The Mindex Resources De velopment Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of Mindex Mining Co. (which is registered in the Oslo stock exchange) plans to mine nickel and cobalt in the island of Mindoro, which is located to the southeast of Luzon island and Manila. The plan, which Mindex calls its Mindoro Nickel Project, will involve strip mining at the company’s concession area of 9700 hectares, which is located in the central mountains of Mindoro
From the mine, the ore, dissolved in water, will be transported 43 kilometres through a pipeline to Pili on the eastern part of the island, close to the town of Pinamalayan. Here, the company is to build a processing plant for nickel and cobalt. According to the plans, the plant is to process 40.000 tons of nickel and 3.000 tons of cobalt per year.
The Pili plant will utilise a method called High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL). Most of the existing nickel processing plants are based on smelters, whereas HPAL makes use of sulphuric acid to extract nickel and cobalt from the ore. For this purpose, Mindex has secured easy and cheap access to sulphur from the Negros island southeast of Mindoro.
According to Mindex Country Manager Arne Isberg:“The HPAL method is much more environmentally friendly than conventional smelting plants. The reason is that the ore from Mindoro is laterite ore, which means that it is already oxidised. Contrary to sulphuric ore, the metals in the laterite ore are therefore ‘dead’, and do not react with other natural substances. Also, the local population are not affected from bad smell or acid rain from the plant.”
There are plans to build a bigger port at Pili, where not only sulphur will be shipped in and nickel and cobalt will be shipped out. About a quarter of the raw material for the nickel production will be imported from a nickel mine on Palawan Island, south-west of Mindoro. Ammonium sulphate is a by product from the process in Pili. There are plans ready to build a fertilizer factory to utilise this resource.
The mining company also wants to build a 35 megawatt gas fuelled power plant to supply power to the processing plant.
The total cost of the project is estimated at around US$ 600 million. According to the company, the project will secure work for 2500 people during the construction period, and 1000 on a permanent basis.
“The project will provide annual revenues of around 200 million pesos (US$ 5 million) to the province, even during the initial years when we enjoy the so-called ‘tax holidays’. This means that the province stands to double its income”, Isberg says.
Mindoro island is divided into two provinces, Oriental Mindoro to the east, and Occidental Mindoro to the west. During NorWatch’s visit to Oriental Mindoro, in which most of the project will be located, there were few signs of a positive attitude towards the project among the local population.
A broad alliance of church organisations, environmental activists, human rights groups, farmers’ organisations, organisations working with social issues and indigenous peoples’ federations has been set up with the aim of stopping the entire project. ALAMIN, which is the name of the alliance, has amongst other activities, arranged demonstrations, submitted formal protests to the authorities on different levels, and in the run of a few months, collected more than 25.000 signatures protesting against Mindex.
The opposition against the project is based on a range of reasons. Firstly, the actual mining activities are to take place in the mountains which are inhabited by the indigenous people of Mindoro, the Mangyans. Their federation, the KPLN, representing seven Mangyan tribes, has already passed a resolution against the project. The same has been done by the subsidiary organisations of KPLN, SAMANA and CAPT. These represent the Alangan and Tadyawan tribes of the Mangyan, who live in and arround the Mindex concession area. “In the 9720 hectares of mining concession, there are more than 12 Mangyan communities that will be affected and possibly dislocated when Mindex begins their operation”, ALAMIN writes in their letter of protest.
For years, the Alangan- and Tadyawan tribes have been working to make the authorities recognize their claim as an indigenous group for formal rights to their land. According to ALAMIN, their land claim (registered by the authorities as the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim - CADC) implies that the Mangyans already have the “…priority rights in the harvesting, extraction, development or exploitation of any natural resources contained within their ancestral domain. (Section 57, RA 8371)”.
Mindex states that only 800-900 hectares, i.e. about 10%, of the total concession area will be utilised for mining activities. “It is estimated that 20 families will have to move, but only temporarily. After completing the replanting, they may move back if they wish to do so”, says managing director Anders Hvide of Mindex.
The picture is made more complicated, however, by an application to start exploration activities submitted to the authorities by the Aglubang Mining Corporation. The application covers two thirds of the 9700 hectares mining concession, and at the time when NorWatch visited Mindoro, the local population knew nothing about this second company.
It turns out that Aglubang is 40% owned by, and under control of, Mindex. “We have discovered enough nickel in the third of the concession area that has been issued to Mindex Resources Development to run the mine for thirty years. But, of course, if we do find substantial nickel and cobalt occurrences in the Aglubang-area, then it might become realistic to start mining operations there as well”, Isberg admits.
In addition to the disregard of the indigenous peoples’ rights, the local people fear that the project will lead to environmental destruction. The island is already adversely affected by deforestation, partly due to lumbering activities and population pressure. Today, only 6% of Mindoro is covered by forest, most of this in the mountains where the Mangyans live. Thus, the plans for strip-mining are not very welcome.
The opponents fear not only deforestation and destruction inside the concession area. The same area is as well an important watershed for several of the risland’s large rivers.
In the lowland of Oriental Mindoro province, some of the richest rice cropping areas in the country are found. Because of deforestation, the farmers and others have already experienced destructive floods in recent years.
The opponents are also concerned with another aspect of the water resources. According to the plans, the company needs 1150 cubic metres of water per hour to flush the ore from the mine through the pipeline to the processing plant at Pili. The effects of this on the ground water level and mountain ecology is an open question of concern to the project opponents.
The exact route for the 43 kilometres long pipeline has not yet been decided. However, according to Mindex, it has been decided that it will be put underground, except from at the river crossings. ALAMIN calls attention to the fact the pipeline will be going through areas prone to earthquakes, and thus they fear leaks.
For example, the project opponents are concerned about the Naujan Lake downstream from the mining area. The lake, located in the crater of an extinct volcano, has the status of a national park (the Naujan Lake National Park). This national park is home, amongst others, to the Mindoro crocodile, which is very rare and is listed on the IUCN red list of threatened species.
As for the Pili plant, one of the issues of concern is the discharge of waste material, the so-called red mud, into the ocean. This will be done through a pipeline at 4 kilometers from the shoreline at 200 metres below sea level. This method is called Submarine Tailings Discharge, or Offshore Deep Sea Tailings Placement, which is the preferred term by Mindex.
The content of nickel and cobalt in the ore is 1% and 0.07% respectively. With a projected production of 40.000 tons of nickel and 3.000 tons of cobalt at the Pili plant, more than 4 million tons of waste will be discharged directly into the ocean annually.
The waste is discharged at a depth of about 200 metres, where the sea floor sharply declines to about 600 metres. “At such a depth, the waste material, which does not contain any heavy metals, pose no threat to the environment.” says the Mindex-boss.
Mankind has little knowledge about the ocean, but we know that there is life at all depths. It would be better to store the waste at a site where the environmental impacts can be detected. An analysis of the Mindoro ore, made by Mindex, shows that it contains no heavy metals other than nickel and cobalt. In particular, high contents of chrome were found, in addition to smaller amounts of copper and zinc.
“In spite of these metals being already oxidised, it is not correct to label them as dead. Small particles such as those in question here, have a relatively larger surface, which leaves the environment more open to being affected by the metals”, says Bård Bergfall at the environmental advisory company Haaland, Bergfall & Co AS.
ALAMIN is very concerned with how the discharge is to affect the sea ecology. The Mindoro Strait east of Mindoro, is one of the country’s most important fishing grounds. For example, the commercially most important species of tuna fish regularly migrates through this strait.
“I was born and raised here, and I’ve made a living from fishing since I was a young boy. Here we also fish deep-water fish which is valuable for us. If they discharge millions of tons of waste every year, we are bound to lose our way of income”, says 75 year-old Juanito Palermo from Barangay Pili.
Submarine Tailings Discharge (STD) has increasingly been promoted as an alternative to land-based storage of waste. It is promoted by Mindex and the rest of the mining industry as an environmentally sound method.
But STD is a most controversial method. In the USA and Canada, it has been prohibited. There is little research done on what effects the method may have on fish populations and the marine ecology, says Geoff Nettleton of Minewatch and Survival International, England. Nettleton has lived 7 years in the Philippines, studying conflicts between mining companies and indigenous peoples. He visited Mindoro to investigate the Mindex case together with NorWatch. His opinion is that employment of the STD method should be viewed with the ecology and ocean currents of tropical areas in mind.
According to mining experts referred to by Nettleton, one of the major problems concerning waste from nickel mines is that it contains a lot of small particles that will not be stable on the ocean floor.
“A cloud of small particles that will not settle on the bottom is bound to hover over the ocean floor like an eternal sandstorm. In the areas affected by such a cloud, the particles will clog the gills of fish, and especially shellfish, which are incapable of escaping fast enough”, explains Bård Bergfall.
The Australian Mineral Policy Institute is one of few agencies to have looked more closely into this. The institute has studied the plans made by the company Highlands Pacific to start a nickel and cobalt project in the Madang province in Papua New Guinea. The Australian company also plans to dispose their waste into the ocean.
The Mineral Policy Institute, however, advises against the company using the STD method. In their report, published in February 1999, it is referred to the fact that the ocean currents in the area would most probably whirl up the disposed waste, transporting it to shallower waters and thereby creating environmental destruction and decline in fisheries.
At present, Mindex is working to get approval from the environmental authorities (the Environmental Compliance Certificate) for their nickel project. The first step to be taken in this process, is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) which is presently under preparation by Dames & More, the world’s leading consulting company to the mining industry.
But hardly anyone with whom NorWatch spoke to in Mindoro had any faith in Dames & More. Among the local politicians and the project opponents, it was a shared view that the consulting firm was not independent, as long as Mindex elected the company themselves and paid for their job.
The vice-governor of Oriental Mindoro, Bartolome L. Marasigan , is opposed to the nickel projects.
“My clear impression is that the majority of the population in the province is against the project, and the provincial council of our neighbours in Occidental Mindoro has already passed a resolution against the project plans.”
Orlando A. Maliwanag, working at the staff of the province’s vice-governor, has produced a document on the project, which was handed over to the provincial council members of Oriental Mindoro.
Amongst other findings, the document establishes the following: “Since the economic thrusts of the Provincial Government of Oriental Mindoro are anchored on food sustainability, eco-tourism and the development of agri-industry, the entry of big mining operations is detrimental of the sustainable development agenda of the province. Mining and sustainable agricultural development cannot go hand in hand because of the destructive nature of the former.”
In a phase when Mindex is in dire need of local support for their planned nickel project in Oriental Mindoro, the company has been handing out money and gifts. Politicians at all levels of local authority have received watches, local politicians have had study tours paid for, beauty- and song contests have been sponsored, and journalists have received offers of money to write in favour of the company.
“I received this gold watch as a gift from Mindex in January this year. The same kind of watches were handed out to all municipal politicians here in Victoria”, says Luis Castillet, one of 8 elected politicians in the Victoria municipality, and shows his gold coated Citizen watch to NorWatch.
During the visit to Mindoro, NorWatch verified that politicians and other centrally positioned individuals at all levels in the province, including the indigenous population, have received watches from the Norwegian company.
The opponents are of the opinion that Mindex is practising bribery of politicians at a stage in the project phase when the company is eager to solicit support for their project. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), presently under preparation by Dames & More, is not only to evaluate whether the project is environmentally sound, but also whether the project is socially acceptable.
Local authorities at all levels have been asked to sign a statement of endorsement for the project. Many therefore think that the timing of presenting gifts is not a coincidence. According to lawyers with whom NorWatch spoke, the gifts of watches are in fact against the law. Mindex, the presenter of the gifts, may be prosecuted for bribery, while the politicians may be taken to court for corruption.
Mindex, on their part, does not deny having presented people with gifts of watches. The fact is confirmed both by the company’s local representative in Mindoro, Domingo Bae, and the Country Manager Arne Isberg. However, they deny that this may be seen as bribery.
“These were Christmas presents, and there is a tradition here in the Philippines to give presents at Christmas and birthdays. To us, this is a sign of friendship”, says Domingo Bae, who was the one handing over the watches.
The issue of the watches has made many people on Mindoro angry, and even made priests take up the issue in their sunday sermons, condemning the gifts as immoral. However, according to the project opponents, this is not the only way that Mindex has tried to buy support.
From May 16th-20th this year, around 20 Barangay leaders (elected leaders of districts within the municipality) from the Victoria municipality) with family members took part in a study tour to Baguio City. The city, located in the Cordillera mountains in the northern part of the Luzon island, is known as the place to go on a holidays - especially for rich people.
“Most of us are rice farmers, and the idea was that we would visit different agricultural projects to study waste management and use of fertilizers. This was the first time we went on such a field trip. It was organised by our Barangay-federation, but we were told it was free for us, as Mindex paid for the arrangement”, says Pablo B. Bulagay, one of the Barangay-leaders who participated in the tour.
However, if the company was hoping that this sponsorship would make these Barangay-leaders more positively inclined towards the company’s plans for a nickel-project, their hope was in vain. After the trip, the Barangays passed resolutions against the project.
During the NorWatch visit to Mindoro, constantly new stories about various types of sponsorship in the region kept emerging.
In Victoria, Mindex was a major sponsor for a beauty contest and a song contest. In the trophies awarded to the winners, the message “Sponsored by Mindex” was inscribed.
NorWatch was also taken to a church in San Teodoro, where a new house for the priest was being built. Here, Mindex paid for the cost of labour. On top of the gate to the churchyard there is a message saying that the gate is sponsored by Domingo Bae, the local representative of Mindex on Mindoro.
The priest who accepted the financial support for his house, became unpopular among other people in the church, says the leader of ALAMIN, Evelyn Catcha. She refers to the fact that the church in the Philippines has made a declaration against strip mining altogether.
What you are telling is an old story. In the Philippines, we have a saying that goes “Utang na loob”, which means “debt of gratitude”. If you have received gifts or benefits from someone, it is a matter of shame to refuse the donor what he later requests, even though it may imply a personal loss. This is deeply rooted in our culture. Gifts from Mindex to politicians or to the Mangyan elders therefore are particularly binding on the Philippines, says lawyer Vincente Paolo B. Yu at Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center of Manila, which represents the Philippine branch of Friends of the Earth.
According to journalists that NorWatch has spoken with, there is circumstantial evidence that Mindex has employed dishonest methods also when it comes to the media. The recently-launched Mindoro Media Bureau distributed a press release regarding the Mindex project. This was done as early as at the bureau’s founding convention.
The press release had nothing but very nice things to say about the nickel project. “We observed how the press release was handed to journalists accompanied by a heap of bank notes.” explains one of the journalists.
“ I have been working in the media since 1987, but never have I seen so much money around as what the MMB has to spare, adds one of the other journalists.” Both of the journalists think that the distribution of the Mindex press release at the MMB’s founding convention signifies that the company is contributing economically to the bureau.
The organizations representing the indigenous people in the area of Mindex’ concession, were all against the company’s plans for mining operations. However, earlier this year a new organization, Kabilogan, was formed. This organization is in favour of the project.
Kabilogan was formed in April this year, the initiative having been taken by the National Council for Indigenous People (NCIP), the government agency for issues related to indigenous peoples and land rights. At that time, the traditional Tadjawan and Alangan organisations, the CAMT and SANAMA respectively, had both passed resolutions against the Mindex project. Already in 1994, CAMT and SAMANA started the process to have their claims for ancestral domain recognised. The area they claim includes the Mindex consession area. The organisations’ claims were formally registered in 1997.
“NCIP came to us and said there was a problem with the claims presented by our organisations. They told us that we had to start a new organisation which should only represent those who lived inside the concession area, and that we should submit a new application for ancestral domain claim in the name of Kabilogan”, says leader of Kabilogan, Mario Haba.
The leader of Kabilogan, representing indigenous people from 6 villages inside of the Mindex concession area, explains that they thought it was a good idea, because nothing had come out of the previous claims.
“We have been very clear that we accept the mining project only if our land rights are recognized”, says Haba.
Mindex is only consulting with Kabilogan, and not the traditional Mangyan organizations, since they say that Kabilogan is the only lawful organization to represent the indigenous people living within the concession area.
In a letter to the NCIP from the Victoria Mayor’s office, the advisor Edwin A. Gariguez writes that the credibility of Kabilogan is highly disputable: “First, the members of this organization are mostly workers of the mining company, including the elected chairman. Their stand on the mining issue is already conditioned by the short-term benefits and promises of material rewards.
Secondly, the group was not organized nor initiated by the Mangyans themselves. The NCIP suggested the formation the group, while Mindex subsequently took the responsibility of formally organizing them. In fact, the election for the Kabilogan officers took place inside the Mindex compound. Clearly, this was violative of the provision of the law wherein it is prescribed that ‘free and prior consent’ of the IPs whould be free from any external manipulation, interference and coercion... (R.A. 8371, Section 3.g)”
By referring to the indigenous peoples’ rights, which are confirmed by the country’s laws, and the mining company’s ignoring of the existing indigenous peoples’ organisations in the area, Gariguez concludes that “the Mangyans were subjected to subtle manipulation and deceptive tactics for the self serving intent of the mining company.”
Since Kabilogan was started, the members have received substantial financial support from Mindex. Domingo Bae, the company’s local representative in Mindoro, says that among other benefits, every family head of the members receive 1000 pesos monthly.
Recently, the company has donated eight buffaloes and agricultural equipment and have promised to financially support the ancestral domain claim of Kabilogan. Some of the leaders of Kabilongan, have also received watches from Mindex.
A newspaper article in the Manila Bulletin on June 2nd this year referred to a letter signed by the leaders of Kabilogan, in which they supposedly pledge their support to Mindex.
The Mangyans were puzzled by this when the article was presented to them . “I do not understand who has given this letter to the press. At any rate, it is not correct that we have said that it is alright for Mindex to come and start their mining operations. Before this may happen, we must have our ancestral domain rights recognized”, says leader of Kabilogan,” Mario Haba.
When the authorities passed the Indigenous People Rights Act in 1997, many investors threatened to leave the country. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the NCIP therefore joined forces in order to ‘solve’ the problem of land rights versus the State’s ownership over the resources.
One of the actions, decided in 1998, was that companies may have a temporary licence to proceed with their activities if two or more organizations are claiming land rights for the same area. According to our information, the Mindex case is the first case to be affected by this decision.
Reaching a final decision on which of the organizations has the right to the land, may take 10 years. Time is on Mindex’ side, says lawyer Vincente Paolo B. Yu at Friends of the Earth, Manila.
After NorWatch ended the Mindoro visit, Mindex informed us that the company has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Kabilogan.
This article is adapted from a report posted at the website of NorWatch on the Mindex case.
NorWatch is a project of the Norwegian environmental and solidarity organization " The Future in our Hands", set up in 1995 in order to monitor Norwegian companies in the South. NorWatch investigates the impact of these companies in relation to environmental and social issues, and distributes their findings to the general public.
|
The Future in Our Hands PO Box 4743 Sofienberg 0506 Oslo Norway |
Tel. +47 22 201045 Fax. +47 22 204788 E-mail: norwatch@fifi.no |
Do you want to subscribe to, or receive a sample copy of, PIR? Send us an
e-mail or fill up our form.
