Case studies: books (classified by mineral)

Case studies: books (classified by mineral)

IRON ORE/STEEL

Ans Kolk Forests in International Environmental Politics: International Organisations, NGOs and the Brazilian Amazon, International Books, Utrecht, 1996. [Though not exclusively about mining, this contains an excellent summary of the catastrophic development of the world's biggest iron ore complex, Grande Carajas, and associated mines smelters and power plants. Especially good on World Bank and multilateral development agency complicity.]

Survival International and Friends of the Earth: Bound in Misery and Iron: the Impact of the Grande Carajas Programme on the Indians of Brazil, 1987

COPPER

Chris N Gjording Conditions Not of Their Choosing: the Guaymi Indians and Mining Multinationals in Panama, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, 1991 [Blow by blow account of growth of opposition by the Guaymi (Ngobe-Bugle) nation to Rio Tinto's early 1980's plan to mine the Cerro Colorado, and the qualified success they achieved]

Jorg Hettler and Bernd Lehmann Environmental Impact of Large-Scale Mining in Papua New Guinea: Mining Residue Disposal by the Ok Tedi Copper-Gold Mine, UNEP and FU-TU-TPR Berlin, 1995 [Particularly relevant in light of admission by BHP, operator of the Ok Tedi mine, that its impacts are virtually uncontainable.]

(Ed) Stuart Harris SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHOICE: the impact of uranium mining in the Northern Territory (Australia) Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, monograph 3, Canberra 1980 [While there have been other, later, studies of the impacts of one of the world's biggest single uranium mines, this clearly sets out the problems for Aboriginal communities, in accepting a vast mineral project, in an area of no previous mineral exploitation]

BAUXITE/ALUMINIUM

Ronald Graham: The Aluminium Industry and the Third World: Multinational Corporations and Underdevelopment, Zed Books, London 1982. [A classic history and never bettered despite considerable structural changes in the aluminium industry since it was published Only a few references to Indonesia]

International Development Action The Mapoon Books, 1978, Melbourne. [Three indispensable volumes which cover respectively the tale (in their own word) of the Mapoon and Weipa Aboriginal Peoples, forcibly removed from their territory in the 1960s, for the Rio Tinto (CRA) bauxite mine, which has ever since been the biggest bauxite strip mine on the planet; the nature and corporate structure of the world bauxite/aluminium industries in the seventies; and the environmental and social impacts of this sector. Although much of it is now outdated, the presentation of the issues has never been bettered.]

GOLD

Gordon MacMillan At the End of the Rainbow? Gold, Land and People in the Brazilian Amazon, Earthscan, London 1995 [Gordon Macmillan - who worked with Minewatch in the preparation of this unique study - probably penetrated further than anyone before or since, into the nature of the garimpeiro (small scale gold miner) phenomenon, the distinction between genuinely poor peasant miners and syndicates connected to powerful political and commercial forces.]

Carla and Rosa, Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams, Mineral Policy Center, Washington DC 1997

NICKEL

The following three volumes all relate to the activities of INCO and PT INCO:

Kathryn M. Robinson Stepchildren of Progress: the Political Economy of Development in an Indonesian Mining Town, University of New York Press, 1986 [concentrates on Soroako]

Jamie Swift and the Development Education Centre, The Big Nickel: Inco at Home and Abroad, Between the Lines, Kitchener Ontario, 1977

Mick Lowe Premature Bonanza: Standoff at Voisey’s Bay, Between the Lines, Toronto 1998 [Graphic account of Inco's conflicts with the Innu over their Voisey's Bay project in Labrador]