Mining industry urged to go beyond extraction

Symposia and conferences and articles in newspapers and magazines on the beneficial effects of responsible mining are aplenty. These are serious responses to check misconceptions about mining as a destructive activity brought about by a sector’s aggressive propaganda calling for a total ban on mining in the country. I keep receiving articles encouraging a closer look at the mining sector. For now let me touch on two of these.

One is a study conducted by an environment researcher, which notes that the country’s mining industry can be transformed into “an economically, socially and environmentally helpful and desirable sector.” “Moving from simply extraction to processing of minerals does this. The other is on a declaration on mining in the Philippines by the Lay Society of St. Arnold Janssen (LSSAJ), which preaches the message of responsible mining being a form of stewardship.”

Dr. Danilo Israel, senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), says that the country’s mining industry has not reached its full potential “partly because it has generally remained an extractive activity. This has thereupon made the country a mere exporter and supplier of raw materials whose valuation is lower compared to that of mining products that have been processed.”

Israel writes that the mining industry has contributed to the country’s economy despite the said lack of value addition. In the 2000s, particularly after the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 was finally declared as legal, the gross value added (GVA) in mining and quarrying, total mineral exports, and employment in mining increased annually on average. “Such trends could have been higher perhaps had there been further processing in mining,” says Israel.

For instance, he continues, “from the initial exploration stage to the fabrication stage, mining products undergo various intermediate steps where opportunities for value addition exist. At present, only copper and gold have complete production or processing stages in the country while other minerals such as zinc, aluminum, tin, nickel and chromite are just extracted and preliminarily processed in the country.”

Israel thus encourages industry leaders and government officials to explore opportunities for value addition. “This is because higher value mining products generated through more processing would result in higher production, incomes, and employment. And these benefits may in turn go a long way toward addressing the various economic, social, and even environmental problems that mining communities are facing.”

According to Israel, one of the immediate actions that can be done to promote value addition is conducting a situational analysis of the mining industry and identifying the areas where mining products can be enhanced to increase their value. He adds, “Conducting a full-blown value chain analysis for the mining sector and its subsectors would be a very important step for the development of the industry.”

Israel argues that beyond the economic aspects, the mining sector continues to suffer from significant social and environmental problems that need to be urgently addressed as well. “Although value addition by itself may help alleviate some of these problems, much more clearly needs to be done by all concerned, for mining to grow beyond just being an economically gainful sector and also become a socially and environmentally desirable one as well.”

* * *

Israel’s study, and the Lay Society of St. Arnold Jannsen’s declaration on mining, which follows below, confirms this columnist’s position that mining, should not be banned, but should be managed responsibly. This brings to mind Oriental Peninsula Resources Chairman/CEO Caroline Tanchay’s explicit statement that “total banning of mining is unfair and unthinkable.” On the contrary, she believes that the country should focus its attention into helping propel massive Philippine economic and industrial development into its right momentum and speed. She supports the establishment and operation of mineral processing plants.

* * *

The Lay Society of St. Arnold Jannsen (LSSAJ), an organization of former SVD seminarians and laypersons recently held a symposium on mining at the Christ the King Academy in Quezon City. Mining, the Society believes, is an important national issue “because it goes right to the heart of what we espouse — poverty eradication, good governance, environmental protection, and social justice.”

The Society believes that while mining is “clearly an important industry that can contribute greatly to economic growth and hence to poverty reduction, it can also be the source of environmental degradation and ensuing disasters, corruption and unfair practices, and the displacement and unjust treatment of the poor, such as indigenous peoples. Mining, therefore, must be examined not only from the private balance sheet of mining companies or only from the fiscal balance sheet of the government. Rather, it must be examined from the total balance sheet of Philippine society’s present and future generations.”

The declaration signed by symposium participants recognizes the fact of many of the current practices in mining in the Philippines is highly objectionable and need to be urgently rectified. “We are not against mining per se. Mining has been an important part in the historical development of civilizations. Industries need minerals to support the production and distribution of goods and services. Minerals are needed by man for modern living and have to be extracted from the earth for man’s use.”

The Society holds that minerals are endowed by God, and are exhaustible and non-renewable. All Filipinos own them, and as stewards, they should practice restraint and responsibility in the use of these resources. The aim should be to serve the common good by facilitating rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction.  

With respect to the environment, the declaration urges the government to develop a national mining map that clearly delineates where mining is allowed and where it is banned. “Mining should be allowed only in areas that are suitable as to permeability foundations, right groundwater, and stable geomorphic environment. It should be banned in areas where damage to the environment is irreparable and irreversible such as in small island ecosystems with steep slopes and heavy rainfall patterns, in the typhoon belt and acid mine drainage areas. “

In areas where mining is allowed, all mining companies, small, medium or large must be required to install and operate adequate mitigating mechanisms to reduce the damage to the ecological balance and essential biodiversity and to contain contamination of the air and water by toxic wastes and injury to plant and animal life.

After the minerals are extracted, all mining companies, small, medium and large, must be required to restore and rehabilitate the environment, if not to its original state, at least to an acceptably safe and sound level. 

The declaration urges the mitigation of the impact of mining on loal and indigenous peoples and heir cultures through adequate resettlement and other mandatory compensation schemes.

It cites that the benefits must primarily redound to the country, not just to foreign interests, taxes due to the government must be paid honestly by mining companies, and that the State should receive a fair pre-tax share representing its ownership of the national patrimony.

* * *

My email: [email protected]