Local versus global

Local versus global

This all contributes to an apparently classic scenario, where the "wicked" monopoly capitalists of the North are pitched against the outgunned entrepreneurs of the South. In fact, the picture is more complicated and problematic. It is most often the small cement plants which appear to pose the worst problems of pollution, while it is the bigger ones - which could soon be controlled by companies like Cemex and Blue Circle - that have the capacity and capital to install pollution-reduction technology. There is little doubt that these companies would leap at the chance of serving growing national markets in the South, where they existed, in addition to overseas ones. A key question is whether they can be compelled to follow the "best possible standards" even where national legislation does not compel them to do so.

This briefing paper cannot resolve this question - only point to its importance. International companies that invest in the cement industry could be forced to serve local interests, and they do have the potential to reduce contaminants which have unquestionably shortened the lives of thousands of children, women and men throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The "holocaust" of the construction industry, visited on inhabitants of the region has, as yet, barely been recorded.

But this would be at the expense of local control over quarries and what comes out of them. And it in no way addresses the fundamental question of whether vast increases in the mining of limestone and processing of cement truly serve the interests of those who would choose small scale energy sources, as opposed to gargantuan hydroelectric dams. Improved housing constructed of cheap, locally available wood and thatch, as opposed to concrete encampments, and modestly improved highways and transport, as opposed to modern highways which sweep through their territory, attracting opportunists over whom they have little or no control.

Footnotes:

1) There has been stiff resistance to the mining of these clays in Jamaica, where local people have accused miners of undermining houses and gardens and caking roadways with sludge.

2) Typical to metallic mining and processing. The straightforward quarrying of aggregates and sand for construction usually only poses problems at the mining stage.

3) In Zambia, the state-owned Mindec Small Mines operates local gypsum mines intended to serve local needs

4) RTZ's other main reason for acquiring Tunnel Cement was to increase its British earnings in order to avoid taxation on overseas profits, which the company considered unfair.