Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland can’t catch a break. Despite posting its first profit for a decade in its 2017 annual report last week, the bad press keeps coming for the bank, which has been under majority public ownership since 2008. A major fine by the US Department of Justice for mortgage mis-selling is expected this year.

Separately, RBS executives are currently embroiled in a Treasury Select Committee inquiry into mistreatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2014.

This week, the inquiry revealed that three-quarters of the staff at a new restructuring department were formerly employed at GRG. Chairman Howard Davies delicately calls these enduring problems ‘legacy issues’.

Full-scale privatisation 

So one might forgive a dash of blue sky thinking and a fixation on distant goals. In a cautiously optimistic foreword to the annual report, reflecting on a share price that climbed 20 per cent over the year, Davies welcomed government plans to relaunch the privatisation process in March 2019.

But privatisation would be no triumph. Instead, selling the public stake in RBS would be a wasted opportunity for meaningful change. 

Full-scale privatisation is the stated endgame of a process of reform first announced, by the then chancellor George Osborne, in 2013. It is implausible that a hasty return to private shareholders’ hands will align with Osborne’s other two stated objectives: to support the British economy and secure the maximum value for money for the public.

When the March 2019 plans were announced in Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget, they looked set to land taxpayers with a £26 billion loss.

And the current chancellor and Treasury owe the British public more than a return to the same defective banking system we had before the 2008 crisis. 

Government bailout

When the financial tidal wave hit London in 2008 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, RBS was in hot water. Its chief executive at the time, Fred Goodwin, repeatedly denied that the bank was insolvent. His deception came unstuck. RBS received a bailout from the Treasury to the tune of more than £45 billion and the government wound up with an 81 per cent stake in the bank. 

Some might have expected the bailout to call time on years of recklessness. In 2011 the Financial Conduct Authority published a report examining the reasons for the failure. Among them were ‘concerns and uncertainties over RBS’ underlying asset quality’, a botched takeover of ABN Amro; overly risky short-term funding and credit trading; and ‘an inadequate global regulatory capital framework’.

To cap things off, and in an attempt to explain so many counts of imprudence, the report also probed ‘underlying deficiencies in RBS management, governance and culture.’

Yet these concerns skate over the basic defect inherent in the banking sector. Commercial banks, for which profit is the raison d’être, lend primarily to unproductive activities like mortgages on existing homes and speculation on financial derivatives, on which they can generate the highest return.

Much less goes to the real economy, and in particular to SMEs. This incentive problem distorts the economy, produces financial instability, and perpetuates inequality. 

Banking casualties

The real economy is not the only casualty. Our present banking system is endemically destructive for the environment.

Bank lending is also influential in shifting funds towards fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries. Admittedly, RBS is less culpable here than other UK banks, especially Barclays and HSBC.

The 2017 Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card, published by a coalition including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network, found a dramatic fall in its lending to ‘extreme fossil fuel’ activities since 2014. 

But on climate more broadly, RBS is a laggard. A 2016 report by Christian Aid found that RBS, like all other major banks in the UK, had no timeline for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Neither did it engage with client firms on their own transition strategies. More recently, a survey of 15 European banks conducted by ShareAction placed RBS only 11th in the list. Lloyds, the other UK bank to come partly under public ownership in 2008, before being privatised early last year, is ranked last.

Instead of bringing needed change to a sclerotic banking sector, the bailout process has simply reset a broken model.

Introducing diversity 

There are alternatives. Britain has an unusually high proportion of its banking services provided by a very small number of privately owned organisations, as opposed to public savings or co-operative models.

Moreover, these giant firms operate at the national level, while other countries have far more regional or local banks.

The New Economics Foundation used international data to show that banks organised on a ‘stakeholder’ model, rather than seeking to maximise shareholder value as commercial banks do, contribute more to financial stability and local prosperity. They also lend more to businesses and promote financial inclusion. 

Public ownership of RBS is an opportunity for major, structural reform. Its assets still represent a significant chunk of the UK total.

The rewards of introducing diversity into the banking ecosystem, by dissolving RBS into a series of public, regional banks, would be substantial. The costs of returning to the old model are potentially greater still. 

This Author

Rob Macquarie is an economist for  Positive Money.

The tech world is head over heels for lithium-ion batteries. They’re energetic, they hold their charge longer and they’re lighter – far lighter – than their rechargeable counterparts. It’s no surprise really that they’re in your phone. And thanks – in part – to the boom of electric vehicles (here’s looking at you Elon Musk), the market for them is predicted to rocket from $65 billion today to $100 billion by 2025.

An essential material that makes up the lithium-ion battery in your pocket is called cobalt. It was likely mined for in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which supplies over 50% of the world’s cobalt supply.

Some of that cobalt may have been extracted by artisanal miners working in the southern reaches of the country. These miners – of which there is an estimated 110,000-150,000 – work deep underground in man-made tunnels, and while they use only their hands and rudimentary tools to dig, the cobalt they sell makes up one-fifth of the entire quantity currently exported from the DRC.

In April and May 2015, Amnesty International and Africa Resources Watch (Afrewatch) researchers travelled to the southern DRC to investigate whether human rights abuses were driving the global trade in cobalt. They came face to face with children like Paul, who at 14 had already been mining for two years, and often spent 24 hours at a time underground: “I arrived in the morning and would leave the following morning… I had to relieve myself down in the tunnels.”

Inside mines; out of minds

Amnesty International and Afrewatch’s follow-up report “This is What We Die For” blew the lid off a tangled supply chain that starts with artisanal miners and allegedly ends with multinational electronics giants including Apple, Samsung, Dell and LG.

Linking together the different actors in the supply chain revealed: children employed washing and sorting stones or carrying heavy loads for earnings of less that US $2 a day; adults working without state-provided legal protections or even basic safety equipment such as gloves or respirators; incidences of mine collapses and underground accidents (between September 2014 and December 2015, reports of fatal accidents involving over 80 artisanal miners were broadcast by the DRC’s UN-run radio station, Radio Okapi); and companies that had, the report alleges, not exercised any due diligence relating to their cobalt supply chain prior to receiving a letter from Amnesty and Afrewatch.

“The abuses in mines remain out of sight and out of mind because in today’s global marketplace consumers have no idea about the conditions at the mine, factory, and assembly line. We found that traders are buying cobalt without asking questions about how and where it was mined,” says  Emmanuel Umpula, Executive Director of Afrewatch (Africa Resources Watch).

Almost two years on, in November 2017, Amnesty International published the Time to Recharge report. It refocused attention on 29 companies processing or using materials that contain cobalt. Some of the findings were pretty encouraging: 22 of the companies had actively looked into their links with Huayou Cobalt: a company whose subsidiary in the DRC (Congo Dongfang International Mining SARL) was discovered to be a major buyer of artisanal cobalt.

Some of the findings, however, were not encouraging at all:

“Almost two years after Amnesty International first revealed the scale of the problem, none of the 29 companies named in this report are carrying out human rights due diligence on their cobalt supply chains in line with international standards.” – Amnesty International.

These companies were, according to Amnesty International, already perfectly capable of “putting in place clear and detailed policies to address human rights impact of mineral supply chains – particularly when required to do so by law.”

Most already had policies for managing risks associated with “conflict minerals” (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) from the DRC, as they were obligated to under section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act in the USA.

The Dodd-Frank Act, which was signed into United States federal law by President Obama in 2010, shone a light on the role tin (used in phones as solder), tantalum (used to produce capacitors), tungsten (used for vibration motors) and gold (popular for printed circuit boards and connectors) had in financing rebel groups in the DRC. Prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, some mines in the DRC were illegally controlled by government troops and armed militias who profited from the minerals extracted from them to the tune of an estimated $185 million every year.

Section 1502 of the Act required companies to disclose the presence of conflict minerals from the DRC in their supply chains. The ripple effect this small stipulation had on the nation was gargantuan. Joseph Kabila, the Congolese President, banned all mineral exports in North and South Kivu and Maniema provinces and operations came to a screeching halt in many communities where mining was the only paid employment available.

Laura Seay of the Center for Global Development sums it up concisely: “section 1502 has inadvertently and directly negatively affected up to 5-12 million Congolese civilians.”

A smarter smartphone?

In May 2013, the social enterprise company Fairphone decided that there was another way to source raw materials like tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold without relying on potentially shadowy supply chains. After three years of running as a campaigning organisation raising awareness about conflict minerals, it was time to actually release a mobile which would kickstart the market for fair electronics. When it broke, as phones tend to do, its intrepid owners would buy spare parts online and crack on with their own DIY repair. And this phone would be manufactured using conflict-free minerals from conflict-affected countries.

Rather than eschew countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Fairphone was instead able to source traceable tin, tantalum and tungsten from the DRC and Rwanda and make use of Fairtrade gold from mines in Peru.

When Fairphone launched the Fairphone 2 in July 2015, it sat down with The Dragonfly Initiative, a sustainability advisory firm, and wrote out a long list of the 40 different materials that made up its new phone. This list was whittled down to 10 materials: tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold, cobalt, copper, gallium, indium, nickel and rare earth metals.

Why these 10? “These materials are all frequently used in the electronics industry, have a range of mining-related issues, and are not likely to be substituted in the near future,” says Fairphone.

Now, Fairphone is examining one material at a time to uncover future possibilities for increased transparency and responsibility in its supply chains. It’s a small-scale effort, but it’s one that’s beginning to be echoed in the actions of the big players too.

In 2016, Apple reported that it was working on a programme to verify individual artisanal cobalt mines and that 100% of its cobalt smelter and refiner partners were participating in third-party, independent audits.

This good news probably comes too late for the smartphone in your pocket. But, if you prolong the life cycle of your mobile and recycle (or trade it in) when it is time to say goodbye, you can prevent valuable resources from languishing in landfills.

And when it comes to looking for a new phone? Well, you can do a little digging of your own into which companies are working towards a future where mobiles are not powered by human rights abuses.

This Author

Kathryn Hindess is a writer at The Lush Times. This article is part of a new content-sharing arrangement with the environmental, animal rights, and social justice news channel The Lush Times.

The Shiant Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland have been officially declared rat-free, thanks to a four-year partnership project to restore them as a secure haven for nesting seabirds.

The Shiants, a remote cluster of islands five miles east of the Isle of Lewis, is one of the most important seabird breeding colonies in Europe, hosting around 100,000 pairs of nesting seabirds each year.

However, there was evidence that the invasive, non-native black rats fed on the seabirds’ eggs and chicks which was having a detrimental impact on their breeding success.

Rat-free status

With many seabird populations facing a multitude of threats and severe declines in Scotland and around the globe, it was vital that action was taken to safeguard those nesting on the Shiants.

An operation to eradicate the rats was carried out over the winter of 2015 to 2016, led by a New Zealand-based company Wildlife Management International Limited (WMIL), with the help of fifteen volunteers.

This stage was incredibly challenging due to the rugged terrain and steep cliffs that make up the islands, and the Hebridean weather conditions including severe storms. Since then regular monitoring for signs of rats has been carried out with none recorded.

The latest check was in February  meaning no evidence of rats had been recorded there for two years, the internationally agreed criterion for rat-free status.

The project was funded by EU LIFE+ in partnership with the Nicolson family, custodians of the islands for three generations, Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland. It has also benefited from the help of many volunteers, and significant private donations.

Safeguarding seabirds

Over the last four years the project has focused on making the islands a safe place for seabirds to raise their chicks by removing the rats. 

It has been a huge success and played an important role in developing future island restoration and biosecurity work in the UK.

Another key part of the project is a programme of research monitoring the response of the ecosystem to the removal of rats.

It is anticipated that  puffins, razorbills, and guillemots will see improved breeding successes which could eventually lead to an increase in population of these seasbirds on the Shiants.

As well as the seabirds currently found on the islands, the Shiants offer suitable nesting habitat for European storm petrels and Manx shearwaters, two species of seabirds that are not generally found on islands with rats.

But the calling storm petrels, recorded on the islands last summer for the first time, gave a strong sign that the Shiants were free of rats ahead of the recent check.

Preventative measures

In order to ensure that the islands remain free of rats, and other mammalian predators, visitors are being asked to follow simple biosecurity measures.

This includes checking boats and kit for signs of rats prior to departing for the Shiants, and looking out for signs of them when on the islands.

Local boat operators along with SNH and RSPB Scotland staff have been trained in biosecurity measures by the project.

Dr Charlie Main, Senior Project Manager for the Shiant Isles Recovery Project said: “This is an absolutely fantastic moment for the Shiant Isles and everyone involved in the project is delighted that they are now officially rat free.

With so many of Scotland’s seabird populations in decline it’s vital that we do all we can to help them. Making these islands a secure place for them to breed is really important.

“Over the next few years we’re really looking forward to seeing the full impact of the islands’ restoration flourish with the seabirds enjoying improved breeding successes, and other species beginning to breed there as well. We’ll also continue to work with the local community to ensure this special place remains free of rats.

This project has paved the way for more island restorations to take place around Scotland and give our threatened seabirds the best possible chance for the future.”

Bright future

Andy Douse, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) ornithologist, said: “It’s wonderful news that this project has helped to protect the internationally important seabird colony on the Shiant Islands.

“The partnership between RSPB Scotland, WMIL, the Nicolson family and SNH has been a great success, particularly considering the complexity of the project, and we’d like to thank everyone involved.

“It was a great team effort, and we can now take the knowledge gained from this project into other work to protect Scotland’s special species and habitats.”

Tom Nicolson said: “”Obviously this is a tremendous story of success on so many levels. When the idea was presented to us six years ago, the pure logistics of the project seemed hugely ambitious.

“Now, knowing that new species are beginning to thrive on the islands, so soon after the project has finished, there are no limits to what the Shiants could become over the next five, ten, twenty years.

“It has been an immense pleasure working with such a talented and dedicated group of people from the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage – everyone involved should be thoroughly proud of themselves.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor for The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from RSPB.

The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates and plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.

In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares – 4.25 million acres – of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.

This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots of global significance. 

Mining concessions

However, Ecuadorean groups think there is little chance of stopping the concessions using the law unless there is a groundswell of opposition from Ecuadorean society and strong expressions of international concern.

The vice president of Ecuador, who acted as coordinating director for the office of ‘Strategic Sectors’, which promoted and negotiated these concessions, was jailed for six years  for corruption. However, this has not stopped the huge giveaway of pristine land to mining companies.

From the cloud forests in the Andes to the indigenous territories in the headwaters of the Amazon, the Ecuadorean government has covertly granted these mining concessions to multinational mining companies from China, Australia, Canada, and Chile, amongst others.

The first country in the world to get the rights of nature or Pachamama written into its constitution is now ignoring that commitment.

They’ve been here before. In the 80’s and 90’s Chevron-Texaco leaked 18 billion gallons of crude oil there in the biggest rainforest petroleum spill in history. This poisoned the water of tens of thousands of people and has done irreparable damage to ecosystems.

Ecuador’s rainforests

Now 14 percent of the country has been concessioned to mining interests. This includes a million hectares of indigenous land, half of all the territories of the Shuar in the Amazon and three-quarters of the territory of the Awa in the Andes.

As founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre, (RIC) I’ve had a long history of involvement with Ecuador’s rainforests.

Back in the late 80’s our volunteers initiated numerous projects in the country and one of these, the creation of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve was helped with a substantial grant from the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID.

Los Cedros lies within the Tropical Andes Hotspot, in the country’s northwest and consists of nearly 7000 hectares of premontane and lower montane wet tropical and cloud forest teeming with rare, endangered and endemic species and is a crucial southern buffer zone for the quarter-million hectare Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Little wonder that scientists from around the world rallied to its defence.

In 2016 a press release from a Canadian mininy company alerted us to the fact that they had somehow acquired a mining concession over Los Cedros. 

Fighting back

We hired a couple of Ecuadorean researchers and it slowly dawned on us that Los Cedros was only one of 41 “Bosques Protectores” (protected forests) which had been secretly concessioned. For example, nearly all of the 311,500 hectare Bosque Protector “Kutuku-Shaimi”, where 5000 Shuar families live, has been concessioned. 

In November 2017, RIC published a report by Bitty Roy, Professor of Ecology from Oregon State University and her co-workers,  mapping the full extent of the horror that is being planned.

Although many of these concessions are for exploration, the mining industry anticipates an eightfold growth in investment to $8 billion by 2021 due to a “revised regulatory framework” much to the jubilation of the mining companies. Granting mineral concessions in reserves means that these reserves aren’t actually protected any longer as, if profitable deposits are found, the reserves will be mined and destroyed.

In Ecuador,  civil society is mobilising and has asked their recently elected government to prohibit industrial mining “in water sources and water recharge areas, in the national system of protected areas, in special areas for conservation, in protected forests and fragile ecosystems”.

The indigenous peoples have been fighting against mining inside Ecuador for over a decade.  Governments have persecuted more than 200 indigenous activists using the countries anti-terrorism laws to hand out stiff prison sentences to indigenous people who openly speak out against the destruction of their territories.

New government 

Fortunately, the new government has signalled an openness to hear indigenous and civil society’s concerns, not expressed by the previous administration.

In December 2017, a large delegation of indigenous people marched on Quito and President Moreno promised no new oil and mining concessions, and on 31 January 2018, Ecuador’s mining minister resigned a few days after indigenous and environmental groups demanded he step down during a demonstration. 

On 31st January, The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador , CONAIE, announced their support for the platform shared by the rest of civil society involved in the anti-mining work. 

Then on 15 February CONAIE called on the government to “declare Ecuador free of industrial metal-mining” , a somewhat more radical demand than that of the rest of civil society.

But we will need a huge international outcry to rescind the existing concessions: many billions of dollars of mining company profits versus some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth and the hundreds of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on them.

Foreign investment 

From 2006, under the Correa-Glas administration, Ecuador contracted record levels of external debt for highway and hydroelectric dam infrastructure to subsidise mining. 

Foreign investments were guaranteed by a corporate friendly international arbitration system, facilitated by the World Bank which had earlier set the stage for the current calamity by funding mineralogical surveys of national parks and other protected areas and advising the administration on dismantling of laws and regulations protecting the environment.

After 2008, when Ecuador defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of its national debt, it borrowed $15 billion from China, to be paid back in the form of oil and mineral exports. 

These deals have been fraught with corruption. Underselling, bribery and the laundering of money via offshore accounts are routine practice in the Ecuadorean business class, and the Chinese companies who now hold concessions over vast tracts of Ecuadorean land are no cleaner. 

Before leaving office Correa-Glas removed much of the regulation  that had been holding the mining industry in check. And the corruption goes much deeper than mere bribes.

Civil society

The lure of mining is a deadly mirage. The impacts of large-scale open pit mining within rainforest watersheds include mass deforestation, erosion, the  contamination of water sources by toxins such as lead and arsenic,  and desertification. A lush rainforest transforms into an arid wasteland incapable of sustaining either ecosystems or human beings.

Without a huge outcry both within Ecuador and around the world, the biological gems and pristine rivers and streams will be destroyed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Civil society needs an open conversation with the state. Ecuador has enormous potential to develop its economy based on renewable energy and its rich biodiversity can support a large ecotourism industry. 

In 2010 Costa Rica banned open-pit mining,  and today has socioeconomic indicators better than Ecuador’s. Costa Rica also provides a ‘ Payment for Ecosystem Services’ to landholders, and through this scheme has actually increased its rainforest area (from 20% to just over 50%).

Ecology vs economy

Ecuador’s society and government must explore how an economy based on the sustainable use of pristine water sources, the country’s incomparable forests, and other natural resources is superior to an economy based on short term extraction leaving behind a despoiled and impoverished landscape. 

Studies by Earth Economics in the Intag region of Ecuador (where some of the new mining concessions are located) show that ecosystem services and sustainable development would offer a better economic let alone ecological and social solution.

This Author

John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has been campaigning to save the world’s rainforests since the 1970s. A longer version of this article can be found at:   www.rainforestinfo.org.au/forests/ecuador/article.htm 

The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates and plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.

In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares – 4.25 million acres – of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.

This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots of global significance. 

Mining concessions

However, Ecuadorean groups think there is little chance of stopping the concessions using the law unless there is a groundswell of opposition from Ecuadorean society and strong expressions of international concern.

The vice president of Ecuador, who acted as coordinating director for the office of ‘Strategic Sectors’, which promoted and negotiated these concessions, was jailed for six years  for corruption. However, this has not stopped the huge giveaway of pristine land to mining companies.

From the cloud forests in the Andes to the indigenous territories in the headwaters of the Amazon, the Ecuadorean government has covertly granted these mining concessions to multinational mining companies from China, Australia, Canada, and Chile, amongst others.

The first country in the world to get the rights of nature or Pachamama written into its constitution is now ignoring that commitment.

They’ve been here before. In the 80’s and 90’s Chevron-Texaco leaked 18 billion gallons of crude oil there in the biggest rainforest petroleum spill in history. This poisoned the water of tens of thousands of people and has done irreparable damage to ecosystems.

Ecuador’s rainforests

Now 14 percent of the country has been concessioned to mining interests. This includes a million hectares of indigenous land, half of all the territories of the Shuar in the Amazon and three-quarters of the territory of the Awa in the Andes.

As founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre, (RIC) I’ve had a long history of involvement with Ecuador’s rainforests.

Back in the late 80’s our volunteers initiated numerous projects in the country and one of these, the creation of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve was helped with a substantial grant from the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID.

Los Cedros lies within the Tropical Andes Hotspot, in the country’s northwest and consists of nearly 7000 hectares of premontane and lower montane wet tropical and cloud forest teeming with rare, endangered and endemic species and is a crucial southern buffer zone for the quarter-million hectare Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Little wonder that scientists from around the world rallied to its defence.

In 2016 a press release from a Canadian mininy company alerted us to the fact that they had somehow acquired a mining concession over Los Cedros. 

Fighting back

We hired a couple of Ecuadorean researchers and it slowly dawned on us that Los Cedros was only one of 41 “Bosques Protectores” (protected forests) which had been secretly concessioned. For example, nearly all of the 311,500 hectare Bosque Protector “Kutuku-Shaimi”, where 5000 Shuar families live, has been concessioned. 

In November 2017, RIC published a report by Bitty Roy, Professor of Ecology from Oregon State University and her co-workers,  mapping the full extent of the horror that is being planned.

Although many of these concessions are for exploration, the mining industry anticipates an eightfold growth in investment to $8 billion by 2021 due to a “revised regulatory framework” much to the jubilation of the mining companies. Granting mineral concessions in reserves means that these reserves aren’t actually protected any longer as, if profitable deposits are found, the reserves will be mined and destroyed.

In Ecuador,  civil society is mobilising and has asked their recently elected government to prohibit industrial mining “in water sources and water recharge areas, in the national system of protected areas, in special areas for conservation, in protected forests and fragile ecosystems”.

The indigenous peoples have been fighting against mining inside Ecuador for over a decade.  Governments have persecuted more than 200 indigenous activists using the countries anti-terrorism laws to hand out stiff prison sentences to indigenous people who openly speak out against the destruction of their territories.

New government 

Fortunately, the new government has signalled an openness to hear indigenous and civil society’s concerns, not expressed by the previous administration.

In December 2017, a large delegation of indigenous people marched on Quito and President Moreno promised no new oil and mining concessions, and on 31 January 2018, Ecuador’s mining minister resigned a few days after indigenous and environmental groups demanded he step down during a demonstration. 

On 31st January, The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador , CONAIE, announced their support for the platform shared by the rest of civil society involved in the anti-mining work. 

Then on 15 February CONAIE called on the government to “declare Ecuador free of industrial metal-mining” , a somewhat more radical demand than that of the rest of civil society.

But we will need a huge international outcry to rescind the existing concessions: many billions of dollars of mining company profits versus some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth and the hundreds of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on them.

Foreign investment 

From 2006, under the Correa-Glas administration, Ecuador contracted record levels of external debt for highway and hydroelectric dam infrastructure to subsidise mining. 

Foreign investments were guaranteed by a corporate friendly international arbitration system, facilitated by the World Bank which had earlier set the stage for the current calamity by funding mineralogical surveys of national parks and other protected areas and advising the administration on dismantling of laws and regulations protecting the environment.

After 2008, when Ecuador defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of its national debt, it borrowed $15 billion from China, to be paid back in the form of oil and mineral exports. 

These deals have been fraught with corruption. Underselling, bribery and the laundering of money via offshore accounts are routine practice in the Ecuadorean business class, and the Chinese companies who now hold concessions over vast tracts of Ecuadorean land are no cleaner. 

Before leaving office Correa-Glas removed much of the regulation  that had been holding the mining industry in check. And the corruption goes much deeper than mere bribes.

Civil society

The lure of mining is a deadly mirage. The impacts of large-scale open pit mining within rainforest watersheds include mass deforestation, erosion, the  contamination of water sources by toxins such as lead and arsenic,  and desertification. A lush rainforest transforms into an arid wasteland incapable of sustaining either ecosystems or human beings.

Without a huge outcry both within Ecuador and around the world, the biological gems and pristine rivers and streams will be destroyed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Civil society needs an open conversation with the state. Ecuador has enormous potential to develop its economy based on renewable energy and its rich biodiversity can support a large ecotourism industry. 

In 2010 Costa Rica banned open-pit mining,  and today has socioeconomic indicators better than Ecuador’s. Costa Rica also provides a ‘ Payment for Ecosystem Services’ to landholders, and through this scheme has actually increased its rainforest area (from 20% to just over 50%).

Ecology vs economy

Ecuador’s society and government must explore how an economy based on the sustainable use of pristine water sources, the country’s incomparable forests, and other natural resources is superior to an economy based on short term extraction leaving behind a despoiled and impoverished landscape. 

Studies by Earth Economics in the Intag region of Ecuador (where some of the new mining concessions are located) show that ecosystem services and sustainable development would offer a better economic let alone ecological and social solution.

This Author

John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has been campaigning to save the world’s rainforests since the 1970s. A longer version of this article can be found at:   www.rainforestinfo.org.au/forests/ecuador/article.htm