Packed with headlines of despair and quasi-apocalyptic prophecies, 21st Century environmental media is in need of a psychological impact assessment.

In attempts to reel in the public with ‘clickbait’ and sensationalist headlines, most outlets opt for worldwide doom and gloom, leaving the more modest small-scale success stories to be ignored. Offered no solutions, the public become as stumped as the trees they couldn’t protect.

This month (April, 2017), an exciting conference is seeking to redress this imbalance.

The Conservation Optimism Summit, (taking place on April the 20-22), is gathering together some of the biggest names in conservation to share the oft-neglected triumphs. Stories of mass reforestation and renewable technologies might not get a look-in on the front pages, but they constitute a breath of fresh air.

Led by the University of Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science and the Zoological Society of London, in conjunction with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the conference will be hosting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural speakers from conservation, art, positive psychology, sustainable business, NGOs, and constructive journalism.

Featuring cutting edge case studies, the summit seeks to demonstrate the power of optimism not only to heal ecological systems, but also improve the human condition.

Following two days of workshops, talks, interactive sessions, and discussions at Dulwich College in London (pictured), the third and last day – coinciding with Earth Day 2017 – will take place at London Zoo and is free-of-charge for all to attend. The zoo will be hosting a festival of stalls, each showcasing and celebrating the impressive efforts across the world to conserve species, from partula snails to pandas.

Tickets for the event can be bought through the website. Registration closes on April 10^th, 2017.

The Conservation Optimism initiative is not attempting to hide the severity of our ecological crisis or promote wishful thinking. But rather, it is about a kind of grounded hope, steeped in pragmatism and sober understanding of the challenges ahead. As one conservationist, David Orr, put it: “It is hope with its sleeves rolled up.”

Distanciation

The conference comes amid a growing understanding of environmental psychology in recent years. When fears heighten, survival responses are triggered and one can suppress their concern for others in order to protect themselves.

The term distanciation has been used to define an issue that arises when people perceive a threat as highly important, and yet feel powerless to help. This mismatch between threats and solutions, where no commensurate response is proposed for the looming challenges, paralyses the public and lets despair run amok.

Professor David Halpin, author of the book Hope and Education, asserts: “Despair itself is the enemy of progress because in the final analysis it lacks a faith in the future.”

In the early nineties, a study by Columbia University compared the capability of three strategies to communicate ecological knowledge – scare tactics, informational and experiential. Scare tactics were least effective in imparting environmental knowledge, and furthermore, participants were less likely translate this information into pro-environmental behaviour.

The Power of Hope

Hope is increasingly being understood as more than just a lovey-dovey feeling, but rather a foundational element of motivation. The Swedish researcher, Maria Ojala, conducted experiments that show those who maintain grounded hope towards climate change express higher levels of pro-environmental behaviour, such as recycling.

Studies by Flinders University and the Northeastern University both found individuals espousing positive outlooks exhibit improved performances of real-world tasks.

Characterising the importance of optimism, the philosopher Albert Camus differentiated active fatalism and passive fatalism. In both cases, one recognises a harrowing threat, and yet while the latter retreats into inaction, the former asserts that: “One should start to move forward, in the dark, feeling one’s way and trying to do good… Active fatalism is a refusal to capitulate to hopeless odds.”

St Francis’ words encapsulated this form of hope: “Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant this tree.”

When speaking of the Conservation Optimism Summit, UK campaigner Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall said: “One thing I’ve learned is how important it is to present positive solutions and to keep hope alive.

“I’ve met so many people doing fantastic work to protect and restore our natural world. We should be sharing these inspiring stories far and wide, rather than always getting bogged down in doom and gloom. I’m therefore delighted to support the Conservation Optimism initiative and its partners in their mission to spread a new wave of positivity throughout the environmental community.”

It’s all too easy to forget that the world is teeming with people on the front lines of conservation, leading the developments, technologies, and battles against climate change. It is through learning the myriad ways in which environmental leaders invent, discover, and achieve, by which the public can be motivated into action.

We need more than just trees. We must plant hope too.

This Author

Marcus Nield is an environmental journalist and documentary filmmaker, having written for The Independent, Positive News, Sci-News, and the Oxford Student Magazine. Marcus is currently working on a documentary about water scarcity in Palestine.

The North Sea oil and gas sector became a net drain on the UK’s public finances for the first time in 2016, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

In total, the sector received £396m in 2016, net of tax payments. This is the first year that the North Sea industry has cost the exchequer more than it has contributed.

Carbon Brief analysis of a second set of figures, published last week, shows oil majors BP, ExxonMobil and Shell were the largest recipients of taxpayer funds during 2014 and 2015.

Each has received hundreds of millions of pounds to cover the costs of decommissioning old oil and gas fields.

North Sea legacy

Since the government passed the Continental Shelf Act in 1964, billions of barrels of oil and gas have been extracted from reserves under the North Sea.

Now, some of the largest fields are coming to the end of their life. The rigs, pipelines and other infrastructure built to exploit them must be safely decommissioned. Cleaning up this legacy will cost an estimated £47bn out to 2050, according to the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).

Companies can reclaim tax paid in previous years, in order to cover this spending. Oil prices are still far below recent highs and the government has introduced generous tax breaks, worth £2.3bn, designed to encourage new investment in the North Sea.

Meanwhile, estimates of the total cost of decommissioning are highly uncertain, with the OGA giving a range of plus or minus 40% on its £47bn figure. One 2016 study said taxpayers could face a £75bn bill. Other studies have speculated that the costs could wipe out all future North Sea tax revenues, potentially damaging the economic case for Scottish independence.

As the Financial Times noted in January, the North Sea industry “risks becoming a net drain on UK resources as it enters its sunset years.”

But now it’s crunch time!

Having reached highs of £12bn revenue in some years, this moment has already arrived, with the North Sea for the first time becoming a net drain on the public finances and costing £0.4bn (£396m) in calendar year 2016. Future revenues are uncertain, see below. Either way, the sector is no longer the cash cow chancellors have come to expect over the past several decades.

It’s worth adding that, in total, the sector has contributed in the region of £190bn in tax revenues since the 1960s (see chart, above right). Note that this figure has not been adjusted for inflation. After accounting for inflation, estimated revenues are even larger; a Financial Times article puts them at £330bn.

North Sea firms received a net tax payment of £24m in the 2015/16 tax year. In the current tax year to date, they received £420m, suggesting the net tax position is getting worse.

Biggest winners

The largest recipients of taxpayer funds are revealed in separate government figures, published last week. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, now in its second year, details payments between government and the oil, gas and mining sectors in the UK.

The latest figures, covering calendar year 2015, show a broadly similar pattern to last year’s data. In total, across the two years, the top net recipients of public cash are BP, ExxonMobil and Shell (see chart, above right).

The top five recipients (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Talisman Sinopec and Hess) were paid a net total of more than £1.1bn across 2014 and 2015, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Tax forecast

In terms of future tax receipts, the outlook for the oil and gas sector appears as uncertain as next year’s oil price – or the total cost of decommissioning.

For a number of years, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) continually downgraded its forecasts for the North Sea tax take. This reflected a combination of new tax reliefs introduced by former chancellor George Osborne, and the falling oil price.

By March 2016, the OBR was forecasting that the oil and gas sector would be receiving a net payment of £1bn per year from UK taxpayers, for five years from 2016-17.

Later in 2016, the OBR started to revise upwards its forecasts for UK oil and gas revenues, as oil prices recovered from lows of $30 per barrel. The most recent March 2017 estimates show the sector contributing a net £4.5bn over five years, instead of the £5bn cost seen in March 2016 (see chart, above right).

Note that the latest OBR forecast is one third lower than its November 2016 estimate. This is because of a change in methodology regarding how much capital expenditure could be offset against future taxes, as well as the fall in the pound.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor at Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

Other articles on Carbon Brief by Simon Evans.

Stories of Indigenous communities protesting oil extraction on traditional tribal lands are not a new or even surprising occurrence within the spectrum of global ecological phenomena. It seems a dark joke on humanity that, so often, remote and isolated communities far removed from the global market and corporate mining enterprises are the first line of defence and the first casualties of oil pollution and mining contamination.

The North Peruvian province of Loreto is home to both the Peruvian Amazon and 27 Indigenous tribes that have coexisted with and relied on the rainforest for centuries. However in the 1970s, whilst the world was watching the Vietnam war, when a small company called Apple was founded, and an ambitious new Sci-Fi film series set in a galaxy far away was released, oil extraction moved into the Peruvian Amazon and grew to produce approximately 30% the Peruvian GDP. Since then, several oil corporations have been active in the region – companies such as OXY, Pluspetrol, China National Petroleum Corporation, and Petroperú, all participating in a relay race of dirty legacies.

So where was the Peruvian government during this ‘invasion’? The Peruvian Amazon is estimated to cover approximately 60% of Peru; of this forested land the Peruvian government has allocated, as of 2010, 49% to various corporations under oil and gas concessions. From this 49% more than half comprises land belonging to Indigenous communities and a further 17% is comprised of nature reserves. This systematic allocation of communal land to multinationals over the past decades has led to fierce opposition from Amazonian residents.

Indigenous Resistance

The impact of oil mining in the Peruvian Amazon has devastated generations of local inhabitants. The vast economic profits made by multinational oil companies and the Peruvian government have come at the price of the health of rainforest ecosystems and the people who live in it. Beginning in 1986, oil leaks have been contaminating waterways and land throughout the Peruvian Amazon, often being left untreated and unreported by the media thus incurring few if any repercussions for the perpetrating companies.

In more recent times, four declarations of environmental and sanitary emergency struck in the Loreto province between 2013 and 2014. In 2016, the North Peruvian Oil Pipeline (NPOPL), which has been in use for over 40 years, suffered over a dozen oil leaks due to poor maintenance. The Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAAP) declared all water from the Tigre River undrinkable due to oil pollution, and there were numerous accounts of children dying from toxic oil poisoning. Due to the high levels of toxicity, fish – a staple of the Amazonian diet – must now be imported from neighbouring Ecuador, with food prices peaking.

In response to the January 2016 oil spills, the largest protest movement thus far was organised by the Kichwa people at the base of the Tigre River – the most polluted river in the area. Hundreds gathered for four months to block and stop the boats of oil companies from accessing the river, and to affirm the seriousness of the demands of local communities.

Indigenous Demands to Government

 “This region has been extremely polluted, people have died because of it, and yet still nothing is being done to contain the problem,” said José Fachín, a community leader that has been instrumental in garnering support for the resistance movement. The protesters have set clear demands to the government, of which the primary requests are:

• Compensation by the State to Indigenous communities affected by oil pollution,
• The cleaning of oil spills by the North Peruvian pipeline in highly affected areas,
• Setting up a Communal Environmental Monitoring Act,
• The revision of plans for extending the federal contract with the current oil company Pluspetrol Norte,
• De-criminalisation of protests.

The demands presented are slowly gathering momentum and legitimacy through trials and legal procedures. Significantly, the criminalisation of protests has been one of the main methods of silencing the protests. Legal proceedings are being utilised, at present, to respond to and appeal events such as the 2008 imprisonment and torture of community leaders in response to peaceful protests. Nevertheless, affected communities continue to pursue government compensation, cooperation and recognition by insisting on consultation with an Indigenous collective before the allocation of new mining concessions, by organising dialogues and multi-sectoral commissions between all parties involved; by the judicialisation of protests, and by raising awareness through new interest from press and mass media.

The situations faced by Indigenous communities pose poignant challenges for the coming years. However, as momentum increases for the implementation of sustainable energy against fossil fuels, and as water scarcity becomes a reality, the significance of the irreparable harm done to communities and ecosystems, as well as the precedent of violence and destruction the oil industry has left on resource acquisition, cannot be understated or ignored.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist who has previously worked in Australia, Costa Rica, Austria and Belgium. He’s currently studying the processes that drive biodiversity in the Black Forest in Germany, and writes articles on sustainable development, forest ecology, conservation biology and climate change. With a group of young biologists he founded LonelyCreatures  – an organisation that brings under attention the stories of endangered species across Europe

Producing healthy, sustainable food is a fashionable concept right now, with more consumers looking to become responsible for their own carbon footprint. Small-scale farmers, producers and allotment keepers are all trying to push forward a change in the way we think and eat. This aspiration however remains heavily at odds with the reality, born out of our collective desire for convenience.

The amount of food we waste is a global catastrophe. In cost alone food wastage adds up to around USD 1 trillion every year – not taking into account the human cost of some 795 million people who go hungry on any one given day.

And when it comes to issues of waste, it’s not just the food itself, but what it’s packaged in. When we throw away a half-eaten sandwich, it’s likely that the box or wrapper that encases it will end up in the bin as well – an environmental disaster.

Take this example – a wax paper wrapper on a burger from fast-food giant McDonald’s cannot be recycled. It can be composted, but it’s unlikely that the many people consuming these burgers would ever know that – less likely still that they would put the wrapper in a composting bin.Packaging from this one global chain alone makes up 50% of their total waste, with food waste making up 20%.

The energy it takes to produce the packaging and the product; the water used, transportation and the gases from rotting waste food, all have a detrimental impact on the environment. McDonald’s does now follow a number of sustainable sourcing policies and according to a spokesperson “works closely with suppliers to develop standards based on continuous improvements”, but as much as a powerful multi-billion-dollar company does to stay sustainable, it is the consumer mindset that needs to change to bring about both sustainable and regenerative systems of food production.

At present another fast-food outlet, hamburger chain Burger King, is facing criticism for buying soya bean animal feed produced by destructive methods. Grown in the tropical rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, thousands of hectares of these forests have been burned out to produce animal feed.

It’s easy to blame the big players, but these actions are borne from our excessive shopping and eating habits.

Destroying natural habitats to grow food for animals, which are then killed for food, makes no sense. But what is the answer to this paradoxical problem? We want choice, we want food in minutes, and we want lots of it. Perhaps we should be looking harder at how much we really need?

Growing food that we can eat directly, rather than producing crops to feed animals, or producing livestock on a smaller scale would go some way to limiting our environmental impact.

Small-scale producers offering food security and using regenerative methods are key to providing food for communities without destroying the environment. 

And it’s fair to say many consumers are already trying to do their bit, despite the challenges. There are currently over two million allotment holders across Europe who share an ethos that organic, home-grown produce is best for health and best for the environment – limiting food and energy wastage.

Bizarrely, most of us don’t think we are wasteful. According to the UK charity WRAP, 60% of householders don’t believe they waste food. (The truth, however, is we waste around two-and-a-half main meals each week, the equivalent of  around £9 in monetary value.)

The reasons for this waste are manifold. Buying packets of fruit and veg rather than individual pieces, throwing food out early because we rely so stringently on “use-by dates” and buying from unsustainable sources or unethical producers are all factors that contribute to this enormous level of waste.

A huge bonus to small-scale food production is the benefit to human health. Without the need for pesticides, naturally reared food contains higher nutrient levels thanks to biodiverse soils, without the worry of chemicals passing into our bodies. Lush, natural pastures produce healthy animals which then converts into healthier meat.

By mass-producing food globally, we have been backed into a corner of pesticide use, which contributes further to the decimation of land. Pesticides not only destroy pests but end up killing off harmless insects and pollinators, depleting soils until eventually the ground becomes useless for growing.

A recent report by the United Nations condemned the use of pesticides as ‘going against our basic human rights.’ Big corporations pushing for chemical use claim that pesticides are needed to produce enough crops to “feed the world” but actually individuals shouldn’t have to feed the world. Focusing on feeding our own families and communities should be the priority.

According to figures from the FAO, global food production needs to increase 60% by 2050 to meet the demands of a growing population. Here’s what I think, rather than growing on a bigger scale, more people should be growing and eating on a smaller scale.

In America, the community garden (equivalent to the UK’s community allotment) addresses a food security issue. Tens of millions of Americans receive assistance from more than 33,500 food pantries across the country – relying on a network of more than 200 regional food banks. This does not include perishable, healthy options such as fresh fruit and vegetables. However, a local solution is found through community gardeners who can provide these vital foods to those who otherwise could not access them. Rather than throwing their excess vegetables, fruits or herbs on the compost, community gardeners share them with a local pantry to be received by hungry families.

In the UK, the number of allotment-keepers is growing, allowing the growers to provide food for their families and removing the need to buy intensively grown supermarket produce. Diane Appleyard of the UK-based National Allotment Society says growing your own food is the antithesis of convenience, but that the benefits outweigh the negatives: “Growing your own food on an allotment is not convenient – it’s time consuming, sometimes frustrating and disappointing but at the same time it’s life affirming and addictive.

“Having a plot is about much more than growing food and some allotment growers say that the food is not the main reason they have a plot. I know would still do it even if I failed to get a harvest every year.”

Encouragingly the humble allotment is in high demand in the UK with a 40-year waiting list in some parts of London, and  four-year waiting list in Bristol. Councils have been creating new sites and many have halved plot sizes, which has enabled them to reduce waiting lists. Some sites have community composting facilities, and often a glut of produce is shared among others.

It’s unrealistic to think that everyone will ‘grow their own’, but an awareness of how food is produced and how much we waste is crucial to bring about change.

Many global chains are making small changes. The McDonald’s 2016 Beef Carbon Report stated that between 2008 and 2014 the fast-food company had reduced its carbon footprint by 23% on the core farms that were monitored. It is also currently undergoing a refurbishment programme to allow customers to order through digital kiosks before paying so food orders are prepared individually and food waste is further reduced.

There are now more vegans than ever, showing that people are thinking more about what they eat, how much they eat, and how it’s produced. With more people than ever wanting to wage war on food waste, the big companies are responding. If you want to reduce food waste, use your head – and think before you eat.

This Author

Laura Briggs is the UK news reporter for the Ecologist

Follow her on Twitter @WordsbyBriggs

Today, MEPs will vote on Green proposals to introduce a new EU-wide independent and neutral surveillance body in response to the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal. The plan has already been passed by the Environment Committee on which I sit.

The proposed ‘EU market surveillance agency’ would have the power to test vehicle emissions in the laboratory as well as monitoring them under real driving conditions, and publish its findings, making sure any breaches of the rules are brought into the open.

They wouldn’t be in charge of fines or punishments – that power would remain with the European Commission – but having an independent and transparent agency would make sure that problems are spotted and force EU governments and the Commission to take swift and decisive action.

The scandal implicated most major car manufacturers in a concerted, deliberate and criminal effort to commit emissions fraud.

Manufacturers employed so-called ‘defeat devices’ to trick laboratory tests into thinking their cars produced much lower levels of nitrogen oxide emissions.

Nitrogen oxides react in the atmosphere to form nitrogen dioxide; an air pollutant that is toxic to human health.

The Dieselgate inquiry committee’s report into the scandal is clear that both member states and the EU Commission are guilty of maladministration and are not sufficiently impartial to avoid a similar scandal happening again. It is obviously not enough, in that case, to merely ask our national governments and the Commission to do better next time.

European citizens have twice been the victim of Dieselgate; through their exposure to toxic fumes and the complete contempt for their consumer rights.

An independent agency ensures that the law, which is unambiguous in its prohibition of ‘defeat devices’ and its requirement that emission limits be met on the road as well as in the laboratory, is properly enforced and doesn’t bend to commercial pressures.

Dieselgate was a problem of too little Europe – not too much!

The greatest opposition we face is from Tory MEPs

The UK Conservative MEPs are the biggest opponents of not just the creation of an independent oversight body but of the Dieselgate report itself, which excoriates their friends in the car industry. The inquiry’s Tory rapporteur even tried to water down its findings.

But we should not be surprised by this. In fact, taken with the UK Government’s promise of a bonfire of regulations, Tory opposition to these safeguarding measures offer an alarming insight into what kind of (lack of) protections the British public can expect outside of the EU.

Despite publishing some of the details of the so-called Great Repeal Bill, the legislation intended to transfer EU laws onto the UK statute books post-Brexit, the Government has failed to commit to maintaining vital EU air quality laws.

Indeed speaking to House of Commons environment committee in January, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom indicated that about a third of the EU’s 800 laws on the environment might be too difficult to transpose.

The failure to commit to keeping air quality laws is symptomatic of a disturbing indifference to an air pollution crisis responsible for the preventable deaths of equivalent to 50,000 people in Britain every year.

Even if Theresa May did, finally, commit to the EU clean air directives then, post-Brexit, the cynical amongst us would draw your attention to the complete absence of any body to enforce the regulations – regulations that the government is only being forced to acknowledge now thanks to EU oversight.

The UK Government’s repeated air pollution failures

Earlier this year, the European Commission was forced to send a final warning to the UK for failing to address repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas including, London, Birmingham and my constituency of the South East.

The notice was served only months after environmental lawyers ClientEarth won its second court case against the government for its failure to set out a credible plan to deal with illegal air pollution across the UK.

It couldn’t be clearer that Conservative politicians left to their own devices will, at best, ignore the air quality crisis and, at worst, advocate on behalf of those responsible for worsening it rather than its victims – the very British citizens it claims to be standing up for.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying a deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year, is a cautionary glimpse of what we might expect from a Conservative Party free of the auspices of the EU.

Inside the EU, the Tories can be held accountable for their failures

As a member of the European Union, Theresa May’s administration is being held to account for failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU air quality laws the UK itself helped to set. The bare minimum.

Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs. The government even readily acknowledges that it is EU law that has been the main driver of any positive air quality action in the UK.

The Prime Minister’s plan, as much as one exists, for an extreme Brexit puts all these safeguards at risk. Should they be maintained via the Great Repeal Bill, Theresa May plans to invoke the ancient, arbitrary powers of Britain’s most infamous an despotic Tudor monarch, Henry VIII, which would give her the ability to later repeal them later at her whim without parliamentary scrutiny.

It seems Britain is faced with three likely extreme Brexit air pollution scenarios, under which the Tory government:

• omits air quality laws from the Great Repeal Bill;
• includes air quality laws in the Great Repeal Bill but (lacking the oversight of the European Court of Justice and the Commission) they remain unenforced; or
• includes air quality laws in the Great Repeal Bill, but later repeal them without scrutiny.

Time for a new Clean Air Act!

The other question is what happens in the EU after Brexit. There the news may be somewhat better. The UK has repeatedly sought to block and undermine European environmental legislation.

With our government and right-wing MEPs out of the picture, it’s all the more likely that EU air quality laws will be strengthened and enforced. It’s just too bad that UK citizens may no longer be in a position to benefit.

That’s why I’m fighting for Britain to maintain the closest possible relationship with our European Neighbours via membership of the Single Market so that we might maintain these vital safeguards.

I’m also calling on Theresa May to enshrine in UK law a new Clean Air Act that to ensure strong, effective protection of our citizens’ health from air pollution.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

Storytelling is a powerful tool. It frames, provokes, consoles, inspires and informs. The problem comes when we believe one story as truth: we cease to imagine other possibilities; we lose sight of vision and we stop believing that a good outcome is achievable. 

The Green Party is choosing to reclaim and rewrite the current story. At their party conference in Liverpool over the weekend, co-leaders Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley offered two very different angles on the events from 2016, but went on to conclude “It’s easy to only tell a one-sided story. Cynics want us to think we can’t win, and so we give up hope.”

But in these days hope, imagination and truth-telling are the urgent antidotes we need to the stories of ‘inevitable doom’ that we hear.

Former climate negotiator-turned-activist Yeb Sano declared at the conference “It’s a great time to be alive – we get to find the courage and political will to turn things around.” But to summon up that courage, we need to feel hope, heart and possibility. And that’s why we need a new story.

Sano followed up on Twitter: “If we go beyond point of no return when we stop caring for each other, that is the most dangerous tipping point we must avoid.” Caring for each other, and injecting heart into leadership and our global narrative sounds simplistic and idealistic. But I think it’s the lack of those things that’s driving inequality and consuming our planet. Could our current predicament really be about our inability to care?

Author Ben Okri suggests “the left needs a new story to enchant the age and open up the future.”

Effective Political Opposition Needs to Stand for Something

I’ve recently been enchanted by the romantic age in art and science. The poet Percy Shelley conjures Okri and the Greens when he talked about ‘balloonomania’ which spread after the birth of balloon flight in the 1800s: “The balloon has not yet received the perfection of which it is surely capable of…it would seem a mere toy, a feather, in comparison with the splendid anticipations of the philosophical chemist.”

That anticipation and philosophical dreaming is what we need. Our global course has not yet been set. It has not become what it is surely capable of. If we had an effective political opposition in the UK, it wouldn’t be enough for them to simply oppose government. They would need to stand for something; to present a bold vision of what could be, and then anchor it with policy as a route to get there.

I’m reading Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder, and will stick with the balloon theme for a moment (balloons were also an early symbol of vision and dreaming). Early ballooner Windham Sadler lamented how “England, the seat of science and literature, has remained satisfied with gazing on the casual experiments of foreign aeronauts.” He thought England was not adequately demonstrating its usual leadership, courage and discovery in the development of balloon-powered flight.

But what if we also heard that accusation as a call to where we are now? Are we satisfied as we gaze on and watch the casual experiments of distant politicians, or as we feel the planet struggle under ever-increasing growth? What might be possible if we stood up and harnessed that science and literature we have in us, plus the hospitality, entrepreneurship, creativity, compassion, innovation, and multiple other strengths?

New Alliances of Ambitious People

Carole Dieschbourg, Minister for the Environment in Luxembourg, called for “new alliances of ambitious people”. She touches on two pieces here that I heard in various ways at the conference, first – the need for collaboration and to build progressive alliances. We need to overcome differences, unite voices and find common ground from which we can reimagine a route to common good. And second – the vacuum that is opening up in the wake of Brexit and Trump. Not long ago, that vacuum was filled with voices of protest and opposition – either literal opposition from political parties, or voices of the people through artists. The vacuum is getting filled with nationalism, but we could choose to fill it with local and global leadership and alliances that channel ambition, anger and energy into vision and voice. 

Lucas stressed ‪that the Greens “aren’t afraid to occupy difficult ground, or be afraid of how people feel.” Feelings are messy and vulnerable. Feelings have become so removed from political leadership that I had to double check I’d heard right. And then I felt excitement and hope. I was listening to a party seeking out the spaces for us to come together, to create a new vision and make it reality. After all, we are “yearning to be drawn together, to belong” said Lucas. Hope thrives when we connect. At the conference, I felt the glue that could help people do just that.

The party conference was running alongside the Global Greens and European Greens congress, and so I heard from other Green movements. I heard first hand the devastation that comes in Peru and Bolivia when politics gets corrupted, when consumerism replaces traditional beliefs, and when young people abandon their ancestral ways for the lure of big companies. 

Choosing Hope And Engagement Feels Radical

Metiria Turei, co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party, said: “‪Whatever culture we Greens come from in the world, we come from a counterculture.” This rang true – if the pulse of current culture is fear, protectionism, misinformation, uncertainty, then to go against that culture by choosing hope, engagement, and the non-inevitability of doom feels subversive and radical.

I felt voices, ideas and energy bubbling up at the conference. How do we encourage and direct these? I think we need to be proud about voting with our hearts and vision, rather than tactically with our heads. I think we need to encourage osmosis between politics and all other spheres of human strength and creativity. And I think we need to start small whilst we dream big – to have one conversation at a time, which turn into “a long-term commitment to change” as Lucas says. We can’t know how to act now if we don’t know where we’re going. The Greens are providing the idealism, vision and heart that we’re all hungry for.

For more information http://greens2017.org/ and https://www.greenparty.org.uk/

This Author

Elizabeth Wainwright is the Ecologist’s Nature Editor. She spends her time between Devon and London, and loves wild spaces which she incorporates into her systems coaching work. She also co-leads the global community development charity CHGN. 

www.elizabethjaynewainwright.com 

Contact elizabeth@elizabethjaynewainwright.com