badgers inside before the cullers come back to shoot them. It is quite legal to release these badgers if you believe the badger is ‘distressed’.

Meeting threats and idiocy with polite reserve

And yes, patrols go out at night, being as visible as possible on rights of way, deterring any shooters, reporting shots heard to those less visible, who can go in and move the cullers on. There are times when patrols are faced with abusive behaviour, but one’s never alone, as this patroller relates:

“We had all but finished a patrol and were walking, with bright torches and wearing hi-vis, back to the car. As we passed this particular farm, the owners and passengers ‘happened’ to arrive home in their car. They passed us then slowed the car down to almost stopped, turned hard and drove at us at some considerable speed, stopping just a few inches away from us. We ignored it and carried on walking.

“We then got the usual ‘Are you lost?’ routine. We said ‘No’ and walked on while they all fell about laughing. However, on spotting Tony’s body cam they soon became apologetic and claimed they hadn’t seen us!

“A few minutes later we were approached by a Land Rover. Prepared for another round of stupidity, we were really pleased to find it was Kernow (Cornwall) sabs who’d seen the whole thing from their high vantage point and had come to check we were OK.

“It was awesome to realise that whatever we may encounter, we’ve got a fantastic team behind us who are all watching each other’s backs.”

Because guns are involved, police are always in the area. Some policing is poor, some good and helpful. Not everyone trusts them, but they have a duty to protect and, as seen above, can and will intervene when necessary.

If you decide to take part, remember this: barring violence and criminal damage which are not part of badger patrols, patrollers have a legal right to go where they go and do what they do. Some police are gradually learning to support patrollers in that.

Equipment, travel and rest

Some equipment is essential. Apart from the obvious warm clothing, waterproofs, boots, high-visibility jackets, torches with spare batteries, maps, compasses, cameras and mobile phones with a GPS facility, one should add, if possible, dashboard and body cameras to record any incidents.

Night vision binoculars are helpful and thermal imagers would be a great aid, but are horrendously expensive unless you’re funded by the taxpayer, which patrollers aren’t.

People come from far away. Two volunteers, faithfully driving miles on several nights and trying to balance environmental concerns (carbon emissions v badgers) commented: “We saw badgers, barn and tawny owls, and an eruption of toads … our very visible presence helped to keep alive the local and national debate around the cull, challenge the cull and look after individual badgers.”

The Isle of Wight’s badger group sent people to help Dorset. One young man came by ferry across the Channel and hitched down to Somerset, plannning to stay for the duration. Somerset sent him on to Cornwall, which was experiencing its first year of culling and desperately needed help.

Some people stay at the Camp Badger sites set up by local hunt saboteurs, and some lucky folk get real beds and loving care:

“When the call came out for places to accommodate people coming to help save badgers, I offered up our B&B so they could have somewhere dry and warm to stay. The people we have hosted have been lovely, kind and passionate; their stories have been amazing and given me a glimpse into the world of the front-line wildlife campaigner. Their relief, after a long night of activity, at being able to slump in a hot bath and a cosy bed was priceless.”

Nature as you’ve never seen it before – beautiful, but marred by the horror of culling.

“Looking over a Dorset landscape by day, or under a starlight sky, is deeply moving. But when on patrol the experience is instantly marred by the thought of what is happening out there. That almost unbearable feeling, however, is partially eased by the knowledge that we are there trying to do something about it.

“We retraced our steps and saw headlights coming towards us. An open truck with three young men swaggering upright in the back wielding guns, gleefully informed us they were out culling. It was very strange to be among such beauty while being subjected to the horror and the reality of the killing fields. The beauty and the beast are alive in our woods but this is no fairy tale.”

“Standing on one of the county’s massive hillforts, high above the surrounding land, one can only guess at the landscape below. In the dark all that is invisible. But we are, standing high and shining our torches down onto the farms below, a message writen on the sky – badger protectors are here. From some miles away we are seen. Another patrol drives up, coming to check who’s on the hill. A greeting, a chat and they are off again, racing to a farm down below, while we go on walking and shining our torches.”

Walking through ancient woodland at night is a wonderland, torches playing over massive knarled trunks and branches towering against a moonlit sky – not to be missed. And regardless of the fact that the woods are full of badgers and therefore surrounded by gunmen, one person said, “I always feel safe when I’m in a wood.”

The highs and the lows

While the culls last the pressure is relentless. Going out every day or night, or both, getting lost, getting stuck in mud, mile after mile of endless trudging, driving home and falling, bone-weary, into bed. Where one lies awake, worrying about how many badgers survived to live another day. It is not surprising that many people collapse after it’s over, prey to whatever bugs are doing the rounds.

One patroller wrote, “Currently running on a mixture of exhaustion, relief, anger and frustration here – I expect you feel the same.” But she added, “I shall always go on remembering the fantastic friendships formed, strangers that have become good friends, who share the same values and that you can absolutely rely on.”

And this is true for everyone. No one walks alone. The companionship, the bonds formed and the trust built between us makes for more courage than people thought they had, for determination to keep going and to calmly face the occasional bursts of stupid nastiness from farmers and cullers.

There’s laughter too: “What made me laugh? Stopping for a pee and wondering who was watching with night vision! And sitting in the pouring rain on a soggy bale of hay with friends about midnight in the middle of nowhere and thinking what a sight we must look. My sleeping-bag-suit always made people laugh!”

A high point? “My first patrol on a moonlit night, clambering over ancient styles, each one different in its form and antiquity. I felt like a dog with an extremely arthritic hip at the end.”

And the low points? “Our cars blocked in by shooters in the woods, rescued by M and the police. The shock of finding a shooting tower and peanuts illegally planted right next to a badger sett.

“Being horrified at the threatening behaviour of two farming women. One tried to stop us on the public footpath, demanding to know which walking group we were with. The other shone the lights of her 4×4 in our faces, till we told her we were legally on a public footpath, when she replied ‘Oh, I was just worried about you, my cows are in that field and might frighten you’.”

Nowt so queer as folk …

It is amazing how little imagination pro-cull farmers display – swear words spat out of vehicle windows as they drive past, or stopping and asking “Are you lost?”, “Are you happy?”, “Do you enjoy walking in the dark?”, or “I don’t want my cows to frighten you.” That last is sometimes “I don’t want you to frighten my cows”, when the cows are in the next field or may not be there at all…

One farmer drove up to a patrol walking across a field. “Don’t want you to go in that field, I have cows there”, indicating the next field. Patrollers said they weren’t going there. “Because a day or two ago I found a dead calf there”, implying it was the patrollers what done it. A pause. “I found it last week.” Pause, mumble, mumble, “Well, maybe two weeks ago.”

Whatever challenges patrollers might face, it won’t be pro-culler intelligence. Whatever footpaths patrollers are using, they often go by or through farmyards and walkers see at firsthand the dirty disease-ridden state of many farms. This patroller reported all he had seen the authorities:

“One farmyard was completely covered in slurry (which can support bovine TB bacilli for many months). This farm is currently locked down with bTB. The farmer in question took part in the badger cull.

“On a neighbouring farm I found two newly dead roe deer, each left to rot in a field supporting dairy cattle. This farmer also took part in the badger cull. I could go on about dead sheep left to rot, dead stock thrown over a fence into scrub, or piles of farm bio-hazard waste dumped on a public footpath …

“If farmers want to be taken seriously when they profess to be fighting bTB, they have a mountain of work to do to get their own house in order before they blame the humble badger.”

And finally … the absolute high that keeps people going

“Having stopped the shooting and made the guns leave, we drive back home tired out and longing for bed, when we see the best thing of all – badgers setting out on their own night-time patrols.”

Will you join the badger patrols this year? Why not contact your local badger group and find out if they run training days. Many badger patrol groups have their own pages on Facebook.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The recent confirmation by the US that DU ammunition was used in two attacks in Syria in late 2015 raises a number of troubling questions.

Firstly, why was DU used? Has it been used again? Will it be used again?

Secondly, and no less important, what will happen next in order to mitigate any health or environmental risks the contaminated sites may pose?

A joint investigation by Airwars and Foreign Policy that was published earlier this week, has finally confirmed that the US used DU in Syria, and that in both cases the targets were large convoys of fuel tankers.

According to the Airwars report, CENTCOM spokesman Major Josh Jacques said that “5,265 armor-piercing 30mm rounds containing depleted uranium (DU) were shot from Air Force A-10 fixed-wing aircraft on November 16th and 22nd 2015, destroying about 350 vehicles in the country’s eastern desert.”

The admission is important because in early 2015, the US had assured reporters that DU had not and would not be used in Syria. In March 2015, Coalition spokesman John Moore said that “US and Coalition aircraft have not been and will not be using depleted uranium munitions in Iraq or Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve.”

Later that month, a Pentagon representative told War is Boring that A-10s deployed in the region would not have access to armor-piercing ammunition containing DU because the Islamic State didn’t possess the tanks it is designed to penetrate.

Following a tip off from ICBUW member the Nuclear Resister last year, Airwars’ Sam Oakford, who investigated both the latest story and the revelations published last October, approached US Central Command (CENTCOM) for confirmation. CENTCOM and the US Air Force first denied DU was fired, then offered differing accounts of what happened, before finally admitting that DU had been used.

DU … probably unnecessary for fuel tankers!

The 30mm DU ammunition used in both incidents was fired by A-10 aircraft, a platform notorious for the fact that the pilot cannot select between its DU and high explosive incendiary (HEI) ammunition once in flight. A-10s have been active in operations against Islamic State (IS) over Syria and Iraq since 2014, although this is the first time that DU’s use has been identified in the conflict.

ICBUW analysed the likely targets involved in the incidents, and was initially puzzled that they appeared to be fuel tankers, rather than armoured vehicles. The A-10’s controversial DU ammunition is justified and promoted on the basis of its perceived advantage against armoured vehicles.

However, analysis of its use in the Balkans and Iraq clearly shows that if the political or operational decision is made to deploy the aircraft armed with its standard ‘combat mix’ of DU and HEI ammunition, A-10s will attack a far wider range of targets of opportunity. It is standard practice for combat mix to be available for A-10 deployments in active conflict zones, even if it ultimately isn’t used.

In the case of Syria, a decision appears to have been made during planning for the two operations against the fuel convoys that DU was needed, to ensure what a CENTCOM spokesperson said was a: “higher probability of destruction for targets.”

The first strike on November 16 would see 1,490 DU rounds used – equating to 432kg of DU; the second, on November 22 saw 3,775 rounds used – some 1,095kg of DU. Bombs, rockets and missiles were also used in the two strikes which, according to CENTCOM, destroyed 116 and 283 fuel tankers respectively.