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Panaji, Goa, January 28, 2008: Existing environmental regulations in India do not account for the kind of mining which is being carried out in Goa -- in the backyards of people’s homes, farms and forests. The law is weak; the miners are strong and the result is pollution which is devastating homes of people and destroying the forests and water bodies of the state. The answer is to revamp policies so that mining does not happen at the cost of environment or people’s livelihoods, says the latest publication from New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) -- its 356-page 6th State of India’s Environment Report, titled Rich Lands, Poor People -- Is Sustainable Mining Possible?
The report, released here today by S C Jamir, the governor of Goa, has in its chapter on Goa discussed the magnitude of the mining challenge to the state: “With less than 0.1 per cent of the geographical area of the country, this state already has 8 per cent of its land area under mine leases and produces 15 per cent of the country’s iron ore”. It further warns that if all the applications for leases under various stages of processing are cleared, as much as one-fourth of the state will be under mining. “This, in the current poor regulatory framework, is a sure recipe for disaster as it will destroy forests and water bodies and most importantly, the farms and homesteads of the people,” explained Sunita Narain, director of CSE.
CSE’s ‘State of India’s Environment’ reports have been widely acknowledged as the most comprehensive and authoritative publications on the subject of environment and development in India. Extensively researched and richly illustrated, Rich Lands, Poor People details the issues of mining in different states of the country, impacts on environment and people, and policy reforms that are essential to practice more ‘sustainable’ mining.
Mining in India: Rich lands, poor people
In the national context, the report contends that mining in India has, contrary to government’s claims, done little for the development of the mineral-bearing regions of the country. Speaking at the release function, Chandra Bhushan, CSE’s associate director and one of the writers of the report, said: “The biggest irony is that India’s richest lands – with minerals, forests, wildlife and water sources – are home to its poorest people.” Mining has not benefited people; instead, it has impoverished local environment and displaced people.
- Between 1950 and 1991, mining displaced about 2.6 million people -- not even 25 per cent of these displaced have been rehabilitated. About 52 per cent of these displaced were tribals.
- For every 1 per cent that mining contributes to India’s GDP, it displaces 3-4 times more people than all the development projects put together.
- Forest land diversion for mining has been going up. So has water use and air pollution in the mining hotspots. An estimated 0.16 million hectare of forest land has already been diverted for mining in the country. Iron ore mining in India used up 77 million tonnes of water in 2005-06, enough to meet the daily water needs of more than 3 million people.
- Mining of major minerals generated about 1.84 billion tonnes of waste rejects in just one year 2006 -- most of which has not been disposed off properly.
Mining in Goa: Rich land, poor mining and huge costs
In Goa, the mining industry is a boom sector – with exports increasing each day, the demand from China in particular is sending prices and profits sky high. The price of iron ore has increased from US $17 per tonne in 2000-01 to as much as US $55 per tonne in 2005-06, even touching the dizzying level of US $83 in 2004. The demand is pushing companies to open new mines and even reopen closed mines. “The mines earlier seen as unprofitable or unviable because of the proximity to people’s homes or forests are in this new economic scenario, up for grabs,” says Chandra Bhushan.
This is particularly important, as existing national regulations for managing the environmental fallouts of mining are weak -- in Goa’s particular context, even non-existent. The forest clearance procedures require any mining beyond 5 ha of lease area to be cleared by the state government and beyond 50 ha by the Central government. But there are many catches here. First, many mines in Goa have less than this stipulated area. Secondly, most mines are not in what is technically classified as forest area – but in communidade land or private land – and therefore, can slip through the cracks. Thirdly, there is no provision that takes into account the importance of forests in people’s livelihoods – the destruction to local forests that results in local problems, of local streams being silted or local farms being devastated. The Union ministry of environment and forest committee can, under existing procedures, simply agree to open mines in the backyard of people’s homes without any safeguards.
The environmental impact assessment process is equally flawed. Under the clearance procedure a public hearing is a must -- to hold but not to listen to. There is no case, the CSE report records, where government regulators have rejected the mines when people have said ‘no’. In fact, in most cases renewal of mining leases has become a mere formality; where mining is not meeting regulations, no cases are filed by the state pollution control board, suggesting a complete breakdown of oversight procedures, essential for ‘sustainable’ mining.
It is no wonder then that people in Goa are taking to the streets to protest against the mines that threaten their survival. Goa, the report notes, is also the only state where the High Court has directed the companies to compensate against the losses incurred by farmers because mine rejects have silted their fields and damaged their water courses. The question is how the regulations can be improved so that mining can improve.
Mining and ‘development’: real or not
“Mining is being promoted in the country for the wrong reason -- employment. All state governments justify mining arguing that the sector will provide employment, but this is a chimera. The formal mining industry in India employs just 5.6 lakh people and this number is coming down,” says Narain.
The CSE report uses government’s own data to show how employment has fallen in the mining sector as a whole. It says the modern mining industry does not require people. Between 1991 and 2004, the value of mineral production in India increased four-fold – at the same time, employment plummeted by 30 per cent.
In fact, Chandra Bhushan says: “Modern industrial growth requires resources of the region — minerals, water or energy. It does not require people. Neither does it necessarily provide local benefits. If it provides employment benefits, it is outside the poor region in which it is based. It degrades the land and uses up local water, but does little to return back the wealth. Worse, the royalty on minerals goes to state exchequers, not to local communities. This will have to change.”
Take the case of Goa and iron ore. The price of ore has increased, and the state’s mining industry has been making a killing – driven by the demand from China. In 2003-04, the sector’s turnover was Rs 830 crore, but the royalty that the state received was as little as Rs 17 crore – less than one per cent of the state’s revenue came from mining. “In Goa, private miners are making windfall profits, but the government and the people are seeing none of it. We need a change in the structure of royalty so that people directly benefit” says Narain.
Is sustainable mining possible?
The CSE report points out that mining cannot be sustainable or truly environment-friendly: one, because all ore bodies are finite and non-renewable and two, because even the best managed mines leave “environmental footprints”. But it also concedes that mining and minerals are necessary. Adds Chandra Bhushan “The issue is not whether mining should be undertaken or not. Rather, it is about how and where it should be undertaken. It is about ensuring that mining is conducted in an environmentally and socially acceptable manner.”
The report goes on to recommend a range of policy initiatives that could help India meet this challenge. Some of its main recommendations include recognising people’s right to say ‘no’ (mining should not take place without the consent of the people); independent, impartial preparation of EIA reports; moratorium on mining in biodiverse and locally important forests; codifying of mining best practices framing stronger mine closure regulations; and “doing more with less -- a key to sustainable development”.
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